2023-09-28 09:36:34
“A child is a choice, abortion is a right.” Stickers bearing this message for the right to abortion were stuck overnight from Wednesday to Thursday on all Vélib’ stations in the capital by 190 activists from the feminist association #NousToutes. In all, “25,000 pro-choice stickers were stuck,” explains a press release from the organization this morning.
This action comes “in response to the sticking of stickers against the right to abortion on Vélib’s by an anti-abortion group”, which caused controversy last May and June. Messages reading “what if you had let him live?” », had been posted on bicycles in Paris, but also in Lyon.
“Let’s give women the right to choose”
Met this Thursday morning at a Vélib’ station in Jaurès, Samy prefers these labels to the previous ones. “It’s not degradation, it’s an opportunity to send a message,” greets the thirty-year-old. “I agree 100%,” adds Bruno, who lives in Lisbon, next to him. Let’s give women the right to choose, let’s stop imposing on them choices made most of the time by male politicians! »
Adèle is in a bit of a hurry and is having trouble finding a bike this morning. “But I find that these labels are a good response to the opposite campaign carried out a few months ago. Vélib’s travel everywhere in Paris, they are used a lot, it’s an interesting means of communication. »
The action of recent hours, carried out by the local committee #NousToutes Paris 15-16, was financed by an online prize pool, which made it possible to raise 1,200 euros.
The stickers note that in places the stickers were quickly torn off and say that three activists suffered a violent altercation in the 15th arrondissement.
“The three of us arrived at a station where all the Vélib’s were covered with stickers of the student cockade (far-right student organization, Editor’s note),” says one of them. “A group of a dozen young people arrived and wanted to take off our stickers. They were very aggressive and surrounded us, there was a stampede. We left quickly.”
#NousToutes recalls that the right to abortion is still in danger, citing countries where it has recently been called into question, such as the United States, Poland and Hungary. The organization calls for its inclusion in the Constitution, recalling that “grassroots associations demonstrate increasingly difficult access to abortion” and that “anti-choice movements have significant resources”.
She also calls for people to join the demonstrations planned in several cities in France this Thursday for the right to abortion. In Paris, a demonstration organized by the Abortement en Europe collective will leave at 6:30 p.m. from Place de la République.
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