Women rights are human rights - the desired cultural shift Rights which Merck’s More than a Mother campaign aims to uplift Rights where no relationship is laden with grief and rift Rights where no woman withers childless for eternity downshift Rights where no woman is subjugated and abandoned adrift The call of our time is real, loud, clear and swift The point is, respect and dignity is women rights and not a gift
We must vanquish the cultural dogma A culture that promotes childlessness as the vehicle for stigma A culture that generates the blaming of women as an enigma A culture where men and even some societies huff and puff magma A culture that inflicts physical and psychological harm beyond stigma Good riddance to dogma and stigma, and wheel in social kerygma Merck’s More than a Mother is replacing stigma with carta de magna
Stonewalling the cry of the childless has consequences Ostracism and cultural exclusion are the dreaded effluence That Merck More than a Mother will conquer via idea confluence The African Fertility Society is engaged to impact and influence National awareness, policies and legislation to achieve congruence Needed to generate harmonious social affluence To wrap Merck’s more than a Mother campaign with excellence
Jacqueline can be born again as a self-sufficient entity In the kingdom where child pursuit isn’t the identity Where no machete shall ever wipe out any fingerprint identity We shall collectively craft and deepen Jackie’s new identity To instill self-belief and empowerment to nourish that identity And ultimately, to immortalize her new unique identity
No woman should ever live under the cosh Women shall be liberated from the slosh Jacqueline is now on her way out of the tosh Uganda’s Berna is already empowered and posh Grace’s fruit and vegetable stall in Nairobi is no bosh Noonkipa’s dairy cows generate for her enough dosh So the Masai woman is no man’s nosh Yes, at last the shame of infertility has met its kibosh.
Author: Dr James Olobo-Lalobo, Vice President, Africa Fertility Society