Largest in History 

The March for Women's Lives -- organized by a coalition of activist organizations -- easily broke attendance records for national reproductive-rights rallies, overwhelming the 750,000 benchmark set in 1992.

After a two-mile walk from the Washington monument down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House and toward the US Capitol Building, demonstrators returned to their starting point on the national mall for a four-hour late-afternoon rally led by a diverse group of women's rights leaders and entertainment-world celebrities.

Brandishing a white coat hanger, comedian Whoopi Goldberg kicked off the afternoon rally with a vow to never return to the days of back-alley abortions that prevailed before the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973.

"This was the choice," Goldberg said as she held up the hanger. "This was it. And I'm here to tell you, never again. We are not going backwards, child, never again."

A sea of faces stretched more than a mile, from one end of the national mall to the other. Under an overcast sky, the dozens of lawmakers, celebrities and political organizers looked out at them and issued a collective call to restore and preserve women's health and reproductive rights.

While avoiding partisan politics, one speaker after the next warned that the anti-choice leaders who control the White House and Congress will pay a political price in this fall's elections for restricting the access of women in the United States and around the globe to abortion and reproductive health services. They portrayed the Bush administration's anti-abortion and abstinence-only policies as steps toward an ultimate goal of outlawing abortion and dramatically reducing the availability of contraception.

Speakers included House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; and feminist leaders from the past, present and future including Gloria Steinem, who founded the National Organization for Women, Kate Michelman, who will step down from the helm of NARAL Pro-Choice America at the end of the year, and Cari Sietstra, executive director and founder of Law Students for Choice.

At the morning rally before the walk, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton received a rousing welcome as participants assembled on the national mall before the walk, which began at 1pm. Saying that the last national reproductive rights march in 1992 had ushered in the election of a pro-choice president, Clinton called for all assembled to register and vote in the fall election, which turned into a major message of the event. "To support individual freedom and oppose the threats to individual rights, abortion is a question of conscience," she said.

The delegation of pro-choice Republicans was 500-strong with representatives from 12 states. Jennifer Blei Stockman, head of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition, said that her members were marching because they oppose government's intrusion into individual lives and are deeply concerned by recent actions by Congress and White House that attacked women's right to choose.

"We support our party on many traditional issues," Stockman said, "but we do not agree with the recent actions that limit personal freedom." It was a reference to what many demonstrators here consider an intensifying attack on abortion rights since 2002, when an anti-choice White House and Congress began using legislation, judicial appointments and executive fiat to roll back the clock on abortion rights.

Last November, Bush signed a law criminalizing "partial birth" abortions, a term criticized for being so clinically vague that it leaves women and doctors open to prosecution for any procedure occurring after the 12th week of pregnancy. The law includes an exception to preserve the life of the mother but not her health. It was the first federal statute to restrict abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision giving women the legal right to abortion. Now being appealed by a number of pro-choice organizations, the partial-birth law is currently blocked from enforcement by a federal court injunction.

In April, Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, a federal law that confers legal status to fetuses injured by crimes against pregnant women. Pro-choice activists worry that by granting embryos and fetuses full human rights, it may create a precedent for those seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade. They also say the law may be used to prosecute pregnant women for either drug or alcohol abuse.

The demonstration was officially opened in the morning by the soprano Margie Adam singing "We shall go forth," the spiritual she had written for the abortion-rights march 25 years ago. By the time she sang, the 1.5-mile-long mall was filled with women, men, and even nursing babies wearing bright pink T-shirts identifying them with the demonstration and listening to a virtual Who's Who of the women's movement.