THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN

This past week, Georgia became the sixth state to pass Draconian anti-choice legislation, and this series is our response: an emergency fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and NARAL. Georgia’s LIFE Act and the other pieces of monstrous, dystopian anti-choice legislation that have manifested in Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Ohio are all part of a wider agenda intended to dismantle the protections of reproductive rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. Though this legislation will certainly meet opposition at district and appellate levels, these laws are universally geared towards engineering a hearing before the Supreme Court as swiftly as possible, with the goal of overturning Roe v. Wade now that Kavanaugh has a seat.

Furthermore, these restrictions are part and parcel of a coordinated, systemic effort to restrict the rights and attack the agency of cis women, trans women, trans men, racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ community, non-binary individuals, immigrants, and low-income people.

Reproductive rights are inseparable from economic security, and these brutal, authoritarian, oppressive anti-choice laws will disproportionately affect populations who already suffer the most and have access to the fewest options.

The curtailing of reproductive rights impacts every single one of us. May we help each other shake off the yokes that suffocate us and deprive us of our basic human rights.

If you are not in the market for perfume or beard oils, please consider volunteering as a clinic escort locally, or donating to / volunteering with the following organizations:

Planned Parenthood

The Center for Reproductive Rights

NARAL

The American Civil Liberties Union

Access Reproductive Care: Southeast

NNAF

The Yellowhammer Fund

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund

Women Have Options

And SPEAK UP. Talk about the real repercussions of these malevolent new laws. Challenge the stigma of talking about reproductive rights and condemn attacks on reproductive rights. Educate your friends, family, and neighbors and mobilize them to fight for reproductive justice.

Yes, injured Woman! rise, assert thy right!
Woman! too long degraded, scorned, opprest;
O born to rule in partial Law’s despite,
Resume thy native empire o’er the breast!

Go forth arrayed in panoply divine;
That angel pureness which admits no stain;
Go, bid proud Man his boasted rule resign,
And kiss the golden sceptre of thy reign.

Go, gird thyself with grace; collect thy store
Of bright artillery glancing from afar;
Soft melting tones thy thundering cannon’s roar,
Blushes and fears thy magazine of war.

Thy rights are empire: urge no meaner claim, –
Felt, not defined, and if debated, lost;
Like sacred mysteries, which withheld from fame,
Shunning discussion, are revered the most.

Try all that wit and art suggest to bend
Of thy imperial foe the stubborn knee;
Make treacherous Man thy subject, not thy friend;
Thou mayst command, but never canst be free.

Awe the licentious, and restrain the rude;
Soften the sullen, clear the cloudy brow:
Be, more than princes’ gifts, thy favours sued; –
She hazards all, who will the least allow.

But hope not, courted idol of mankind,
On this proud eminence secure to stay;
Subduing and subdued, thou soon shalt find
Thy coldness soften, and thy pride give way.

Then, then, abandon each ambitious thought,
Conquest or rule thy heart shall feebly move,
In Nature’s school, by her soft maxims taught,
That separate rights are lost in mutual love.
– Anna Lætitia Barbauld

Too long degraded, scorned, opprest: a bold, strident red chypre with sweet wild patchouli, bourbon vanilla, Tunisian neroli, tuberose, warm red currant, strawberry, and red labdanum.