Actress Michelle Williams delivered a powerful speech about women’s rights at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards on Sunday. 

Williams accepted her award for Best Actress in a Limited Series for her role as Gwen Verdon in Fosse/Verdon. During her speech, she spoke about women’s rights, voting, and motherhood. Williams said she owes her career to the choices she has been able to make as a woman with access to reproductive health care. 

“I'm grateful for the acknowledgement of the choices I've made and I'm also grateful to have lived in a moment in our society where choice exists,” she said, “because as women and as girls, things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice.” 

Williams noted that she has always tried her best to take control of her life, regardless of how “messy and scrawling” it can get at times, adding that access to reproductive rights played a significant role in helping her achieve her professional accomplishments.

“I wouldn't have been able to do this without employing a woman's right to choose. To choose when to have my children, and with whom,” she continued.

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

Hundreds of thousands of women and girls around the world currently lack access to reproductive rights and health care, which hinders their ability to stay in school and places their lives at risk. Access to reproductive health services is key to helping girls continue their education and is a proven way of reducing poverty. 

Williams went on to encourage women to vote on behalf of reproductive health and women’s rights, especially in a time when those rights are gradually being rolled back in several states. 

“So women, 18 to 118, when it is time to vote please do so in your own self-interest. It's what men have been doing for years, which is why the world looks so much like them,” she said. 

“But don't forget, we are the largest voting body. Let's make it look more like us.”