Actress Michelle Williams is making an impassioned plea for abortion rights, saying she wouldn’t have been able to live a life of her own making without “employing a woman’s right to choose.”
“When you put this in someone’s hands, you’re acknowledging the choices that they make as an actor — moment by moment, scene by scene, day by day — but you’re also acknowledging the choices they make as a person,” Williams said as she was honored at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards for her role in FX’s “Fosse/Verdon.”
Williams took home the trophy in the “best performance by an actress in a limited series or motion picture made for television” category.
The 39-year-old performer, who’s pregnant with her second child, told the audience she was “grateful to have lived at a moment in our society when choice exists because as women and as girls things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice.”
“I’ve tried my very best to live a life of my own making and not just a series of events that happened to me but one that I could stand back and look at and recognize my handwriting all over,” Williams said. “Sometimes messy and scrawling, sometimes careful and precise, but one that I had carved with my own hand. And I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a women’s right to choose.”
Cries of “Preach!” could be heard when Williams paused before continuing her remarks.
“To choose when to have my children and with whom, when I felt supported and able to balance our lives knowing as all mothers know that the scales must and will tip towards our children,” Williams said.
“Now I know my choices might look different than yours,” the actress said, “but thank god or whoever you pray to, that we live in a country founded on a principle that I’m free to live by my faith and you’re free to live by yours.”
“So women 18 to 118, when it’s time to vote, please do so in your own self-interest,” Williams said to applause. “It’s what men have been doing for years, which is why the world looks so much like them,” she added.
“But don’t forget we are the largest voting body in this country — let’s make it look more like us.”