From the StopPatriarchy blog:
To Those that Think It’s Bogus to Call the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride a Freedom Ride
August 8, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The Abortion Rights Freedom Ride was launched because women are not free. Abortion rights are essential to determining whether women will be enslaved to their biology, forced to bear children against their will, or if they will be free of that. And this affects all women, and all of society, because when abortion is illegal, inaccessible, or stigmatized to the point of it being the 21st-century Scarlet Letter; women’s societal role is confined to being breeders.
The connection with the original Freedom Ride is intentional, they were responsible for exposing the crimes and fighting back against the rotten Jim Crow electoral system in the South. That system was part of upholding and enforcing Jim Crow segregation, which was enslaving and killing Black people. The original freedom ride also went up against the entrenched logic of the traditional civil rights movement of the time, and many of the local civil rights groups were actually opposed to the freedom ride. We find ourselves in a similar situation with both the electoral system and the traditional thinking and entrenched logic of the pro-choice movement.
We recognize that women are full human beings, who should be treated as full human beings, and we also recognize the great urgency to fight for abortion on demand and without apology. We MUST re-set the terms, and challenge people to decide whether they want to see women enslaved, or free. And the stops in the Heartland where this Freedom Ride is going are flashpoints and concentrations of a national attack on abortion rights. This national attack needs to be answered by a national counter-offensive, and everyone that wants to see women free needs to ‘get on the bus’ and support this effort in any way that they can, and step up into this fight. This IS a Freedom Ride moment, and what people do in this moment will be decisive in determining the current and future societal role of millions of women.
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