NO COWARD SOUL IS MINE

This past week, Georgia became the sixth state to pass Draconian anti-choice legislation, and this series is our response: an emergency fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and NARAL. Georgia’s LIFE Act and the other pieces of monstrous, dystopian anti-choice legislation that have manifested in Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Ohio are all part of a wider agenda intended to dismantle the protections of reproductive rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. Though this legislation will certainly meet opposition at district and appellate levels, these laws are universally geared towards engineering a hearing before the Supreme Court as swiftly as possible, with the goal of overturning Roe v. Wade now that Kavanaugh has a seat.

Furthermore, these restrictions are part and parcel of a coordinated, systemic effort to restrict the rights and attack the agency of cis women, trans women, trans men, racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ community, non-binary individuals, immigrants, and low-income people.

Reproductive rights are inseparable from economic security, and these brutal, authoritarian, oppressive anti-choice laws will disproportionately affect populations who already suffer the most and have access to the fewest options.

The curtailing of reproductive rights impacts every single one of us. May we help each other shake off the yokes that suffocate us and deprive us of our basic human rights.

If you are not in the market for perfume or beard oils, please consider volunteering as a clinic escort locally, or donating to / volunteering with the following organizations:

Planned Parenthood

The Center for Reproductive Rights

NARAL

The American Civil Liberties Union

Access Reproductive Care: Southeast

NNAF

The Yellowhammer Fund

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund

Women Have Options

And SPEAK UP. Talk about the real repercussions of these malevolent new laws. Challenge the stigma of talking about reproductive rights and condemn attacks on reproductive rights. Educate your friends, family, and neighbors and mobilize them to fight for reproductive justice.

No coward soul is mine No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere I see Heaven’s glories shine And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

O God within my breast Almighty ever-present Deity Life, that in me hast rest, As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain, Worthless as withered weeds Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by thy infinity, So surely anchored on The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love Thy spirit animates eternal years Pervades and broods above, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone And suns and universes ceased to be And Thou wert left alone Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death Nor atom that his might could render void Since thou art Being and Breath And what thou art may never be destroyed. – Emily Brontë

I Undying Life: lavender, rockrose, and pale woods.