Youth Incorporated Magazine

Hashtag #sexstrike and actress Alyssa Milano’s tweet is currently trending on Twitter. Alyssa’s tweet is a reaction to the new abortion law which is due implementation in the state of Georgia. Through this tweet, this famous actress and also a #MeToo activist, Alyssa Milano’s tweet is urging all the women in Georgia to go on a sex strike till the time the women are denied legal control over their own bodies.

The bill which is going to come into effect on 1^st January, 2020, popularly known as the ‘heartbeat bill’ bars women the right to abort as soon as a heartbeat gets detected, i.e. six weeks after getting pregnant, making it illegal.

Georgia has become the 4^th state in the US to ban abortion in this year after Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio. All the above have faced criticism. In Kentucky, the law was blocked by a federal judge, in Mississippi, the law is said to be implemented not till July and is facing challenges, and a similar restrictive law passed in Ohio was also vetoed by its governor.

The bill that is to be passed in Georgia was signed by Governor Brian Kemp and is scheduled to come into effect on 1^st January 2020. The reason why the bill has become a controversy is that most of the women are unaware of being pregnant until six weeks. It is when they start feeling the morning sickness that they realize they might be pregnant- this happens not before nine weeks. 

Raising her voice against the bill, Miss Milano tweeted “Until women have legal control over our own bodies we just cannot risk pregnancy.”  This tweet divided opinion on social media. It invited support as well as received backlash. Until now the tweet has received 35,000 likes and has been retweeted more than 12,000 times.

Alyssa Milano, however, is not the only celeb to have raised her voice against the bill. Other actors like Bette Midle, Amy Schumer, Christina Applegate, Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn too have contributed in protesting against the bill.