Meena Harris, the niece of Vice President Kamala Harris, has joined her aunt in making abortion a central issue heading into November’s election.
In a guest column this week for Variety, Meena Harris used the new Broadway production of Cabaret as an opportunity to keep abortion front and center in the broader cultural conversation.
“Like any art, musicals can be intensely subjective experiences; it should be no surprise that some critics couldn’t see themselves in Sally the way I did,” she wrote. “And yet: it doesn’t take a female perspective to understand that in the wake of Dobbs, young American women are seeing this story in a new light.”
In Cabaret, Sally Bowles (played on Broadway by Gayle Rankin) becomes pregnant by an unknown father and contemplates having an abortion. Her close friend Clifford tries to convince her to have the baby, but she decides against it and goes through with the abortion, which occurs off-stage.
After her abortion, Meena Harris wrote, Sally Bowles feels like a modern woman.
She is “raw and real; more than likely in emotional and physical pain. She doesn’t sing, dance or exist to please others—including, it should be said, us in the audience. Instead, we see a woman who in spite of everything, has chosen herself. A woman who has chosen to survive.”
Harris continued:
“We all share the experience of being forced—or knowing that we could be forced any day—to make that kind of impossible decision. We all share a deep gratitude that such a choice is, for now, ours to make. And in carrying those contradictory feelings, we’re all tired of putting on a pretty face and pretending that everything is fine. That’s why this Sally feels like our Sally.”
In recent months, Vice President Kamala Harris has traveled the country pushing abortion — which she often refers to as “reproductive freedom” — in the apparent hope of rallying disenchanted Democrats around President Joe Biden, who is facing record-low approval numbers.
She recently visited Arizona following the state’s upholding of an 1864 law that bars nearly all abortions.
Kamala Harris’ “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms Tour” has targeted several battleground states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
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