On Tuesday afternoon May 21 approximately a thousand people gathered in front of Seattle’s City Hall to protest the unconstitutional attacks on women’s reproductive rights that have been recently signed into law in several states. Currently eight states have passed blatantly unconstitutional laws restricting when a woman can have an abortion. Some states are imprisoning women for having miscarriages. One republican senator even claimed an ectopic pregnancy should be re-implanted in the womb. The ignorance of these mostly old white men passing these laws is astounding. Even more shameful is that one of the strictest laws was signed by a woman governor. Today’s event was just one of several NARAL sponsored rallies happening at noon local time across the country.
Although a thousand may seem like a decent turnout for a mid-week, mid-day event, I can’t help but be frustrated that an estimated 700 thousand congregated in downtown Seattle in 2015 for a victory parade after the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. People skipped work, skipped school to honor a football team, but can’t be bothered to participate in an event to save democracy. More people attend mid-week day time sporting events than show up for political rallies. This is why we are now in the throes of fascism.
Nonetheless, those who showed were very lively and enthusiastic. The crowd was comprised of mostly women though there were a fair number of men in attendance. Some women wore pussy hats and a few wore the red robes associated with A Hand Maid’s Tale. Some women got up to share personal stories of getting an abortion. One woman learned she was pregnant while she was still in graduate school and knew if she went through with the pregnancy she would end up dropping out of school. Another woman spoke of the discovery of a fetal abnormality that meant the baby would die soon after birth. In some states a woman is now required to carry that baby to term and deliver a baby only to watch it die.
Mayor Jenny Durkin was one of the speakers and told the crowd that when she was asked what she thought of the fetal heart beat laws, her response was, if a woman has a heart beat than you have no right to be in her bedroom. This brought raucous cheers. She then led chants of we won’t go back. We will only go forward. A Unitarian ordained minister was another speaker. He was the one who claimed these laws are taking us back to the dark ages. He added that if your clergy member doesn’t support feminism, ask why not.
In 1993 I suffered a miscarriage. The medical term is missed abortion as the embryo died at about six weeks gestation. I chose a D&C, which is an abortion rather than let the embryo expel naturally. I wanted to get it over with. Now in some states this won’t be permitted and doctors can be jailed for up to 99 years for performing an abortion.
The people (and I use that term loosely here as their behavior is anything but humane) passing these laws don’t care about life as they claim. If they were truly pro-life they would fight for universal health care and even more importantly, they would fight for stricter gun laws. Guns kill babies with heat beats who are living and breathing. Now it is easier to get a gun than get an abortion. This is an outright war on women. Women are gaining momentum in the work force, having successful careers in all fields and these old men feel emasculated. They want women back in the home caring for the children, caring for them, and being ready, willing and able when man feels like spreading his seed or simply getting his rocks off. That is what these laws are about.
The rally ended with instructions on what we can do to fight these laws, which are getting challenged in court. We can attend rallies, write our elected officials, write letters to news outlets and most importantly, make your voice heard at the ballot box.
There are other events relating to these atrocious laws coming in the near future. Go to NARAL’s web page and they have a list of upcoming events. We must make our voices heard.
– All photos property of Holly Homan, all rights reserved.
