A Chicago museum exhibit dedicated to Planned Parenthood featured rosaries, because Christianity is in the business of “controlling the bodies” of women, the exhibit’s plaque said.
The International Museum of Surgical Science’s “Unplanned Parenthood” exhibit featured letters women wrote to Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger in the 1920s asking for information about birth control.
Some of the letters were hung from crosses using rosary beads.
NEW: Rosary beads represent Christianity "controlling the bodies of birthing people" in this Planned Parenthood museum exhibit
At Chicago's International Museum of Surgical Science pic.twitter.com/n4CGmgSGcN
— Mairead Elordi (@JohnsonHildy) January 8, 2025
“The rosary beads serve as a reminder of the enduring influence of christianity [sic] in the United States, symbolizing the ways religious institutions have played in shaping societal norms and controlling the bodies of birthing people,” read the plaque for the exhibit.
“Birthing people” is a gender neutral term often used in place of “women” by those who espouse gender ideology.
The letters were embroidered onto vintage wedding dress fabric by volunteers in sewing circles around the country, the plaque said. The wedding dress material symbolizes the “societal expectations placed on women in the early 1900s.”
The fabric letters were then hung from porcelain backings, “evoking the fragility of the rights of people with uteruses,” while the backings have imagery from wedding cakes, lingerie, and jewelry, “serving as a commentary on the societal pressure placed on women to embrace marriage, often masking the limitations it imposed, particularly during the times when birth control and autonomy were denied.”
Meat hooks symbolized “the patriarchy.”
“Vintage meat hooks were used as symbols of the brutality of the patriarchy and the way men have treated the bodies of people with uteruses like animals,” the plaque said.
Chicago is one of the most Catholic cities in the country, with about a third of its residents identifying as Catholic.
One Catholic Chicago resident told The Daily Wire it was “heart-wrenchingly offensive” to think of his tax dollars going towards the display.
The museum has received government grants, including pandemic relief money.
“Worse, the use of the Catholic rosary and Crucifixes in the exhibit is a mockery of the Lord’s Mother and all of the prayers from all those who hold life sacred from conception,” he said, “something [about] 1.3 billion Catholics universally hold to, and an issue the Church is unwavering on.”
“It’s despicable what the City is supporting. Wasting our tax dollars to mock Catholics, and the desecrate to rosary,” the Catholic Chicagoan said, adding that he encourages the city’s two million Catholics to “vote accordingly.”
The museum said in a statement to The Daily Wire that the “views, statements, and ideas expressed in this exhibition are solely those of the artist” and the museum “does not endorse or promote any political or social beliefs presented in this exhibit.”
“The International Museum of Surgical Science supports a commitment to contemporary art and artists through exhibitions and programs that use the frame of contemporary artistic practice to examine new perspectives in medical and surgical science and our relationship to the body,” Director of Museum Operations Michelle Rinard said.
“We believe in the power of the arts to build community, inspire social change and bring fresh perspective to difficult and complex issues — including issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender identity and sexual orientation. IMSS seeks applications that address these issues,” Rinard said.
