The first pro-choice march in 12 years scheduled for Sunday in the District comes at a time when pro-life advocates have gained momentum at state and national levels.
The March for Women’s Lives comes on the heels of President Bush’s signing both the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which grants a fetus legal rights, and the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, which bars certain types of late-term abortions.
State legislatures have passed nearly 400 laws that make it harder for women to get abortions. Sunday’s march will be the first pro-choice rally to be held in the District in a dozen years and the fourth since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion 31 years ago.
“The time is right for a public demonstration of historic size in support of reproductive freedom and justice for all women. Threats to these rights have never been so systematic and coordinated, and the lives and health of women have never faced such peril,” march organizers said.
“We have to march to make people stop and think … most Americans support a woman’s right to choose, and yet, the most powerful political institutions of our government are in the hands of people who want to take that right to choose away,” said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
A representative from the Feminist Majority, one of the seven national women’s rights groups sponsoring the march, estimates there were 750,000 participants in the 1992 march. “And we’re shooting for 1 million marchers this time,” she said.
Police estimated the number of marchers in 1992 at 500,000, and pro-lifers predict turnout for Sunday’s demonstration will be below organizers’ expectations. Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee, the nation’s largest pro-life group, held that the event’s sponsors are “trying to speak for women,” but fail, “since they say there should be no limitations on abortions.”
Mrs. Franz said, “They are claiming the U.S. Supreme Court is close to overturning Roe v. Wade, but that’s not true. They would need at least two changes [of justices] before that could happen. So their ’sky is falling rhetoric’ is just not accurate.”
The day’s events will begin at 10 a.m. with a rally on the Mall. That will be followed by a march through downtown, starting at noon.
Among the guests expected to appear either for the march or related activities throughout the day include Sen. Hillary Clinton, New York Democrat; media mogul Ted Turner; actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Demi Moore; actors Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen; and activist Jane Fonda.
Then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton addressed the pro-choice march in 1992. But Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told the Hill newspaper that Democratic nominee John Kerry isn’t expected to attend the march Sunday.
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