As access to safe abortions continues to become increasingly more difficult for American women from one state to the next, 140 musicians are using their platforms to denounce the decision. Collectively, well-known singers – including Lady Gaga, Lizzo and Miley Cyrus – have all signed an open letter in support of abortion rights in the US, backing the reproductive health organisation Planned Parenthood’s #BansOffMyBody campaign.
Over the weekend, the musicians appeared in a full-page advertisement featured in Billboard magazine in the US with the strapline: Bands Together, Bands Off. “Freedom is at the foundation of music,” it reads, alongside the full list of musicians from Dua Lipa, The 1975 to Ariana Grande. “Through music we have the power to create, to be who we are as individuals, to speak and live our own truth. Access to sexual reproductive health care is about that same freedom. Because no-one is free unless they control their own body.”
US Friends: 25 MILLION. That’s how many women live in a state where abortion could be outlawed if Roe is overturned. Join me & Planned Parenthood and tell politicians: get your #BansOffMyBody. Text BANSOFF to 22422 to sign the petition. @ppfa @ppact https://t.co/skIzjBgcyG pic.twitter.com/wIxEaDCiXb
— DUA LIPA (@DUALIPA) August 24, 2019
The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness about the restrictive anti-abortion measures currently trying to be passed under Donald Trump’s administration in several states. Planned Parenthood hopes to spread awareness at multiple music festivals across the country as more musicians continue to get on board. “Abortion access and reproductive health and rights are under attack like never before, and we need everyone to fight back,” Alexis McGill, Planned Parenthood’s president said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood is grateful to these artists for using their incredible platforms to declare that our bodies are our own — if they are not, we can never be truly free or equal.”
By January 2020, the organisation hopes to have gathered 500,000 signatures opposing the limits on abortion rights in time for the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (a landmark decision made by the Supreme Court which ruled that the US Constitution protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to have access to an abortion).
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Author: SUSAN DEVANEY
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