Singer Cyndi Lauper is going all in for abortion with the launch of her new initiative, “Girls Just Want To Have Fundamental Rights.”
The 69-year-old activist revealed that her late mother, Catrine, was the inspiration behind this latest endeavor, which was named after her iconic 1983 song, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.”
“If you don’t have control over your own body, how can you be anything but a second-class citizen? Now, the government has control over your body — not you,” Lauper told People. “What should be a private medical decision between you and your doctor is now a government decision.”
The organization is being launched in collaboration with the Tides Foundation and aims to “support organizations fighting for the right to abortion and reproductive healthcare.” The singer said it’s a direct response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in June.
The slogan that matches the organization’s name originally appeared on T-shirts at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C.
“When most women would say, ‘What are you, a feminist?’ And people would go, ‘Well, I’m really a humanist.’ I would say, ‘Yeah, I’m a feminist. I burned my training bra,’” Lauper told People. “Then in 2017, I saw these young girls with these ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights’ signs, and I felt like, ‘You know what? It was all worth it.’ The little ones, they heard me.”
The singer discussed how her mother being in a messy relationship with her step-father, plus going through a difficult divorce, was part of the inspiration for her to become a feminist.
“I got to see firsthand the inequalities and the dichotomy of what it was like to be a woman in the world,” she said. “In a lot of ways, I’m glad I knew at a very young age. I had a very low level for BS.”
Catrine died earlier this year at the age of 91 after battling Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, the publication noted.
“[My mom] was in hospice, and we were together. We tried to make it as comfortable as I could for her. We made it like a spa,” Lauper continued. “She was incredible, and I’m just lucky that I got to have her as my mom because it inspired me to do so many things, including this Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Rights Fund.”
Lauper is also releasing an acoustic version of her song “Sally’s Pigeons,” which is about a teenager dying after getting a back-alley abortion, in tandem with the launch of her new fund.
“I just really, really believe that in the United States, we can regain the right to choose and, one day, actually attain and secure full equality for women,” the singer concluded. “That’s been my main thing my whole life — wanting to be equal.”
