New York courthouse abortion statue honoring Ruth Bader Ginsberg called ‘satanic golden medusa’
Social media didn’t take too kindly to a new 8-foot statue outside a New York City courthouse.
The golden statue, done by Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander, has, per Fox News, “curling braids and tentacle-like arms rises from a lotus flower.”
It was created to pay homage to Ruth Bader Ginsberg and her fight for abortion. The statue even displays the late Supreme Court Justice’s signature lace collar.
“She is a fierce woman and a form of resistance in a space that has historically been dominated by patriarchal representation,” said Sikander, who previously served on the New York Mayoral Advisory Commission of City Art, Monuments and Markers, told The New York Times. She said the work was called “NOW” because it was needed “now,” at a time when women’s reproductive rights were under siege after the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
However, some claim the statue features “demonic” imagery.
Per Fox, Sikander said the statue is part of an “urgent and necessary cultural reckoning underway as New York reconsiders traditional representations of power in public spaces and recasts civic structures to better reflect 21st-century social mores.”
It is the first female statue to become part of the courthouse’s plinths.
“Was there any public input whatsoever before a satanic golden medusa demon with tentacle arms was installed atop a downtown courthouse?,” NYC Councilwoman Vickie Paladino asked, per the news outlet.
“Who thinks this is okay? And how do we go about removing it?”