Pro-Life is a Cabaret!

This past week I saw Cabaret on Broadway and participated in a Reproductive Justice Walk through lower Manhattan. Through the entire walk, I kept imagining Sally Bowles, one of the main characters of Cabaret, and how she encapsulated the fears of many pro-lifers. That if abortions were easily accessible, all these promiscuous women would come out of the woodwork to have abortions left and right as if were as simple as ordering a latte. Sally did have multiple abortions and she was a promiscuous person, but she also embodied the sensational.

She used flash! She used glitz! She used her body and her sexuality to get what she fancied, and she gave no apologies for her actions if it meant getting what she wanted. She shut her eyes to the truths presented to her and very much wanted to live in her world where the most important things were a stage, an audience, and most importantly, a party. The world was changing, and she stubbornly shut her eyes and stomped her feet against such change

Now, while pro-lifers would detest Sally Bowls’ reproductive choices, they’re practically bosom buddies when it comes to methodology in such sensationalism. I’m from Texas, and right now, our candidates for governor are campaigning, and while our pro-choice candidate, Wendy Davis, visited California for a fundraiser, she was greeted with this image.

Abortion Barbie. 

Wendy Davis’ head photo shopped onto a Barbie with a plastic baby coming out of her stomach splashed against a background of juvenile polka dots and pink. Like how did anyone think this was okay?! While I understand that this happened in the middle of a campaign and that mudslinging is proven to be one of the best ways to influence voters, how is it possible to engage in a serious dialogue about abortion if it boils down to which side had the most shocking photo?

Since the time Anthony Comstock and his desire to curtail all things immoral to Abortion Barbie, the censoring and exploitation of the subject of abortion has rendered us unable to have a national dialogue that isn’t in one way, shape, or form sensationalized from either side of the debate. It’s about flash; it’s about glitz. It’s about using legislation to curtail a woman’s autonomy over her own body and to regulate her sexuality without even asking her for her opinion. It’s about ignoring statistics of women who die from alleyway abortions and the financial burden an unwanted pregnancy puts on families, and instead, using a woman’s body as a platform to push a patriarchal party agenda onto a national audience. The world is changing, and they’re refusing to listen to such change.

But let’s not have a serious discussion about the why women choose to get abortions and why men find it necessary to regulate women’s bodies, old chum! Pro-life is a Cabaret!