“Girls just wanna have fun“, “True Colors” Where “Time after time”… Cyndi Lauper is at the origin of many hits but she has also been a committed artist for decades. On Tuesday, October 11, she took a new step by launching an abortion assistance fund in the United States, a country where in June the Supreme Court decided to delegate the management of this right to the States and therefore no longer guaranteed at the national level. Since then, 13 out of 50 states have banned abortion almost completely, others are preparing for it and Cyndi Lauper explains that, at 69, she could not sit idly by. “It is a political subject of citizenshipshe told People magazine, what should be a private, medical discussion between you and your doctor becomes a government affair, the government wants to control our bodies. But if you don’t have control over your own body, how can you be anything other than a second-class citizen?“
Cyndi Lauper aims for equal rights, she has often said so. Already in 1991 she wrote a song about abortion. For 30 years, she has been part of all demonstrations for women’s rights. In recent years, she has heard young people in processions singing “Girls just wanna have…fundamental rights” – girls just want to have basic rights – thus reinventing his hit from 1983.
A song that was, moreover, not political at first but it was the reactions to the lyrics that made it a feminist anthem: “Pbecause I was told but how dare you say that girls should have fun? Girls should stay good, not scream, not mess up their hair, not have an abortion… Girls are not free to decide for themselves.
Forty years later, Cyndi Lauper is therefore launching this financial aid “Girls just wanna have fundamental rights“to support associations that help women access abortion safely: in real clinics with real doctors, not underground, not like before, with death at the end of the needle. Cyndi Lauper remains optimistic: “I truly believe, not only that we can reclaim our right to choose but that, one day, we will obtain total equality. This is the challenge of my life, equality!”