Contributors on a Girls's March rally in entrance of San Francisco's Metropolis Corridor in 2019. Sundry Pictures | Shutterstock
Since 2021, hard-won ladies’s reproductive rights and bodily autonomy have been rolled again within the US in an alarming style. With state bans on abortion previous as little as six weeks – as was handed in Texas on September 1, 2021 – and now the Supreme Courtroom’s overturning of the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling, it’s simple to think about that now we have slipped and fallen right into a Handmaid’s Story-style dystopia.
As such misogynist ideology turns into entrenched, it’s pure to really feel hopeless. A current surge in activist TikToks suggests, nevertheless, a method ahead. Folks have been pairing a pattern from the tune Paris by US electro duo The Chainsmokers with the hashtag #ifwegodownthenwegodowntogether, messages of solidarity and essential data.
My analysis exhibits that individuals typically assume that activism requires a sure sort of direct motion. However such slim definitions of activism forestall individuals from participating. In addition they sometimes hurt those that face the largest structural disadvantages and associated limitations to getting concerned in direct motion.
As an alternative, remembering that doing one thing is all the time higher than doing nothing – and widening our definition of what activism might be – is useful. Here’s a non-exhaustive record of concepts of how we will assist our sisters throughout the pond and additional the worldwide struggle for girls’s reproductive rights.
Elevate consciousness
Analysis exhibits that the extra persons are knowledgeable about a difficulty, the extra it’s attainable to shift dominant views. The concept is to destigmatise speaking about abortion, in order that it turns into normalised as a difficulty regarding ladies’s well being and reproductive rights. This reduces the stigma round abortion and retains the problem within the public sphere, demonstrating how “the private is political”.
Social media has repeatedly been proven to be a great way of sharing data, whether or not that’s by way of memes that distil key philosophical arguments for abortion into bite-size graphics and phrases or by linking to information articles, petitions, feminist charities and campaigns.
Having conversations with family and friends might be simply as instrumental. Elevating consciousness and destigmatising abortion permits us to higher struggle for girls’s reproductive rights in order that they aren’t hidden out of sight and simpler to assault.
Be part of a neighborhood pro-choice group or arrange your personal
I used to be a part of a pro-choice group in Nottingham, UK, which counters anti-abortion activism exterior of hospitals and clinics. We positioned our our bodies to dam out the anti-abortion messages and supplied a pleasant face and chaperone for any girl looking for an abortion. We additionally supplied leaflets, directing ladies to impartial being pregnant and abortion recommendation companies such because the British Being pregnant Advisory Service.
Social media could be a good place to search for such native teams however in case you don’t discover one, group up with some buddies and begin it your self. That’s how the Nottingham group started ten years in the past and it’s nonetheless going robust with almost 1,000 native members. Grassroots campaigning – from social housing activist group Focus E15 Moms to the New Period Tenants Affiliation, which fought to maintain tenants’ houses – has a direct impression on people and might mobilise the broader public, having a big impression on society and politics.
Foyer your MP and reply to authorities consultations
Anybody can signal parliamentary petitions or write to their native MP to ask that they assist ladies’s reproductive rights (discover your MP right here). There may be an all-party parliamentary group on sexual and reproductive well being within the UK, comprising MPs and friends who elevate consciousness in parliament of those points: you possibly can join information and occasions right here. In the event you’re uncertain of formulate such a letter, charities typically present template letters for contacting MPs.
You may as well signal as much as mailing lists of feminist charities and organisations, resembling Filia, to be notified of any related authorities consultations. Analysis exhibits that citizen involvement within the parliamentary course of can have an effect on coverage.
Throughout lockdown, a short lived measure was put in place by the UK authorities, permitting the availability of at-home medical abortion tablets. Feminist campaigning noticed this important service prolonged: on March 30 2022, the UK parliament voted in favour of amending the Well being and Care invoice, making telemedicine for early medical abortions everlasting in England and Wales.
Present monetary assist
Grassroots organisations and campaigns typically rely fully on volunteers and personal donations for his or her existence. Fundraising permits campaigns resembling Abortion Rights, the UK’s solely nationwide grassroots pro-choice marketing campaign, to organise protests, keep stress on the federal government to assist ladies’s reproductive rights.
Abortion funds present sensible monetary assist to assist ladies entry abortion. You possibly can donate to the Nationwide Community of Abortion Funds to assist these within the US and to Abortion With out Borders to assist ladies in Europe.
Take it to the streets
Protest marches have lengthy been a method of expressing dissent – on every part from air pollution and political oppression to warfare and racism. They’ve additionally persistently been a way of displaying solidarity for girls, from the suffragist marches of the early twentieth century to the 2017 Girls’s March on Washington.
The Girls’s March on Washington, January 2017.
Johnny Silvercloud | Shutterstock
4 years previous to Roe v Wade, in 1969, radical feminist group Redstockings held what they known as an “abortion speakout” in New York Metropolis, which noticed ladies come ahead to speak about their experiences of unlawful abortion. These speakout occasions unfold throughout the US in response to authorities hearings the place many of the politicians talking about abortion – on the time – had been male. American political scientist Erica Chenoweth highlights how fruitful this type of non-violent civil resistance might be.
It’s vital to proceed to talk out and present solidarity to our sisters within the US. We should additionally proceed to struggle to guard our proper to protest and to forestall the encroachment of equally regressive legal guidelines within the UK.
Emma Craddock acquired funding from e Financial and Social Analysis Council for her PhD analysis.
