Hole’s Courtney Love and Melissa Auf Der Maur to Reunite for Benefit Show: ‘We Have to Protect Each Other’
Courtney Love is lending her ferocious voice to fight for women’s rights to healthcare and family planning. The Hole frontwoman is reuniting with bassist Melissa Auf der Maur to perform a benefit concert called Bans Off My Body on March 14 for Planned Parenthood of Greater New York.
“I have in my life had access to great, free, women’s reproductive health care, and have also had none or very limited access to it, for most of my teens and 20s, leading bands, writing music, being ***ually active. The restricted health care almost killed me! And the lack of education and information impacted my health,” Love explained in a statement. “There is no way as an American woman who got through it miraculously healthy, that I’m going to let other woman suffer.”
The singer, whose lyrics explore social topics from a feminist view, also explained that she wants the benefit show to educate today’s young women and let them know that help is available — and that they need to fight for it. She added: “Women’s clinics and the law are under attack — that means our mental and physical health is under attack, and we have to protect each other.”
Since Donald Trump became president, his administration has applied what Planned Parenthood refers to as a “gag rule” that would ban organizations from providing abortion referrals. This has led the non-profit to pull out of the federal family planning program known as Title X, from which it receives millions of dollars in funding each year, rather than comply with the rule.
“Following the November 2016 elections, I personally began to grow concerned with what negative affects an administration of this kind would have on the country,” Auf der Maur said in a statement. “When the questions around women’s rights to choose and reproductive rights [came up], the first thought I had, as the former bass player of Hole, was ‘time to get the band back together.’ I began to imagine Courtney and all of her complex feminist lyrics screaming at these old men who dared to judge what we should and should not have. I wanted to get back on stage supporting Hole’s legacy in being outspoken and fearless.”
Also set to perform at the benefit show are Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell and wife Etty Farrell, Betty, Rachael Yamagata and Joan As Police Woman. More guests are expected to be announced.
The concert will be held at Town Hall; tickets go on sale Thursday (Feb. 20) at 10:00 a.m. ET, and will be available at thetownhall.org.