The street theater involved one woman (me, in this case) wearing a
long white nightgown, soaked in fake blood from the crotch down, and
wearing around her neck a sign that read, “I am the face of ILLEGAL,
BACK ALLEY abortion”. I also had a coat hanger around my neck and
another in my hands, and both hands and coat hanger were covered in
fake blood. I stood in the middle of a busy street corner..
Last week, November 1st (the day before the nationwide day to Drive
Out the Bush Regime) a bunch of people did a combination street
theater/flyering day. Inspired by the spirit of the “torture suit”
street theater, that forces people to confront the reality of the
torture carried out in their names, we aimed to bring home the reality of illegal abortion and how many women will die if those days are brought back.
A group of us went out to a busy part of downtown in the middle of rush
hour. We started at the same plaza where the rally would be held on
November 2nd, and we went to a busy shopping street in the later
afternoon, and then finally outside a very busy train station just
before 5 p.m.
The street theater involved one woman (me, in this
case) wearing a long white nightgown, soaked in fake blood from the
crotch down, and wearing around her neck a sign that read, “I am the face of ILLEGAL, BACK ALLEY abortion”. I also had a coat hanger around my neck and another in my hands, and both hands and coat hanger were covered in fake blood.
I stood in the middle of a busy street corner and did different types of agitation.
Since this is a new street theater, and this was the first time we did
this, the kind of agitation that really brings this home to people is
still developing, but here are some general themes I did:
— When large groups were passing at a time, I would shorten up the agitation: “I
am the face of illegal abortion! When abortion was illegal, women died
like this — will you let those days come back or will you fight?
Please don’t let Bush take away my right to abortion! Please don’t let
me die like this!”
— Coming up to small groups of people and saying,
“Look at me! Will you please look at me? I am the face of illegal, back
alley abortion. If Bush makes abortion illegal, women will look like
me, they will die like me — covered in blood, dying alone. Will you
let those days come back? Or will you fight for me? In Bush’s America,
women will have no birth control. This and I would hold out the bloody
coat hanger] will be our abortion method! And this [I would gesture at
my bloody body will my our death! We will die like this! Will you let
that happen?” The agitation changed and sometimes got shorter, but I
really tried to make people see and face this reality.
— When people were not responding, I would shout,
“Don’t turn away! Please look at me!” Without jacking people up, I
really tried to make them look — walking in front of them, holding out
my hands and the bloody coat hanger. If they refused to look, I would
keep speaking until the light changed and they moved: ” When abortion
was illegal, women used to die by the thousands every year! We used
coat hangers, we used They looked like me, they died like me! I didn’t
want to have a baby, so I paid with my life — is that the price I
should pay? Should I be forced to choose between motherhood or death?
Please don’t let me die like this! Please fight for me! If you just
turn away, you’re letting this happen to me!”
I also tailored my agitation to the groups of people I encountered.
Groups of men often got very uncomfortable — so I would go right up
to them and say, “Please look at me! I am what women look like when we
die from illegal abortions. I could be your sister, your wife, your
girlfriend, your niece [etc]” With older women (interestingly enough,
as a group the most receptive), I would say, “You remember the days
when women used coat hangers on ourselves! Bush wants to bring those
days back — will you let him?” With younger women, who would also get
uncomfortable, I would say, “You don’t remember what it was like —
when women used to use coat hangers on ourselves if we needed an
abortion. This is what we looked like when we died! Those days will
come soon if you don’t fight!”
IMPORTANT: If you plan on
doing this, it is crucial to have at least one, if not several, other
people who are with you. This is not mostly because you may get
hecklers or pro-lifers (we got only a few) but mostly because this is a
very powerful piece of theater and a lot of people will be shaken up —
it is very important to follow up with them and actually get some
knowledge into their hands.
We had one person “shadowing” me at all times, making sure everybody got leaflets,
and often following up with more about the threat posed to abortion by
the Bush Regime, and how crucial it was for them to fight. In
particular, they would pay attention to the affect I was having on
people — those that looked very upset, or those that, even better,
were moved to “fight for me”. They would explain what we were doing and
the need to fight to defend a woman’s right to abortion, and they told
everyone about November 2nd.
It’s also important to note that
even though abortion is still nominally legal, with so many attacks on
this right — parental notification, mandatory waiting periods, attacks
on clinics — women are going through all kinds of risks to get
abortions. A woman is North Carolina is in jail for taking abortive
pills, because she couldn’t afford an abortion in her state (read “Women are Not Incubators! The Ordeal of Gabriela Flores)
Impressions:
This was a very powerful action. Plenty of people were moved, and a lot
of people didn’t know what to think. We got quite a few “Thank you for
doing this”, from older women but also younger women and men too. Some
people said things like, “We’re already on your side”, so the followup
person would explain the need to actually fight for this right. We did
get a few hecklers too — in those cases, I took the bloody hanger and
tried to put it in people’s hands, saying “If you think I should die
for not wanting a child, then here — take this hanger. See how it
feels.” Iwould really try to polarize other people within earshot
around a basic dividing line that women have the right to this
procedure and that if they don’t have that right, their choice will be
motherhood or a bloody death. Even people who said they themselves were
opposed to abortion were won over to not supporting the kind of death
that I was dramatizing.
We take the “That which you will not
resist, and mobilize to stop, you will learn — or be forced — to
accept” as our orientation. The vast majority of people in this country
are for abortion rights, but many have gotten “confused”, “fuzzy”, and
conflicted on whether it’s worth defending. We are aiming to reach
those people, and win them to the understanding that abortion is a
vital right for women, that we must fight for.
RECOMMENDED READING/VIEWING:
— Check out the video, and read the orientation, for the Torture Street Theater piece that’s on the World Can’t Wait website.
—
If at all possible, watch the first If These Walls Could Talk (1996),
the HBO movie about abortion throughout history. In particular, the
first episode shows Demi Moore as a woman desparately trying to arrange
an illegal abortion in the ’50s, finally going to a butcher who leaves
her covered in blood on her kitchen floor.
— Read up on deaths from illegal abortion — NARAL has a link:
— The book Back Alley Days is available at libraries and from Amazon:
In struggle,
A youth organizer with World Can’t Wait