My Body No Choice

My Body No Choice is a 2022 American stage drama made up of eight collected monologues. The show was created and directed by Molly Smith, the Artistic Director of Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Each of the monologues that make up the play were commissioned from eight different female playwrights. The play was created in opposition of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which effectively overturned the constitutional right to abortion that had been established by Roe v. Wade in 1973. During the same time that it was being shown at Arena Stage, twenty other venues across the United States put on a production of the play. Background In June of 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its judgement in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, . The Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade (1973) on the grounds that the substantive right to abortion was not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history or tradition", nor considered a right when the Due Process Clause was ratified in 1868. The court said this "right" was unknown in U.S. law until Roe v. Wade. The court held that the constitution did not include an individual's right to abortion. This decision also overruled Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), and upended more than two decades of federal policy and medical practice. The ruling returned to individual states the power to regulate any aspect of abortion not protected by federal law. Molly Smith, Artistic Director of Arena Stage, commissioned eight playwrights to write monologues in response to this action. The works were to be produced together under the title No Body No Choice. The stage show was premiered in an October to early November run in 2022 at the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle in Washington, D.C., part of the Arena Stage complex. More than twenty readings and productions were also held in various universities and theaters across the country, in an artists' response to the ruling.