Golden Globes: Michelle Williams Speaks Out for Abortion Rights, Calls on Women to Vote (Video)

“Thank God, or to whomever you pray to, that we live in a country founded on the principal that I am free to live by my principals and you are free to live by yours,” actress says

Accepting the Golden Globe for actress in a limited series or television movie, Michelle Williams gave a heartfelt, powerful speech in which she defended the constitutional right to an abortion and implored women to vote “in your own self-interest.”

Williams, who won for FX”s “Fosse/Verdon,” first thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for “the acknowledgment of the choices I’ve made” as an actor, and then added that she is “grateful to have lived in a moment in our society where choice exists.”

Noting that “as women, and as girls, things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice,” Williams said that she has “tried my very best to live a life of my own making, and not just a series of events that have happened to me, but one that I could stand back and look at and recognize my handwriting all over, sometimes messy and scrawling, sometimes careful and precise, but one that I have carved with my own hand.”

The four-time Oscar-nominee then said her life would not have been possible “without employing a woman’s right to choose. 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 tilt towards our children.”

“I know my choices might look different than yours, but thank God, or to whomever you pray to, that we live in a country founded on the principle that I am free to live by my principles and you are free to live by yours,” Williams continued.

She concluded with a full-throated plea for women to become more involved in the political process. “Women, 18 to 118, when it is time to vote, please do so in your own self-interest,” she said. “It’s what men have been doing for years. Which is why the world looks so much like them. But don’t forget, we are the largest voting body in the country. Let’s make it look more like us.”

Watch the full speech above.

Comments