Waving a sea of pink and purple “Pro-Choice” signs, hundreds of thousands of abortion rights activists marched on the U.S. capital yesterday and warned President George W. Bush that “reproductive freedom” will be an issue in the fall election.
“We didn’t pick this fight, my gosh, but we’re going to win it,” said former Democrat Texas governor Ann Richards, who came with her daughters, daughters-inlaw and granddaughters. “We are in a battle in this country where none of us can rest.”
“I came because I believe Bush is going to take away our freedom of choice [by] appointing Supreme Court justices who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 decision guaranteeing right to an abortion, said Joyce Polak of Delray Beach, Fla. Recent public opinion polls have shown an increase in anti-abortion sentiment and apathy in a generation of young women who have grown up with abortion rights and take “choice” for granted. However, abortion rights leaders believe Mr. Bush has re-energized their movement by promoting a “pro-life” agenda, including signing a bill to ban so-called “partial birth abortions.” Attorney-General John Ashcroft’s plan to examine records of abortion clinics especially angered the abortion rights activists.
At the march, homemade signs said it all: “If Only Barbara Had Had a Choice.” “Vasectomies for Republicans.” “If You Can’t Trust Me With a Choice, How Can You Trust Me With a Child?” “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries.”
There were men wearing pink Tshirts saying “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like.” Angelic looking girls with T-shirts declaring “Vagina Warrior.” Expectant mothers carried signs saying “Pregnant by Choice.” Some women pushed babies in strollers. Others pushed their grandmothers in wheelchairs. College students wore Tshirts with pictures of coat hangers and the vow “Not In My Lifetime.” “Hey. Hey. Ho. Ho. George Bush has got to go,” they chanted. “Prolife. It’s a lie. You don’t care if women die.”
Whoopi Goldberg, Kathleen Turner, Ashley Judd, Heather Thomas and Cybill Shepherd were among the celebrities who took part.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton told several hundred women the issue was about full equality for their sex.
At a pre-rally breakfast, Mrs. Clinton said the Bush administration is filled with people who view Roe v. Wade as “the worst abomination of constitutional law.”
“This administration is filled with people who disparage sexual harassment laws, who claim the pay gap between women and men is phony ... who consider Roe v. Wade the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history,” the New York Democrat said.
Several hundred women, joined by a scattering of men, attended the breakfast. Rally organizers hoped the day’s protest would draw more people than the estimated 500,000 who demonstrated for abortion rights in 1992.
The National Park Service no longer gives crowd estimates but this throng filled the mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. Organizers said more than a million marched. Unidentified police sources said as many as 800,000 attended.
Marching near the White House and up Pennsylvania Avenue, the marchers passed a much smaller group of anti-abortion protesters who were scattered along the sidewalk and separated from the parade by barricades and police. Among them were women who had had abortions and regretted it; they dressed in black.
Police arrested 16 people from the Christian Defense Coalition for demonstrating without a permit and another anti-abortion protester for throwing ink-filled plastic eggs at rally signs.
From Associated Press |
