USA – My Body No Choice: taking the fight for abortion rights to the stage

A new stage production tells the stories of women and their bodily autonomy, or lack thereof, as part of the fight to reverse the supreme court decision to restrict abortion

David Smith
Thu 27 Oct 2022

Theirs was a secret space. In the early 1970s, Molly Smith and her sister Bridget attended weekly women’s consciousness-raising sessions in a friend’s living room near Washington’s Catholic University. They read books such as Our Bodies, Ourselves, a groundbreaking text about women’s health and sexuality. Sitting on cushions, the circle of women listened to one another, laughed and cried and shared their deepest secrets.

“Women needed spaces where they could be open, where they could be uncompromising, where they could speak about the beginnings of their feminism, where they could speak about their stories around their bodies without shame,” Smith, now 70, recalls by phone. “A lot of women didn’t understand their bodies at all.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/oct/26/my-body-no-choice-supreme-court-abortion-rights-stage


In ‘freedom convoy’ and other vaccine protests, slogans cross the political aisle

February 17, 2022
Alex Bing, Adjunct Professor in Sociology, Carleton University

The current political climate seems to discourage us from becoming overly invested in any one political slogan in case they suddenly change hands and take on a whole different meaning. But words still matter — perhaps even more so right now.

Politicians, pundits and protesters have appropriated slogans, symbols and ideas from the opposing side throughout the so-called freedom convoy and the protests leading up to it.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/in-freedom-convoy-and-other-vaccine-protests-slogans-cross-the-political-aisle-176793


Canada – Why using the language of abortion rights for vaccine mandates is bogus

Evangeline Lilly likened the ability to choose to terminate a pregnancy with the right to choose whether or not to get vaccinated. That's not even an apples-to-oranges comparison – it's apples to Mack trucks.

Maija Kappler
Feb 02, 2022 

Last week, Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly posted several photos to Instagram with a caption about her vaccine views. She spent the previous weekend in Washington, D.C. “to support bodily sovereignty,” she said, seemingly referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccination march. (Yes, the same one where he implied that the unvaccinated have fewer rights than Anne Frank did during the Holocaust.) She also expressed support for “Canadian truckers… rallying for their cross-country, peaceful convoy.” (Her Instagram was posted before the convoy took place, but she hasn’t since mentioned the Nazi or Confederate flags that were a part of that protest.)

Continued: https://lfpress.com/wellness/opinion/abortion-rights-language-vaccines


Anti-vaxxers using pro-choice slogans make me so angry

Slinging around phrases about body autonomy belittles the pro-choice debate and overlooks issues surrounding pregnancy and fertility

Eva Wiseman
Sun 15 Aug 2021

I am not an angry person, I get headaches instead. Rage is swallowed like a meatball and spreads fattily around my body, ensuring afternoons of snippy irritation and pounding temples. But when it comes, when I do manage to access my anger, the relief is stunning, and it happened this week when deleting photos from my very old phone.

Mine is a predictable photo album – a baby
transforms across a camera roll from limpid mole to Ian Hislop in leggings,
kittens simper beside screengrabs of news stories, pink cake, a very big plum.
It was the juxtaposition of three pictures that documented April though, that
pricked my fury. A photo taken from our car of one of the anti-vaccine marches that
shut down London sat beside a headline that pregnant people were finally being
offered the coronavirus vaccine, then a picture of my son’s first birthday
party.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/15/anti-vaxxers-using-prochoice-slogans-makes-me-so-angry


Ukraine activist in nude protest against Polish abortion ban

AFP
Published Monday, October 26, 2020

KYIV, UKRAINE -- A member of radical feminist group Femen staged a naked protest outside the Polish embassy in Kyiv on Monday against a near-total ban on abortion in the EU country.

The English words "My body is my
choice" were scrawled on her torso. She held coat hangers in her mouth, a
protest symbol representing illegal abortions.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/ukraine-activist-in-nude-protest-against-polish-abortion-ban-1.5160801


South Africa – Campaign gives women the power of choice on abortions

Campaign gives women the power of choice on abortions

News / 8 March 2019
Staff Writer

Cape Town – Marie Stopes South Africa and Blue Ribbon have embarked on a public campaign called My Body, My Choice to empower women with access to accurate information and resources for safe abortions.

This is to empower them to make an informed choice about their sexual and reproductive health.

Continued: https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/campaign-gives-women-the-power-of-choice-on-abortions-19735434


Ireland- After abortion, euthanasia will be our next burning social issue

Ian O'Doherty: After abortion, euthanasia will be our next burning social issue

Ian O'Doherty
May 13 2018

For obvious reasons, the last few weeks have seen various words and phrases tossed around with gay abandon.

Compassion is probably the most ubiquitous culprit. If you landed in Ireland from the moon right about now, you'd be forgiven for thinking that compassion is our most abundant natural resource - because everyone seems to have it. Lots of it.

Continued: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/ian-odoherty-after-abortion-euthanasia-will-be-our-next-burning-social-issue-36894907.html