From: nyxfer%panix.com@UMCVMB.missouri.edu (N.Y. Transfer)
Subject: NEWS: A million women march
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@UMCVMB.missouri.edu>
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 19:45:01 GMT



Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit

A million women march!

By Brenda Sandburg

Washington

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited.)

Nearly a million people, mostly women, marched on Washington April
5 to demand full reproductive rights for all women. It was the most
massive pro-choice demonstration ever, and one of the biggest civil
rights marches in U.S. history.

The participation of young women was especially noteworthy. They
came from communities and campuses across the country, in buses and
cars, by the dozens and hundreds. Clearly angry at the threat to
their right to control their own bodies, they infused the huge
protest with a sense of urgency and militancy.

The lesbian and gay community was also well represented. When a
speaker asked lesbians and gay men to identify themselves, a sea of
hands was raised.

Although the crowd was predominantly white, there were contingents
from communities of color. These included a busload of African
American welfare recipients from Michigan and a group of Black and
Latino students from York College in Queens, N.Y.

The Ladies Garment Workers union sent several buses filled with
Black, Latina and Asian women workers. For the most part, however,
the labor movement did not mobilize. Union contingents could have
swelled the march with tens of thousands of oppressed women who are
among those with the most at stake in the struggle to defend
reproductive rights. But the AFL-CIO has refused to take a position
on the issue.

The National Organization for Women and the National Abortion
Rights Action League sponsored the protest, spurred by the
intensifying attack on women's rights. Marchers said they were
there to let the Bush administration, Congress, the Supreme Court
and state legislatures know that women won't go back to fear,
humiliation and brutalization.

The action came just as the Supreme Court is about to hear oral
arguments on a Pennsylvania law. The case could result in a ruling
to overturn the High Court's 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade that
established abortion as a "fundamental" constitutional right.

As it is, years of attacks have already whittled away at the right
to choice. Poor women in 30 states are blocked from Medicaid
payment for abortion. Abortion services are medically unavailable
in 83 percent of U.S. counties. Several states require parental or
husband notification. Third World women continue to be subjected to
forced sterilization, welfare mothers are losing their state
benefits, and lesbians are faced with ongoing violence and
discrimination.

`We won't go back!'

Over 60 speakers addressed rallies at the beginning and end of the
march. They included representatives from women's, students', civil
rights, lesbian and gay, and religious groups. Thirty-eight
capitalist politicians--members of and candidates for the House and
Senate--spoke.

Ginny Montes, NOW national secretary, chaired the rally. NOW
President Patricia Ireland and several other officials of the group
also spoke.

Other speakers included Marian Kramer of the National Welfare
Rights Union; Faye Wattleton and Dr. Kenneth Edelin, former and
current presidents of Planned Parenthood; and United Farm Workers
Vice President Dolores Huerta.

Also speaking were Leona Smith, president of the National Union of
the Homeless; Coalition of Labor Union Women President Joyce
Miller; Urvashi Vaid of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force;
Tajel Shah, president of the United States Student Association;
Rev. Ignacio Castuera; "Thelma and Louise" screenwriter Callie
Khouri; and several well-known actors.

Jewell Jackson McCabe of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women
addressed the racist assault on reproductive rights. Third World
and poor women bear the brunt of restricted access to abortion and
other services. In 1969 alone, 75 percent of deaths from illegal
abortions were women of color.

Dr. Susan Wicklund was one of several physicians who spoke. After
she attended the 1989 pro-choice rally in Washington, Wicklund
said, she decided to commit herself to providing services for
women. She rearranged her medical practice and now spends every
week flying among three rural Midwest states where she is the only
doctor performing abortions. Anti-abortion reactionaries have
attacked her, harassed her young daughter and threatened their
lives. But she said she will never stop providing reproductive
medical services to women.

Rev. Jesse Jackson galvanized the crowd with a fiery talk that
linked the issue of choice to the struggle against racism, the
fight to defend welfare rights and the needs of women workers. He
also called on everyone to support the Haitian people and demand an
end to deportations of Haitian refugees.

Susan Faludi, author of "Backlash--The Undeclared War Against
American Women," vividly described what women endured before 1973.
Her mother suffered and survived an illegal abortion. Faludi said
her mother finally ended up in a hospital hemorrhaging, went into
labor and gave birth to a fetus that had been rotting inside her
for six months.

Carol Moseley Braun, an African American running for the Senate
from Illinois, also spoke. She upset Democratic incumbent Alan
Dixon in the primary last month. If elected she will be the first
Black woman to be a member of the Senate. Braun paid tribute to
Anita Hill, saying Hill's stand agaisnt sexual harassment motivated
her to run for the Senate.

Bill Bell Jr. pledged his family's commitment to the struggle. His
sister Becky Bell was a teenager who died from a botched abortion
last year. Indiana law requires minors to get their parents'
permission for an abortion. Because she was afraid to tell her
parents she was pregnant, Becky Bell got a back-alley abortion that
killed her. The Bells now travel the country warning that parental
notification laws kill young women.

Buffalo, N.Y., next battleground

Many speakers and protesters referred to "Operation Rescue" and its
impending assault on women's clinics in Buffalo, N.Y. The upcoming
Supreme Court decision in the case of Planned Parenthood of
Southeastern Pennsylvania vs. Casey was also a major focus.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the Pennsylvania case on
April 22. The case involves a state law that prohibits married
women from obtaining an abortion without first notifying the
husband, and requires all women to delay having an abortion until
24 hours after receiving an anti-choice lecture.

The day after almost a million people marched for choice, the Bush
administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief calling for the
court to overturn Roe vs. Wade. "In our view, a state's interest in
protecting fetal life throughout pregnancy, as a general matter,
outweighs a woman's liberty interest in an abortion," read the
brief.

                               ###

This article originally appeared in Workers World newspaper.
A 10-week trial subscription is available for $2. A year's
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and send to 46 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010.Phone (212) 255-0352.
You may contact Workers World editors on New York Transfer or
PeaceNet at "workers."

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