Gloria Steinem Sends Statement of Support to Abortion Rights Freedom Riders
September 4, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Revcom.us wants to share with its readers a variety of voices that are making important contributions in the struggle for abortion rights. The following statement was sent by Gloria Steinem to the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride and read at the rally in Jackson, Mississippi, August 17, 2013. She has given permission to revcom.us to reprint it.
"We live in a world in which inanimate property is better protected by law than is the human body, and crossing a national boundary is more likely to be punished than bodily invasion. The long struggle against chattel, sex and labor slavery are all part of giving each human being the right to bodily integrity.
"Women’s bodies are the front lines of this struggle because we are the means of reproduction. Without controlling women’s bodies, it’s not possible to continue divisions of race and class and to produce cheap labor.
"I say this to thank the Freedom Riders in Little Rock for protecting the only clinic in Arkansas — and in Jackson, the only clinic in Mississippi — that supports women’s reproductive freedom .If women can’t decide the fate of our bodies from the skin in, we can’t control our lives from the skin out. Reproductive justice is the single greatest determinant of whether we are healthy or not, educated or not, in the paid labor force or not, and how long she lives. Involuntary pregnancy is the most intimate form of involuntary servitude, and the right to give birth is a human right. The power of state stops at our skins. I thank you for being Freedom Riders for reproductive freedom.”
Gloria Steinem
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