My body. My choice. How are we still arguing this??

My body. My choice.

My body – a man’s pawn, a tag, a law, a tax.

My body. My vessel. My skin. My story.

My body – no longer mine.

(“It was never yours” – the patriarchy used to whisper.

Now it YELLS “it was never yours”).

We shall not yell back. We shall not fight, not with violence or arms.

Let us fight with love, with compassion. Let us fight more strongly with all they want to take away: Our voices, our bodies, our independence, our commitment and OUR CHOICES.

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20 weeks is time enough to assemble and disassemble a life. But, 20 weeks is NOT a life.

20 weeks should not determine anything in the life of a woman. 20 weeks of not bleeding should not grant you jail. 20 weeks are not sufficient to rip a woman from the right of making her own choices, in her own body.

3360 hours of a fetus in a body shouldn’t determine the upcoming 157680 hours spent in UNWANTED motherhood. (18 years of raising someone as your own, to love him/her/it as your own). Give up your life for another. Choose your cage: a prison or unwanted motherhood. Choose your cage: your female body (but I was born with it.)

A burden not only on the mother but on the child itself – being born unwanted. And if you consider life a miracle – then is being unwanted a miracle?

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If the government cared so much for life, then it would worry about those who are actually alive in this moment.

What is the point of healthcare if it doesn’t allow us, women, to choose? How does the government benefit from my health, if I cannot choose how I want to live a healthy life? How does the government benefit from the birth of a child whose mother did not get to choose?

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Photography by the beautiful Julian Lavergne