If you’ve binge-watched Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, yet, you know how eerily well it can hit home as a commentary on the way women’s health and reproductive rights are threatened today – and you’re not the only one who feels this way.
CNN reports that a group of around 30 women took to the US Capitol building on Tuesday to protest the Senate’s new health care bill, which would cause 22 million Americans to lose insurance by 2026, defund Planned Parenthood and make maternity and reproductive health coverage unaffordable for thousands of women – and the protesters made a major statement by wearing the same red robes and white bonnets as the characters in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Handmaids have arrived at the Capitol. #StandWithPP pic.twitter.com/8pnohO8fbm
— Planned Parenthood (@PPMHVAction) June 27, 2017
Also outside the Capitol w/ us – Handmaids, making a chilling statement about the GOP #HealthcareBill‘s cruel policies. #ProtectOurCare pic.twitter.com/LBCxj4XVtl
— NARAL (@NARAL) June 27, 2017
“We deduced to dress in the ‘Handmaids’-inspired costumes because the novel/television series presents a dystopia where women’s bodies are not their own,” Planned Parenthood volunteer Elena Lipsiea told CNN. “This narrative is all too real. We want our senators and administrators to know just how serious we take their legislation and our right to health care. The costumes make a visual statement and demonstrate how seriously we take this.”
For the uninitiated, The Handmaid’s Tale, which was originally a best-selling novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985, follows the women living in the Republic of Gilead – a dystopia where women, a.k.a. Handmaids, are property and only used for reproduction. Unfortunately, it’s also super relevant considering the fact that women’s health care faces a very real threat right now.
Thankfully, the Senate has also announced that the vote has been postponed due to lack of support for the bill – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep speaking up and demanding that our legislators listen.