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Interview
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Human Rights

Marge Piercy Speaks Out About Her Illegal Abortion and Importance of Abortion Rights

Poet, novelist, social activist, and important figure in the women’s liberation movement, Marge Piercy records a moving account of her own illegal abortion, and speaks to the importance of abortion rights to be part of emergency programs and actions in cities nationwide April 11-12.

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Poet, Novelist, Social Activist, and important figure in the women’s liberation movement, Marge Piercy (New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers; Woman on the Edge of Time) records a moving account of her own illegal abortion, and speaks to the importance of abortion rights to be part of emergency programs and actions in cities nationwide April 11-12.
“It was a time when falling in love could kill you..” Piercy states, in recounting the story of her near death from her own illegal abortion, the death of her close friend and many others from botched abortions during the same period, and the life altering shame and stigma heaped on women and girls for unplanned pregnancies.
In the context of an escalating numbers of abortion restrictions and clinic closures nationwide, Stop Patriarchy is mobilizing a counter-offensive:
“Already, women in this country who cannot access safe abortions are attempting to self-abort by inserting sharp objects in their vaginas, taking pills, asking their boyfriends to beat them up, and more. Others are being forced to bear children they do not want. This is the future for all women if this war on women is not massively resisted and defeated.”
For a full schedule of nationwide events.


April 11th – Public Programs: Holding programs on/in campuses, communities, religious congregations, and theaters bringing alive: women’s abortion stories – before Roe and today, the struggles of those who risk their lives to provide abortions, and the full anti-woman program driving this war.

April 12th – Bloody Coat-Hanger Street Actions: Assembling at institutions behind this war on women (GOP or Dem. offices, anti-abortion churches, Pregnancy Crisis Centers, etc.). People wearing all white will raise coat-hangers dripping in blood, representing the women who die when abortion is unavailable. Others in all black will hold pictures, names and statistics of the women who have died already. Everyone will wear shackles. After one hour of silent protest, people will break the shackles and recite a pledge to resist and call on others to join in mass resistance to defeat this war.

* The closing song in this video, “Women On the Edge of Time”, inspired by Piercy’s novel of the same name, was released by Outernational (an up and coming band known for their revolutionary edge and recently reviewed by Rolling Stone) in support of these actions.
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