About 1,000 rally for abortion justice at Bellingham City Hall
About 500 people chanted “My body, my choice!” as women’s rights activists gathered outside Bellingham City Hall at the 2 p.m. start Saturday, Oct. 2, of a planned rally and march to show support for abortion access nationwide in light of recent legislation that effectively bans the procedure in Texas.
The crowd approached 1,000 by 2:30 p.m. as the program of speeches and song was underway.
A handful of anti-abortion protesters were also on hand, with one incident involving confrontation they provoked, according to organizers.
“This is a crisis moment, and this is not a drill,” said a Planned Parenthood representative as anti-abortion antagonists attempt to disrupt the rally.
“At Mt. Baker Planned Parenthood, we are proud abortion providers,” she said, earning cheers from the audience. “Abortion care is healthcare.”
Among those presenting at the rally were the Raging Grannies group, who sang “Roe, Roe, Roe v. Wade — we thought the deal was done. Verily, verily, verily, verily, our rights may soon be gone.”
Bellingham resident Casaundra Liveboldly, who attended in a robe and collar reminiscent of Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said “I’m at an age where I can’t produce children, but I’m here on behalf of the rights of my children to be able to make the decision about what is best for their body.”
The event was part of more than 600 similar events sponsored by the group Women’s March across the country using the social media hashtag #RallyforAbortionJustice to highlight the restrictive Texas measure and others being considered in several states, said local organizer Jessica Demorest of Bellingham.
After a short program of speakers Saturday, sign-carrying marchers headed out on downtown sidewalks as the group didn’t have a parade permit.
Demorest told The Herald earlier that broad support is vital to reinforce that most Americans believe in reproductive freedom as the U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term Monday with several challenges to Roe v. Wade on its calendar.
“We want to be sure that the Supreme Court sees all of us who support access to abortion rights,” she said. “We’re not going to stay silent.”
National Women’s March
The first Women’s March of the Biden administration drew thousands to Washington, D.C., and other cities to demand continued access to abortion in a year when conservative lawmakers and judges have put it in jeopardy.
Many thousands of women filled a square near the White House for a rally before the march. They waved signs that said “Mind your own uterus,” “I love someone who had an abortion“ and “Abortion is a personal choice, not a legal debate,” among other messages. Some wore T-shirts reading simply “1973,” a reference to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which made abortion legal for generations of American women.
Organizers say the Washington march will be among hundreds of abortion-themed protests around the country Saturday. The demonstrations come days before the start of a new term for the Supreme Court that will decide the future of abortion rights in the United States, after appointments of justices by President Donald Trump strengthened conservative control of the high court.
The march is part of “a fight to secure, safeguard, and strengthen our constitutional right to an abortion,” Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March, said in a statement. “And it’s a fight against the Supreme Court justices, state lawmakers, and senators who aren’t on our side – or aren’t acting with the urgency this moment demands.”
The march comes a day after the Biden administration urged a federal judge to block the nation’s most restrictive abortion law, which has banned most abortions in Texas since early September. It’s one of a series of cases that will give the nation’s divided high court occasion to uphold or overrule Roe v. Wade.
The Women’s March has become a regular event – although interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic – since millions of women turned out in the United States and around the world the day after the January 2017 inauguration of Trump. Trump endorsed punishing women for getting abortions and made appointment of conservative judges a mission of his presidency.
Without Trump as a central figure for women of varied political beliefs to rally against, and with the pandemic still going strong, organizers talked of hundreds of thousands of participants nationally Saturday, not the millions of 2017.
— Associated Press
This story was originally published October 2, 2021 at 1:58 PM.
