NO UTERUS, NO OPINION - HOW CAN BRANDS HELP?

Not your body, not your choice. No justification needed. On Tuesday night, Alabama voted to outlaw abortion entirely, along with Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia and Ohio, and the majority of the people responsible for this law are old, white men. MEN. If i'm thinking correctly, I do not remember men being biologically able to undergo pregnancy, and therefore I am extremely baffled as to why they can comment, or let alone VOTE, on the debate, which will now ruin the lives of thousands of innocent women. Doctors who perform the procedure could go to prison for 99 years, simply for providing healthcare that every one in four american women undergo at some point in their lives, meanwhile a rapist will only be sentenced ten years, and usually is released in five. The topic has flooded social media and left the female community in a state of devastation and danger.

The main concern with this law is the rape victims. What do they do once they're raped, impregnated and forced to carry and deliver the baby of their rape victim, whether it be a stranger or even their father, which will be their duty to love, protect and raise without feeling guilty for abandoning a child that wasn't wanted by anybody in this world. For men, it is quite easy to make the decision of raising their child or not; you can walk away if you want, and pretend it never happened. Women, on the other hand, have no choice other than to put their child up for adoption, not to mention the foster care system fails to protect these helpless children, and 70% of children trafficked for sex or labor come from the system itself. Should women be locked up for 'murdering' undeveloped and unborn fetus' when their quality of life could potentially be so poor that it's not worth bringing them into the world, when it wasn't the women's choice to be pregnant in the first place? The realness of the situations evil effect was really put into perspective for me when I read a headline earlier today, reading 'A pregnant 11-year-old rape victim in Ohio would no longer be allowed to have an abortion under new state law'. ELEVEN YEARS OLD. An innocent, small child, raped, and now forced to raise that child when she is literally a child herself, and now her entire life could be ruined by this incident. MEN DID THIS. Many women have admitted that if they were being forced to have a baby after being raped because abortion was illegal and they could therefore go to prison, their two options would be the following: to obtain an abortion illegally which is extremely risky and unsafe, or to commit suicide. This new law is the cause of a near-future female suicide epidemic and the thought is terrifying. In a world where abortion laws are being passed before gun laws, what are we to do?

Now I have explained the disaster and it's repercussions, I want to talk about something else; with the power brands have on us psychologically, which brands can help address this situation effectively to get people talking more, get people more involved and change peoples perceptions, and how can they do this? I hope to see brands such as Always with their #LikeAGirl campaign and Sport England with 'This Girl Can' continue to support and empower women, generating and contributing to worldwide conversations that can result in CHANGE. I will respect every brand that becomes involved with the abortion-ban disagreement, because these efforts are what we need to see from such powerful voices.

LET'S SAY IT ONCE MORE FOR THE OLD WHITE MEN IN THE BACK!