My mother was very politically active and taught both my brother and me that it is everyone’s responsibility as a citizen and as a person in the world to fight for what you believe in. And what I believe very strongly is that every woman has the right to decide what she can do with her body.

That seems like a no-brainer to me, but it’s not to some politicians; they’re working to restrict women’s access to reproductive health services—things like cancer screenings, birth control and abortion care. With jobs bills waiting on legislative calendars, the unemployment rate at a crisis level and many Americans losing their homes, I find it incredibly frustrating that we’re being forced to spend so much time and energy (and, yes, money) defending something as basic as self-determination.

The assaults on women’s health care have been fast and furious. Over 80 abortion restrictions were enacted in 2011—more than double the previous record, in 2005. But it’s not just abortion that’s under fire. Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry dramatically cut funding that would have provided many low-income women with cervical cancer screenings, birth control and STD prevention and treatment. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey slashed $7.5 million from his state’s budget meant for family planning centers that provide birth control and Pap tests. And there are dozens more examples all over the country. (You can visit Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s womenarewatching.org to see where some 2012 candidates stand on these issues.)

Many of these attacks are designed to shut down one provider: Planned Parenthood, the only health care provider to have been targeted by name in recent federal legislation. Restricting access to the services Planned Parenthood provides would affect millions of women—one in five American women turns to a Planned Parenthood health center at some point in her life. And more than 90 percent of these centers’ services are in preventive care; 3 percent are in abortion care.

I find these restrictions dismaying because they disproportionately target women with lower incomes. Wealthy women will always be able to access the health care they need. Planned Parenthood is there for every woman. This is an organization that works in communities to provide high-quality care like cervical cancer screenings, breast exams, HIV tests and birth control—often to women who would otherwise go without. It is the place you call if you are 16 and don’t know whom to ask about birth control. It’s the website that has answers in the middle of the night. It’s the health care resource that offers compassion and respect to women at times when they are incredibly vulnerable and afraid.

I’ve been a Planned Parenthood supporter my whole life—since my mom took me to a rally when I was in sixth grade. It’s chilling to think of this resource being taken away. I have a five-year-old daughter, and I’m pregnant with my second child. I know when my children are older, I will be taking them to events like the one I went to with my mom. I hope we’ll be celebrating our freedoms and rights, not fighting for them once again as we are now.

Oscar-nominated Maggie Gyllenhaal stars in next month’s Won’t Back Down.

The stunning star admits that although she always tries her hardest to look good on the red carpet, there are going to be inevitable slip-ups. Maggie has revealed that hunting for lots of glamorous gowns can be tricky.

“For the premiere of Hysteria in Toronto a few months ago, I was pregnant but no-one knew. I also had flu and my dress didn’t fit well as the zip was broken,” she told the French edition of Elle. “The day after, I had a look on the internet and saw so many terrible comments! But this is the life of an actress, you have good days and bad days, and when you are promoting a movie and we have to find 15 different dresses per week, yes, one of them might be less perfect than the others.”

Maggie recently announced that she is expecting her second child with her husband Peter Sarsgaard. The actress has confessed that it is difficult to find time to exercise while she is working and caring for her five-year-old daughter, Ramona.

“Honestly, I don’t know how mothers who are working find time to go do exercise. I can’t be a wife, a mother, an actress and run every day,” she shrugged.

“So, I have to admit that I find it easier to forget to run than to cook dinner for my daughter.”

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“Opening nights are always sort of funny because everyone you love and know is always there, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier,” Gyllenhaal said on opening night of the Classic Stage Company production of the Chekhov drama. “Sometimes it’s even harder to show what’s really in your heart in front of people you love. I would actually prefer to always perform in front of people I don’t know.”

Luckily for Gyllenhaal she doesn’t have to worry about husband Peter Sarsgaard watching her from the audience…instead he’s right on stage with her. Sarsgaard agrees with his wife’s sentiments: “Your relatives tend to laugh before anything is even funny,” he cracked.

During regular performances, in which Gyllenhaal doesn’t know as many audience members, she’s just thrilled to perform works of Anton Chekhov. “It’s so still true about the way human beings behave,” she says of the classic author’s writing. “I don’t know if I’ve every played anyone that I’ve related to more than [middle Prozorova daughter] Masha,” she says of her character.

And yes, one handsome, familiar face was in the house that night, Gyllenhaal’s heartthrob brother, Jake. We’re pretty sure he gave his sis a thumbs-up.

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So, you’re having an affair with your husband [Peter Sarsgaard] onstage. That must add an extra layer to your performance as Masha in Three Sisters!
I know, I know! [Laughs.] A friend of mine was joking that it’s like those kooky couples who have been together for 10 years but go out to a bar and pretend they’ve never met, just to keep things spicy. This is the second time we’ve done that; Uncle Vanya was basically the same set-up. But that’s where a lot of the romantic connections are in Chekhov plays—people having affairs. With this play, I have spent less time thinking about the fact that we are having an affair and more about what it means to use your heart and really love someone. That is a very interesting thing to explore with your own husband.

During the run of Uncle Vanya, Peter told Broadway.com that he finds it easier to act with you than with a stranger. Do you agree?
Yes. Peter and I work really, really well together. That is not a requirement for a married couple at all; my parents [Oscar-nominated screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal] couldn’t work together. Peter and I happen to think in very similar ways about acting. The beginning of the process this time was a little fraught for us, because when you don’t know where you’re going in the play or what you need, it can be hard when it’s your real husband out there. Once we got a sense of what we were doing, it was fine. I trust him so much and the amount of love we have for each other is so strong.

Even though you both have high-profile movie careers, you’ve avoided being competitive.
Yeah, we have. Obviously, as in any marriage, there are things that we fight about and things that are difficult between us, but competition in our work is not one of them. We really root for each other and support each other.

Should we be surprised that you and Peter have done two small-scale off-Broadway productions rather than aiming for Broadway? [Sarsgaard co-starred with Kristin Scott Thomas in a 2008 Broadway revival of The Seagull .]
That would be a different experience. What’s nice about a place like [Classic Stage] is that we don’t have to worry about appealing to a mass audience. It’s a particular way that we’re doing this play—the staging is fluid, and it shifts. The actors respond to what the other actors onstage are doing, so if somebody decides not to take a drink of water, we respond to that. Not everybody likes this way of doing Chekhov, but we do, and we don’t have to compromise to fill a Broadway house every night. Also, I love the space at CSC. You walk into the theater and you’re in the room with [the audience]. Their feet are in our living room. Literally! You can feel them breathing and following the play.

Why is Chekhov so hard to do well?
Partially it’s because so much is left open. You can pull out Measure for Measure and read the play aloud, and it will basically work. You read Thee Sisters aloud, and so many things don’t seem to connect or make sense. It’s like looking at a map and none of the countries are listed. You say, “OK, I’m in Asia, but I’m not sure exactly where.” [Laughs.] Then you start to dig into it, and all of a sudden, the meaning is illuminated. In order to do Chekhov well, you have to bring your own mind and heart into it.

Chekhov wrote such fantastic female roles, including four in this play alone.
And we have such incredible actresses! The only way you can work this way—where you say, “Here we go into the river of this play, and we’re going to see where it takes us”—is if everybody is open and sensitive and interested and interesting. Jessica Hecht [Olga] has so much experience, and she’s incredible to be onstage with. I didn’t know Juliet Rylance [Irina] at all; I had never seen her work, and I think she’s brilliant. Marin Ireland [Natasha, the sister-in-law], of course, I had seen in a million things. I just feel so lucky.

When you graduated from Columbia, did you envision a career onstage or in film?
I always wanted to do both. I did a lot of theater in high school [at L.A.’s Harvard-Westlake School] and took it very seriously, and in college, too. When I got out of Columbia, I did [Patrick Marber’s] Closer at Berkeley Rep and spent four years of my life working on [Tony Kushner’s] Homebody. That was a really intense experience.

Your film career has been almost unclassifiable, in the variety of parts you’ve done.
I’ve been lucky enough that, for the most part, I’ve been able to choose films that were interesting to me as opposed to doing too many things for money or career stuff. When I try to fit myself into something that isn’t quite right for me, it usually ends up not working out.

Did you expect Crazy Heart to be such a big hit?
You know, I didn’t expect it to be a hit, really, but I knew when we were making it that it was good. It felt like a special experience, where the stars were aligned. I sort of thought, “I hope this turns out well, but if it doesn’t, it’s fine, because the process of making it was so special.”

You’ve become a fashion icon at the Oscars and other events. Peter told us that he hates the red carpet. Do you enjoy it?
I do enjoy it; I’ve always liked all of that stuff. I think it’s okay to think about clothes as long as you also think about other things [laughs].

What did you learn about the business from watching your parents when you were growing up? Were you aware of what they did for a living?
I was, yeah. My parents weren’t movie stars, so there wasn’t hype around what they were doing, but I watched them be more or less successful at different times in their life, and weather that. My parents’ production company was called Rollercoaster—partially, I think, to say that [a career] will go up and it will go down. I try to keep that in mind.

You and your brother [actor Jake Gyllenhaal] seem down-to-earth. What’s been the key to that?
Part of it is that I don’t think movies are the most important thing in the world. Good movies and good plays can make you think about life and love and the world you live in, but, ultimately, that’s not the most important thing. I have a little girl [four-year-old Ramona], which really helps with that. It doesn’t matter what project you’re working on or who’s coming over for dinner and how fancy they are if your child is sick or your child doesn’t want you to drop them off at school. There’s nothing you can do except be there for your child.

Did you make a conscious decision to live in New York, away from the Hollywood spotlight?
Yes. My parents are from New York and I was born here, even though I grew up in L.A. I came back when I was 17 to go to Columbia, and I always thought I would raise my family in New York. I’ve been here for half my life now, almost. I really like Brooklyn, where we live; I love our house and our wonderful friends, and I love being able to hop on a train and come to work. But it’s a harder place to raise a kid than I thought when I was 17. Sometimes I dream about being in the countryside.

Do you have any dream roles?
Masha was a dream role for me, something I wanted to do for a long time. And I think we’re a good fit. Chekhov’s wife, Olga Knipper, played the role at Moscow Art Theatre, and she said, “I delight in playing Masha.” I know what she means.

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It was almost a case of life imitating art for the 32-year-old actress, who told Pop Tarts she couldn’t keep up with the demands of movies and motherhood after she and husband Peter Sarsgaard had their first child together in 2006.

“Mrs. Green literally had a birds nest in her hair and children hanging from the chandelier and she kept saying she was fine. I was definitely like that. When my daughter was first born I kept saying ‘I don’t need anybody, I’m just going to do this by myself.’ I thought I could make a home, be a good wife, and do all these things. I thought ‘I’m just going to call my mom,’” Gyllenhaal told Pop Tarts at a special screening of the film in New York City last week. “But I have since realized that wasn’t realistic for me…It’s okay not to be able to do everything all the time, to fail as a parent sometimes. Now I have a wonderful nanny. I am somebody who spends every possible minute I can with my daughter – I really believe that’s important, but I do need help.”

Gyllenhaal is also convinced that the positive energy that came from Emma Thompson’s fantastical Nanny McPhee rubbed off even when she left the set.

“I believe this movie must have brought me good nanny karma because I found a lovely, lovely nanny for my daughter – I just thank god for her,” she added.

Gyllenhaal said caring for children as a single parent is a concept many relate to in 2010.

“Your husband doesn’t need to be at war [like hers is in the movie] to be up against it. Coping and not coping – it’s a very fine line,” Thompson said. “Maybe you’re away for work, or the parents are divorced, but it’s a very contemporary issue.”

As for her own magical mothering tips?

“You don’t always have to solve their (the kids) problems, just sit with them,” Thompson suggested. “Just being with them and not saying anything can do so much.”