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[Sonya Renee at the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals 2006]
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Culturally diversified bi-racial girl
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with a small diamond nose ring and a pretty smile
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poses beside the words "Women Deserve Better".
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And I almost let her non-threatening grin begin to
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infiltrate my psyche til I read the unlikely smallprint at the bottom of the ad:
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"Sponsored by the US Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities and the Knights of Columbus"
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on a bus in a city with a population of 563,000
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4 teenage mothers on the bus with me.
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1 Latino woman with 3 children under 3 and no signs of a daddy.
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One 16 year old black girl
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standing in 22 degree weather
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with only a sweater and a bookbag and a basinette with an infant that aint even 4 weeks yet
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tell me that yes, women do deserve better.
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Women deserve better than
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public transportation rhetoric from the same people who wont give that teenage mother a ride to the next transit.
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Wont let you talk to their kids about safer sex.
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Have never had to listen as the door slams behind the man who adamently says that shit aint his.
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leaving her to wonder how she'll raise this kid.
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Women deserve better than the $300 TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] and AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children ] will provide that family of 3
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Or the $6 an hour job at KFC with no benefits for her new baby
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or the college degree she'll never see because you cant have infants at the university.
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Women deserve better than lip service paid for by politicians
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who have no alternatives to abortion
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though I'm sure right now one of their 17 year old daughters is sitting
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in a clinic lobby sobbing quietly and anonymously
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praying parents dont find out
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or is waiting for mom to pick her up because
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research shows that out of wedlock childbirth dont look good on political polls and Bush aint havin that.
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women deserve better than patchwork governmental policies
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that dont want to pay for welfare for kids
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or healthcare for kids
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or childcare for kids
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dont want to pay living wages to working mothers
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dont want to make men who only wanna be last nights lovers responsible for the semen they lay
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Just flat out dont wanna pay for shit.
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They want to control the woman who's having it.
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Acting outraged at abortion
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Well I'm outraged that they want us to believe that they believe that women deserve better
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the Vatican wont prosecute pedophile priests
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but I decide I'm not ready for motherhood and its condemnation for me?
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These are the same people who wont support national condom distribution
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to prevent teenage pregnancy
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but women deserve better.
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Women deserve better than back alley surgeries that leave our wombs barren and empty
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deserve better than organizations bearing the name of land stealing, racist, rapists
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funding million dollar campaigns on subway trains
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with no money to give these women
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while balding middle aged white men tell us what to do with our bodies
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while they wage wars and kill other people's babies.
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so maybe women deserve better than propaganda and lies to get into office.
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Propaganda and lies to get into panties
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to get out of court
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to get out of paying child support
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GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR DECISIONS AND GIVE US BACK OUR VOICE
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Women do deserve better
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Women deserve choice.
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[cheers]