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Last year, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2, one of the country’s most restrictive abortion laws, that ultimately resulted in the closure of more than half of the state’s abortion clinics. At present, there are between 12 abortion clinics to serve a reproductive age population of more than 27 million people. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court issued a stay of an appellate court’s ruling that would have forced even more clinics to close, offering a brief bit of hope to activists. At the front lines of this fight for abortion access in Texas is Nan Little Kirkpatrick.
Kirkpatrick is the executive director of the TEA Fund, a Dallas-based abortion fund. Like dozens of other funds across the country, Kirkpatrick’s organization provides small grants to pregnant people who cannot afford to pay for an abortion. A few of years ago, she picked up the bass and formed Frauen with local guitarist Mila Hamilton and drummer Brad Barker. For Kirkpatrick, the routine and outlet of making music provides necessary counterbalance to the uncertainty she wrangles with all day at work. While the content of Frauen’s music isn’t overtly political, it’s fundamentally rooted in the frustration and joys that come from Kirkpatrick’s work in the reproductive justice movement. "It feels like society is trying to take away the ability to just be a person in the world, and the lyrics are my way trying to resolve the anger that comes up around that."
Texas certainly isn’t the only part of the country where abortion access is under attack. Kirkpatrick works within the National Network of Abortion Funds. In Washington, D.C., Chrissy Ziccarelli does similar work with abortion funding, and like Kirkpatrick, she makes music to help sort it all out.
But if Frauen is a subtle expression of gender politics and reproductive justice, Ziccarelli’s music is an overt one. Along with bandmate Jason Mogavero, Ziccarelli formed Jack on Fire, a lo-fi glampunk act that’s heavy on the snark, and explicitly focused on the duo’s commitment to reproductive justice. Ziccarelli works as a case manager with the D.C. Abortion Fund, an entirely volunteer-run organization that provides funding to women in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. "The M.O. of our band is to say things that people are a little afraid to say, in a very tongue-in-cheek manner," says Ziccarelli. The two decided to get directly involved in making music about reproductive justice as The March for Life, an annual anti-choice rally held in D.C., was headed to town.
"We wanted to write an anthem to combat all this negative energy that these people brought to our city." The result was a flamboyantly pro-choice EP called Abortion Hooray!, which was Jack on Fire’s way of irreverently combatting the rhetoric of the anti-choice movement.
"It might not be safe to talk about these things in your everyday life," says Ziccarelli, "but having a song that unabashedly is able to say them is a place of relief. It’s a way to show your support for things that matter to you in a way that feels safer." But Ziccarelli’s bandmate Jason Mogavero also felt that the EP was important for an entirely different reason: it normalizes abortion as a part of life, not a tragedy.
"Even people on the left have a tendency to talk about abortion in hushed tones," says Mogavero. "That’s letting the anti-choicers win the argument. That’s letting them define the experience."
It’s probably a good thing that Mogavero and his bandmate are so passionate, because the anti-choice movement shows no signs of slowing down in its attacks on reproductive justice. At this point, only the Supreme Court could grant women who desperately need abortion procedures any reprieve, and there’s no clear sign that this current Court will have enough votes to do that. Which means that Nan Little Kirkpatrick and Chrissy Ziccarelli will be pulling double-duty, helping women practically access abortion and writing music that helps illuminate the frustration and joy that comes with the battle, for the foreseeable future.