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Speakers' messages throughout the day resonated with the calm crowd representing a US cross-section and including leaders from more than 50 countries. More than one-third of the mostly female crowd was college age or younger and many speakers pointed that out and said it belied the conventional wisdom that young people were politically apathetic.
"I'm marching because I'm showing my people we do have a choice," said Melinda Garcia, a 26-year-old mother from Massachusetts who said her main reasons for attending the march were political. "If you let Bush win, he's going to take all choices away," she said. "He won't stop."
Precious Nthanga, a 23-year-old woman who works with Planned Parenthood in Zambia, agreed. "It's the women from the United States who helped liberate the women of Africa," she said. "If the women from the United States lose their rights, we will be doomed, because there will be no one to stand up for us."
In what they called an act of civil disobedience, a group of physicians stood near the beginning of the march dispensing prescriptions to those who asked for morning-after pills. Dr. Kaneen Geer, from the Institute for Urban Family Health in New York City, said that 15 physicians had joined the action and by the midpoint of the walk she had dispensed more than 150 prescriptions. "It has 12 refills," she told one recipient. "We want it to be over-the-counter, so please give them to your friends." The surprised-looking woman quickly agreed. A contingent of anti-choice protesters also took the opportunity to air their views on what they called a "Death March." Randall Terry, head of the anti-choice group called Operation Witness, said more than 1,000 members of his movement participated. Members of Silent No More Awareness Campaign, with offices in the Northeast, held signs saying "I Regret My Abortion" and "I Regret Lost Fatherhood." Police reported that 16 activists were arrested for demonstrating without a permit.
The march on Washington took place at a critical time for reproductive rights, organizers said.
"The reason for this march is really to sound the alarm that our policies both globally and domestically are hurting women," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, a Northern Virginia-based group helping to organize event. "A large portion of our population does not know the terrible impact of our policies."
Smeal insisted that the message of the march is not an "electoral one." Rather, she said, it is intended to send a message to leaders of both parties at all levels of government. More generally, Smeal said she hopes it will serve as a wake-up call to a public that may not be aware of recent efforts to undermine women's rights.
Nonetheless, pro-choice activists routinely acknowledge that a lot is at stake in this year's elections. If Bush wins reelection this fall, he will likely appoint a successor to at least one of the five Supreme Court justices who support abortion rights. If approved, that nominee could lead to the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that guaranteed women the right to decide -- free from government interference -- whether to end a pregnancy.
Although focused on defending a woman's right to choose from any further restrictions, demonstrators were also rallying around other issues: justice and equality for women in all socio-economic strata around the world; access for all women to the full range of contraceptive services and family planning options; the need for better health services for women of all races, incomes and ages; and the effect of the federal government's foreign aid policies on women worldwide.
Smeal, the former head of the Washington, DC-based National Organization for Women, oversaw the first national march for abortion rights nearly two decades ago. Unlike that 1986 march, organized by one group and focused exclusively on the rights of US women, this year's event is being led by seven activist groups addressing health and reproductive issues on a global scale.
They are the National Organization for Women, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Black Women's Health Imperative, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. Some 1,400 groups -- focused on everything from civil rights, religion, healthcare, feminism and the environment -- also helped organize and lead the event.
"This march is an opportunity to express solidarity among women both in the United States and globally to say "No more!' to these policies that hurt women here and abroad," said June Zeitlin, executive director of the New York-based Women's Environment and Development Organization. "The women's movement is a global movement. We really want women here to understand the linkages" with their peers overseas.