Mark Ruffalo has some thoughts about your biscuit. Thankfully, he doesn’t have strong feelings about what you should or should not do with your reproductive system, and that’s just the point. Ruffalo wrote an open letter defending a woman’s right to choose, and it was read at a pro-choice rally in Mississippi over the weekend. Mississippi has declared war on women’s reproductive systems for a while now, and there’s only one abortion clinic left in the state (and the state government is actively trying to shut it down). So, Ruffalo’s letter was read outside of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Here’s the letter:

I am a man. I could say this has nothing to do with me. Except I have two daughters and I have a mother who was forced to illegally have an abortion in her state where abortion was illegal when she was a very young woman. It cost $600 cash. It was a traumatizing thing for her. It was shameful and sleazy and demeaning. When I heard the story I was aghast by the lowliness of a society that would make a woman do that. I could not understand its lack of humanity; today is no different.

What happened to my mother was a relic of an America that was not free nor equal nor very kind. My mother’s illegal abortion marked a time in America that we have worked long and hard to leave behind. It was a time when women were seen as second rate citizens who were not smart enough, nor responsible enough, nor capable enough to make decisions about their lives. It was a time that deserved to be left behind, and leave it behind we did, or so it seemed. We made abortion and a woman’s ability to be her own master a right. That right was codified into law. That law was the law of the land for decades.

My own mother fought to make herself more than a possession; she lived her life as a mother who chose when she would have children, and a wife who could earn a living if she so chose. I want my daughters to enjoy that same choice. I don’t want to turn back the hands of time to when women shuttled across state lines in the thick of night to resolve an unwanted pregnancy, in a cheap hotel room just south of the state line. Where a transaction of $600 cash becomes the worth of a young woman’s life.

So that is why I am lending my voice to you and your movement today. Because I actually trust the women I know. I trust them with their choices, I trust them with their bodies and I trust them with their children. I trust that they are decent enough and wise enough and worthy enough to carry the right of Abortion and not be forced to criminally exercise that Right at the risk of death or jail time.

There was no mistake in us making abortion legal and available on demand. That was what we call progress. Just like it was no mistake that we abolished institutional racism in this country around the same time. The easy thing to do is lay low, but then are we who we say we are? Do we actually stand for anything, if what we do stand for is under attack and we say nothing? There is nothing to be ashamed of here except to allow a radical and recessive group of people to bully and intimidate our mothers and sisters and daughters for exercising their right of choice. Or use terrorism and fanaticism to block their legal rights or take the lives of their caregivers. Or design legislation that would chip away at those rights disguised as reinforcing a woman’s health.

I invite you to find your voice and let it be known that you stand for abortion rights and the dignity of a woman to be the master of her own life and body. I invite you to search your soul and ask yourself if you actually stand for what you say you stand for. Thank you for being here today and thank you for standing up for the women in my life.

[Ruffalo’s open letter, via HuffPo]

I’ve been feeling this for a long time, but I think it needs to be said again – the modern women’s rights movement, especially the pro-choice movement, needs to organize itself more like the LBGT movement and publicly invite “allies” of the cause to speak up. You don’t need a vagina to have an opinion about women’s reproductive rights (and that’s certainly not stopping the anti-choice advocates). I wish more men would come out and publicly proclaim their pro-choice-ness. Yay for Ruffalo.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.