05/22/2019
Today at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, as a part of over 500 rallies across all 50 states, we gathered to . Anti-abortion legislators are passing extreme abortion bans which disregard the lives of women and pregnant people, and we gathered today in opposition to these heinous bills. Letās be clear: abortion bans do not ban abortionāthey ban access to safe, legal abortion. Abortion bans function to control the bodies and lives of people who can become pregnant. Abortion is a crucial component of reproductive health care and a critical aspect of reproductive autonomy.
Here are some excerpts from our amazing speakers!
Mason, COA junior: āTrans people and women face some of the most aggressive and dehumanizing body policing⦠Anyone should be free to make whatever choices they want to about their body, whether they are a cis woman, a trans man, a nonbinary person with a uterus, or anyone in-between.ā
EP, COA senior: āI fear the day when I wonāt be able to provide options for pregnant people, where they will have to make their decision in silence, in fear, alone and in great danger. Because these laws that Alabama and Georgia are passing are not banning abortion, they are banning safe abortion. People will always have unwanted pregnancies so people will always seek abortions. I once thought that my worst fear in choosing to be a midwife would be to lose a mother, to lose a pregnant person despite my best efforts. I did not fathom a day would come where a person would lose their life, not because death was unavoidable, but because men in power so far removed from the world they control decided my client, my friend, a parent, a personās life matters less.ā
Bo Greene, MDI Indivisible: āThe pro-life folks, mostly white men, have no interest in the child at all. The interest is in CONTROL⦠the recent increase of anti-abortion bills coming out of many states in this country has little to do with protecting lives and everything to do with protecting the rule and unquestioned authority of white, rich men. As if that wasnāt bad enough, people like or own Senator Susan Collins⦠After supporting both of Trumpās anti-choice Supreme Court nominees in addition to supporting every lower court judicial nominee where her vote mattered, she now has the damn nerve to say she doesnāt understand why these bans are suddenly being passed!ā
PC: Yoi Ashida