Mixed Media Collage No. 28

Birth Control | 2022 | Mixed media; newsprint, cut paper, printmaking ink, cardboard, acetate, oil paint pen, oil paint, and a rosary on BFK RIVES 100% cotton paper | 22.5 X 30 inches

January 22, 2022 | ROE V. WADE is 49 today; only two years older than I am.
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Is this issue about the sanctity of life? What about the life of a woman who has to make a choice? What about the life a teen girl who gets pregnant? What about the lives of mothers who are forced to carry babies to term that do not have the means or resources to care for them? We’re forcing them to carry these babies for other people to adopt? We expect women to do that? Be incubators? What if they can’t? What if they mentally can’t handle it? What if they’re being abused? What if being pregnant actually puts them in danger? What if carrying the baby will put them at greater risk of death? Do we value the lives of women less than the unborn babies we force them to carry? Do their lives matter?
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Will we promise to give these mothers and their children good education? A living wage? Healthcare? Daycare? Legal aid?
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The truth is, forced pregnancy is birth control. And controlling women is as old as time.

Original artwork © Erika Brask, 2021. All rights reserved. No part of this artwork may be reproduced or used in any form or through any means — graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, downloading, information storage, and retrieval systems — without written permission from the artist.