THEY SHUT ME UP IN PROSE

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.

They shut me up in Prose –
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet –
Because they liked me “still” –

Still! Could themself have peeped –
And seen my Brain – go round –
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason – in the Pound –

Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Look down upon Captivity –
And laugh – No more have I –
– Emily Dickinson

Loosed from the satin-pale corset, emerging from a gilded cage, that prison of silence: sweet bourbon vanilla, pale sandalwood, mallow flower, osmanthus, and shards of frankincense.