Angel O'Brien
Artist Statement
The Abortion Poems is inspired by anti-choice laws that are being legislated in our country. Each is accompanied by a poem, two are included here. These are printed by hand in my darkroom in platinum/palladium.
If my breasts were smaller, located a bit lower and made sperm, instead of milk, I would not have to worry that laws existed, and new ones were being made to restrict, to determine what I could and could not do with my body, if as a fetus, my clitoris had continued to grow until it was a penis I would not have to worry that men were sitting in courthouses and staterooms, discussing how to curtail my bodily autonomy I would not have to worry whether my birth control was covered by my insurance company, nor would I have to worry about them not paying for Viagra, because they would know, those men with penises, how important it was to get it up, to show my manliness, if only I were a man, but I am a woman, where life begins, and I worry, I worry all the time because women are constantly being abused, manipulated and controlled, in the law, in our homes, in our workplaces, so men, I ask you when will it end? when will you believe that women own their bodies as much as you own yours?
In me, hundreds of thousands of eggs each month, another slowly bleeds, immense pain, unavoidable inconvenience inevitably join in, if perchance, egg meets sperm my choice is complex, pregnancy, birth, both are dangerous, in fifty-six countries women are less likely to die giving birth than here, the US, maybe these politicians, these men who want to save all the fetuses, should focus on making birth safer, particularly for Black women, who are three times more likely to die than if they were white, should we send all pregnant women to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain or even Saudi Arabia, all safer places to give birth than the United States of America with the Supreme Court thinking about forcing women to give birth, sentencing how many to death?
Angel O’Brien | Portland, OR