Here’s a late-breaking news bulletin in the form of a hip hop video from RVA MC Swordplay. He’s up in arms about the political activity going down here in Virginia, centered around issues relating to reproductive rights, and he and some friends wrote a song about it. The lyrics to “They May Try” feature an in-depth explanation of the situation, delivered in the form of a few intricately rhymed verses, but before you check out the video, let me try to explain what’s going on.
Here’s a late-breaking news bulletin in the form of a hip hop video from RVA MC Swordplay. He’s up in arms about the political activity going down here in Virginia, centered around issues relating to reproductive rights, and he and some friends wrote a song about it. The lyrics to “They May Try” feature an in-depth explanation of the situation, delivered in the form of a few intricately rhymed verses, but before you check out the video, let me try to explain what’s going on.
You may or may not have heard about the fact that the Virginia Board Of Health is making a decision tomorrow about new regulations on abortion clinics–the decision deals with whether or not state-approved abortion clinics are required to live up to the same standards required for new hospitals built within Virginia. If abortion clinics are held to these standards, most of the currently-operational clinics in the state will be forced to close. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has issued an official memo warning Board Of Health officials that they can expect harsh reprisal from the his department if they don’t pass these restrictive regulations.
Swordplay, Miss J, and the rest of the CoochWatch crew take exception to this action by the Attorney General, which, it can be argued, constitutes Cuccinelli overstepping the authority of his office to promote his own conservative political agenda. So they’ve made a video that explains in detail just how they feel, and we highly encourage you to check it out. I know not every one of our readers will agree with the political stance expressed by Swordplay and his collaborators in this video, but we here at RVA Magazine feel that it’s important to keep up with all sides of our city’s culture, even when it involves musicians taking a stand on the political issues that affect us all. So by all means check out this video, and pay attention to the stuff at the end about the Board Of Health meeting happening in Henrico County tomorrow–if you care about your right to choose when and how to reproduce, you need to be aware of the decisions being made in your name.
