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| Fragile bodies to bring a message to BP at the body autonomy ride June 9th. Photo by Barbara Ross. |
Bodies, like streets, are contested
spaces in New York. On June 9th,
we fought for and celebrated the need for these free bodies. This
year, the conflict felt particularly stark on June 9th, the date of our
scheduled two part body autonomy ride. The
day would begin in South Brooklyn, for clinic defense, meander in and out of
Manhattan for Summer Civil Disobedence School in Manhattan, and back to
Williamberg for the World Naked Bike Ride.
It
was clowdy as I pulled my bike out at 8 AM for part one.
Once or twice a year, a
group of anti-abortion activists, led by Bishop Caggiano,
assemble to hold a prayer vigil outside of a women's health facility in Sunset
Park, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
These groups are
typically met by a coalition of pro-choice groups: the Rude Mechanical
Orchestra, the Brooklyn Pro Choice Network, and the Church Ladies for Choice and
(of which this writer is a member).
These groups were dedicated to both ensuring access to clinics as well
as street theatre to convey their political agenda. A primary tactic of ‘the anti’s’ is setting up a clinic vigil as they planned
to do last Saturday.
The
Students for Life of America, or SFLA (2007) lists steps to organizing a
clinic
vigil:
1.
‘Choose a clinic’
2.
‘Announce the vigil’
3.
‘Know the laws’
4.
‘Gather materials for your vigil . . . with pictures of both living and aborted
babies’,
and
5.
‘Be a witness for life at the clinic’.
What SFLA does not mention are
the efforts
of abortion opponents to harass or
intimidate
clinic clients, often screaming, ‘You’re murdering your baby.’
In
response, queers have organized a practice known as clinic defense.
Over
the last few years, I have attended clinic defense at the Ambulatory Center
in
South Brooklyn.
Through the clinic defense,
the Church Ladies, Brooklyn Pro Choice Network and company stand on one side of a barricade at
the entrance to the clinic. On the other side, the anti’s hold a group of
pro-life activists held rosaries and a replica of a dead bloody fetus; they offer
diapers to those willing to be turned away. This year, there was only one
church lady, but several supporters from Brooklyn Pro Choice Network, Times Up!
and the RMO were on hand. Only two
Church Ladies arrived, not enough for quorum.
Seeing a smaller crowd, which had
not asked for a permit, the police told us we had to stand along the side of
the building. In contrast, the anti’s
were given full access to the street.
Standing with a sign in my hand, the police walked over and told me to
move.
“Why are they given the street
and we can’t even stand on the sidewalk?”
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| Photos by Peter Shapiro capture the conflict over just a few inches while anti's sat and prayed on the streets. |
“What do you want to do, have a
fist fight?” the policeman replied. He
looked like he was sixteen years old. A
senior officer came up and let me know in no uncertain terms that I needed to
stand behind the line. My blood began to boil. But there is little glory in getting arrested at 9 AM and being off the streets, especially over a conflict I have witnessed so many times. Few street
activists see any need to apply for a permit for a right we already have in the
first amendment. But the police see
things differently. Our idea of first
amendment expression is their idea of disorderly conduct. So I stepped back. The anti’s prayed in the streets; their
minions tried to intercept those going in for care, and clinic escorts from
Brooklyn Pro Choice Network did their work, making sure those who needed care
got it. But it was a fight. And the police certainly had taken a side. And
members of the RMO played their songs, including “We Shall Overcome” and most
importantly, “Whose Side are You On?”
The Rude Mechanical Orchestra (RMO) and the Church
Ladies each use songs as a component of their street theatre. Dressed in green and black marching band
uniforms, RMO members performed Salt and Peppa’s “Push It” injecting the words
“Hands off Our Bodies” into the chorus to drive home their manifesto.
Throughout the years, the Church Ladies have offered
parodies of popular traditional songs with gay and pro-choice lyrics. “If You
are Happy and You Know It” was sung to the words, “If you are Pro Choice and
You know It – Kiss a Dyke.” The Woody
Guthrie anthem “This Land is My Land” is framed as a pro choice anthem:
This womb is my womb
It is not your womb
And there is no room for
Bishop Caggiano
From
Flushing Meadow on Down to Bay Ridge
These
wombs were made to be free!
As
I was walking up to a clinic,
I
got socked by a psycho-Catholic
He showed me pictures and
showed me lies
I said my womb belongs to me refrain (Church Ladies hymnal, P. 6).
The Rude Mechanical
Orchestra’s performance climaxed with a rendition of the 1980’s heavy metal
anthem 'We're Not Going to Take It' as the anti-choice contingent, still
praying, departed the scene.
Of course, this cultural activism campy not a new
approach. US anarchist Emma
Goldman brought the same ingredients to her early-Twentieth-century struggle
for reproductive freedoms. In February
1916, Goldman was arrested while speaking about abortion, in violation of the
Comstock Law. After her arrest she
explained that the battle over birth control had become: “a war of the
oppressed and the disinherited of the
earth against their enemies, capitalism and the state, a war for a seat
at the table of life, a war for well being, for beauty, for liberty.” She concluded, “Above all this war is for a
free motherhood and a joyous, playful, glorious childhood.”
For Goldman, whose work helped establish
the foundations for both anarcha feminism and queer theory, an anti-capitalist
critique overlapped with the pursuit of a richer experience of the world on
one’s own terms. Much of Goldman’s philosophy was based on a broad belief in
personal freedom. For Goldman, joy and justice intermingled, neither able to
exist without the other. Today, Goldman’s adage on dance and revolution
provides the underpinnings for the street party-style protest of Reclaim the
Streets and the global justice “movement of movements”. OWS celebrates this approach, yet the movement is still in the process of connecting the dots between reproductive autonomy, freedom of space, and bodies.
Over the years, advocates such as the
Singing Nun, Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman sacrificed everything to
challenge the pseudo morality of the Comstock law which linked discussion of
reproductive health with obscenity. In the years to follow, queer
activists would continue to battle the prohibitive politics of Comstock’s
ilk. Taking
apart the arguments of the self appointed moralists, would remain an ongoing target of queer politics and activism. Current battles over abstinence-only sex education mirror much of this the
struggle between supporters of sexual self determination and advocates of
social control dating back to the Comstock era.
This
struggle against the anti’s challenges a cultural body shame, resentment, and
docile approach to living. The point of
social movements is to challenge this.
Leaving the clinic defense, we rode for breakfast and then to take part
in the OWS summer civil disobedience school.
We found SCDS meeting at Times Square where activists defiantly
challenged the sense that Times Square is a depoliticized shopping space, as
Comstock’s cultural inheritor, Rudy Giuliani hoped it would be. The group held rally and hung gong in the
space.
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OWS Summer Civil Disobedience School byMickey Z-Vegan |
Finishing
summer civil disobedience school, we rode to ABC No Rio to pick up the sound bike. We would bring it along for part two the body
autonomy ride in solidarity with World Naked Bike Ride. Themes
this year included the struggle for freedom of bodies from police, stop and frisk,
and the state. We called the ride
body autonomy to celebrate the practice of freedom of bodies, safety of
bodies. While some go naked many others
simply arrive and take off a shirt.
Other cities, such as London witness thousands naked. Yet, we still have to
fight our cities prohibitive puritanical ilk.
Yet,
with each smile and celebration, we break this down just a little bit more. Throughout
the ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back, car drivers honked and people
laughed, smiled and cheered the naked and semi clad riders dancing and singing
as they rode through the naked city. \
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| This blogger's message by Cara Hartley |
What a day. I'd love to spend a Saturday riding through NYNY with you.
ReplyDelete