Press release

Statement from Womb Riot demanding radical eco-political reforms now

Thanks to our reporter Lauren Beukes for bringing this to our attention.

By Lauren Beukes

We are Womb Riot, a group of 18 women and non-binary people with wombs, who have been working as human incubators for the wealthy of Lovelace Two, the fifth-largest colony state on Mars, and the most exclusive.

Our unborn charges include the heirs to some of the greatest tech dynasties, including the granddaughter of Dylan Okereke-Clifford, and the triplets of X Æ and his husband, Li Ma. As of this morning at 05h47, we have barricaded ourselves in the aerial suite of the Ambani Stadium floating above Ascraeus Mons.

The Deimos Dervishes will not be playing their scheduled game against the New York Yankees today. Nor will the rich parents who have plundered our planet have their developing foetuses safely returned to them. Not until they are willing to take action, to instigate meaningful, grand-scale change. Now.

Like our colleagues who serve as organ hosts (COHOs), we have lived our lives as pampered human nests under terrible strictures that infringe on our human rights, our freedom of movement, and our freedom of choice. To those who say we chose to put ourselves in this position to be exploited, we say an unjust society offers no choice. We live in a world where billions barely survive in abject poverty amid desertification and rising seas and temperatures, pummelled by unending natural disasters.

The rich have taken our future from us. We are only returning the favour.

Our demands are simple, as they are old as time. We demand equality for all, the right to clean water, food, safety, security, bodily autonomy, and the chance to pursue happiness for ourselves and our children, without having to surrender ourselves to the whims of the wealthy and privileged few.

What does this mean in practice?

We demand that the tech dynasties and conglomerates acknowledge the anger of the people and immediately cease the violent suppression of the X-tinction Riots playing out across Earth.

We demand the immediate release of X-tinction leaders including but not limited to Charne Allais, Kim Ahn and D’Angelo Greenwood, who are being held in inhumane conditions in Jakarta, Medellín, Detroit and beyond.

We demand that the tech dynasties surrender their assets equal to 80 per cent of their accumulated wealth and that this money be immediately redistributed for ecological reparations under the guidance of X-tinction and their various NGO partners as per the Accra Papers of 2088.

We demand that Teslamerica shuts down the A-93 SRM mirror that has been climate-privileging North America.

If these demands are not met, we will start to terminate these pregnancies, one at a time.

We know they will be coming for us; special forces and private security armed with non-lethal weapons they hope will subdue us, and lethal ones for when that proves futile.

This is why we have chosen to place ourselves in the world’s eye, in the glass VIP box of the Ambani Stadium, accessible only by air. We are not afraid. We want you to see what they are capable of, how far they will go. We want you to see that we will not stand down. For all our futures.

We are Womb Riot. We demand change.

You made it to the end of the century!