“I’m so glad you have that on your shirt. I’ve been thinking about this for years. That’s really true!” A woman in her 70s said as she bought a “Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement” T-shirt.

We are writing to share our recent experiences in selling the "Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement” T-shirts as a fundraiser for the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour.

Our team has raised over $1000 for the Tour, mainly since the draft decision was leaked, by selling T-shirts. We’ve been actively displaying and selling shirts at farmers’ markets, at the Women’s March rally on May 14, which RiseUp 4 Abortion Rights united with, and at RiseUp 4 Abortion Rights rallies and marches.

On May 14, we sold 43 T-shirts; almost all for $20. (We asked for $20 which most people readily gave.) We had two teams of two with a wagon and a crate; the shirts were displayed on the wagon and we held them up. We also had two displays, "Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution" and the other: 

"Women are not Bitches... Women are Full Human Beings". One woman bought five T-shirts, one for everyone in her group of middle-aged women; a mother and daughter came back after the mother had bought a shirt because the daughter, in her 20s, decided she wanted one too. A young woman gave $40 for one T-shirt. One man came up to us saying, “This is the best shirt I’ve seen all day!” and bought one for himself. Men bought half the shirts we sold that day, many saying it should be her body, her choice.

Women who were drawn to the shirt included those who remembered or were part of the movement that fought for abortion rights in the ʼ70s. Some commented that they thought the draft decision is “ridiculous” and that “of course women should be able to get abortions if they need them, that’s what we fought for!” One woman who was glad to see “Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement” on a T-shirt was a scientist who studied reproduction; she calmly explained to another woman who argued abortion kills babies that a fetus is not a baby until its born.

Many women told us their personal stories of having abortions and how this opened up their lives. One woman told of getting an abortion because the fetus was not viable and how it is unimaginably cruel and traumatic to force a woman to carry out such a pregnancy that could also endanger her life. Or pre-Roe, a woman's family forcing her to marry the guy who got her pregnant even though she did not want to marry him and was not ready to have a family.

The farmers’ markets we went to are in more middle class neighborhoods. One woman defiantly said she was going to wear her shirt in her retirement home where a lot of ex-military guys live and who think "women are stupid." She also had heard BA on the radio and said, "He's a great speaker."

We’ve been giving everyone who buys a shirt BA’s pamphlet, “‘Taking to the Streets’ And Refusing to Let this Go Down.” Most people we met hadn’t heard of BA. They are very frustrated and disappointed with the Democrats but don’t know why the Democrats act the way they do—like the woman at the May 14 rally who said she was dismayed and left early because “I feel like I'm in a Democratic Party rally, and that's not what I came for!” We told them who BA is and walked through the title of his essay. We’ve been encouraging people to follow the Tour and Rise Up on Instagram, making sure they get the flyers and pamphlet, and pointing them to the websites so they can learn more and be part of this.

At the Rise Up march and rally on May 26, we took T-shirts in rolling crates along the side of the march to sell, and we did, even though we had to run to catch up! The spirit and chants of Rise Up tap deep anger and inspire hope—two women who were eating in cafés got shirts; so did a younger woman returning to work who was overjoyed to learn there’s an organized fight for abortion rights.