Cross posted from my
blog:
This Sunday, people from around the country will descend on Washington D.C. for the March for Women's Lives. The demonstration promises to be the largest reproductive freedom demonstration in years, with anywhere from five hundred thousand to one million people expected. With over 1,000 co-sponsors, the protest is expected to reflect the broad diversity of the pro-choice movement.
For the first time,
organizations primarily led by women of color have taken major leadership rolls. This has broadened the message of the demonstration:
Silvia Henriquez, executive director of the Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and member of the steering committee, predicts that the focus on reproductive rights as part of a broader context will attract substantial numbers of Hispanic women. "Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnicity in the country, and in the next twenty years millions of Latinas are going to be looking to raise their families in safe, healthy environments with full access to education and healthcare," she says, adding, "it's not that Latinas don't support abortion, or don't care about that issue. They do Â- but they tend to think of reproductive rights as part of their overall human rights and those of their families."
-snip-
"I firmly believe that if the politicians could figure out a way to make abortion illegal for white women but not women of color, they'd be sending limos to take us to the clinics," says [Loretta Ross, executive director of the National Center for Human Rights Education]. She wants more discussion on the lack of choices for low-income women, believing that many choose abortion precisely because they have no other option. "This collective supports women's right to have an abortion, but we've got to recognize that reproductive justice means the right to have a child as well as the right not to have a child. How many women who want to parent don't because they can't afford it? What social services are there to help them?"
Moving from a simple "pro-choice" message to "Reproductive Justice" is a important move for thefeministt movement in the United States.
The demonstration couldn't happen at a more important time. The Bush Administration has made a major connerstone of their domestic agenda the erosion of abortion rights. Necessary for firing up their religious base, the President has declared his intention to nominate an anti-choicenomineee to the Supreme Court.
Of course, it's not just happening at the federal level. Abortion rights have been under attack at all levels:
"In the past few years, federal and state governments have systematically stripped away women's reproductive rights," charged Kate Michelman, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
"The American people deserve to know what steps Vice President Cheney had in mind when he told an audience of anti-choice activists that 'America still has some distance to travel,'" said Michelman, in reference to comments made by Cheney late Tuesday.
She noted Justice Department efforts to gain access to women's medical records in a lawsuit involving late-term abortions, and nominations of US federal judges opposed to abortion.
Michelman said the development amounts to an effort by Bush to remove women's right to choose between motherhood or not.
Smeal warned that forced closure of abortion clinics -- either because of violence from anti-abortion activists, or through lack of funds -- could happen. Around 2,000 such clinics operate in the United States, she said.
"The government's attacks have been relentless," added Michelman.
This is an important demonstration. Will you be there?