Lizzo pledges $500,000 to Planned Parenthood after US Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade
‘The most important thing is action and loud voices,’ singer says
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Your support makes all the difference.Lizzo has pledged to donate $500,000 (£407,000) to organisations supporting abortion rights after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on Friday.
The landmark ruling, handed down on 24 June, undoes an almost 50-year precedent in the US which made abortion a constitutional right.
The decision has been condemned by politicians, women’s rights groups, world leaders and other high-profile figures, with US President Joe Biden describing it as a “tragic error” that puts the health and lives of women at risk.
Taking to Twitter on Friday, the “About Damn Time” singer announced that she will be donating proceeds from her upcoming Special album tour to Planned Parenthood, a non-profit that offers reproductive healthcare.
She revealed that entertainment company Live Nation had agreed to match the generous donation, bringing the total up to $1 million (£815,000).
“The most important thing is action and loud voices,” Lizzo wrote in tweet, tagging Planned Parenthood and Abortion Funds, an organisation which provides financial aid to those seeking abortion access.
“Organisations like them will need funding to continue offering services to people who are most harmed by this ban,” the singer said.
“Black women and women of color have historically had disproportionately less access to family planning resources—this is a great loss but not a new one.”
Lizzo joins a long list of high-profile figures who have spoken out against the decision.
Also taking to Twitter on Friday, former First Lady Michelle Obama said she is “heartbroken” by the ruling and called on Americans to support organisations like Planned Parenthood.
“I am heartbroken for people around this country who just lost the fundamental right to make informed decisions about their own bodies,” she wrote.
“This is what our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers lived through, and now here we are again.”
Elizabeth Warren, a democrat senator, said in a statement that the ruling would “deny women the right to control their own bodies and futures”.
Research by Planned Parenthood estimates that the Supreme Court’s decision will restrict rights to abortion for approximately 36 million people across the US.
Ahead of the decision, 13 states had already put “trigger bans” in place that would ban abortions automatically or in the coming weeks if Roe v Wade was struck down.
These states are Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
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