Dr. Anna Piela is a scholar of gender, Islam and new media who is affiliated with the Department of Religion at Northwestern University. She contributed this statement to our speakout today: "If Men Could Get Pregnant, Abortion Would Be a Sacrament"--this statement variously attributed to Gloria Steinem, Florynce Kennedy and Germaine Greer but actually made by an elderly Irish female taxi cab driver in the 1970s still holds true today. This war on reproductive rights is not about protecting "women" or "babies" - if that were so, we would have universal free healthcare in America. We would have free preschool. We would have sufficient fully paid parental leave. We would NOT have child poverty and hunger. We would have strict gun laws. No, this obscene war on reproductive rights comes not from a place of care but a place of darkness. Women's bodies, and bodies of other people who can get pregnant are, as always, a battlefield where Christofascist ideologues project their dystopian ideas of what the world should look like. This is a war waged in my country, Poland, as well. Since 1993, becoming pregnant there today is a hazard, too. Denial of right to safe abortion means a return of life-threatening underground trade. Women are dying of sepsis, with dead fetuses in their bodies, and fetuses with malformations incompatible with life are made to be delivered and die in agony. The first important thing we can do is to say NO to this horror. As soon as we stop saying NO, they will assume assent. Thank you for being here and saying NO." #28s #internationalsafeabortionday #Poland #abortlegalya #Colombia #Mexico #unitedstates #Argentina #elsalvador