Taylor Swift is using her platform to speak up against the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The singer quote tweeted Michelle Obama’s “heartbroken” message on the ruling adding her own commentary. “I’m absolutely terrified that this is where we are,” says Swift. “That after so many decades of people fighting for women’s rights to their own bodies, today’s decision has stripped us of that.”
Swift was long criticized for remaining apolitical in the public eye, but that changed in 2018 when she took a decisive stance against Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, who represents Swift’s home state of Tennesse.
The 2020 documentary Miss. Americana, directed by Lana Wilson, captured Swift’s decision to break her silence, with plenty of pushback from those in the room, most vocally her father. Wilson’s 2013 documentary After Tiller focused on the perils faced by abortion care providers, focusing primarily on George Tiller, a doctor who provided late-term abortions and who was assassinated in 2009.
That Swift chose to work with Wilson signals her political leanings, and in the documentary, the singer explains why she was afraid to use her voice previously. Growing up in Nashville when the Chicks were effectively excommunicated from the country music world for speaking up against George W. Bush, Swift feared similar repercussions.
“A nice girl smiles and waves and says thank you,” she said of the expectations she faced growing up in the country music world. “A nice girl doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable with her views.”
Well, in 2022, she’s not ready to make nice.