March for Women's Lives, 2004

 

This photo was taken 18 years ago during the March for Women's Lives that took place in Washington, D.C. on April 25, 2004. This picture hangs on my living room wall as a reminder of the event that I proudly took part in. I'm standing in the front, holding the "Keep Abortion Legal" NOW sign and sporting the proud smile of a person determined to keep women's healthcare decisions between her and her doctor, rather than throwing them into the hands of legislators who do not have women's best interests at heart.

I was a member of the National Organization for Women back then, and we teamed up with NARAL Pro-Choice NH leaders to secure a bus ride to D.C. together. As a group with varying ages and diverse social, economic, religious, political, and cultural backgrounds, we came together to form one group whose voice wanted (needed) to be heard. Women's reproductive choices were under attack -- as they still are today -- and we were determined to do something about it.

Once in Washington, the estimated one million marchers broke into smaller groups that bonded with each other and got to know each other a little better. My group consisted of a middle-aged to middle-aged-plus cast of women in varying degrees of physical health. One woman needed a cane to walk, one had an air cast on her leg from a recent knee surgery, and one couldn't march very fast due to arthritis, so we accommodated each other by walking at a slower pace. We stuck together and shared food and drinks, and when we stopped to pose for the above photo, a 20-something-year-old male thought we were a cool enough group of older ladies that he asked if he could be in our picture. That's him on the far right, wearing the white shirt and blue baseball cap. (My apologies that part of you got cut off in the photo, you awesome young man).

The March for Women's Lives in 2004 was the first time I ever came face-to-face with anti-choice groups who displayed magnified shock-value photos of fetuses, positioned themselves to obstruct our route as we tried to walk by them, and held bull horns a few feet from our ears to verbally assault us with derogatory names or boom rehearsed and memorized bible verses at us. Their anger was palpable but, luckily, none of us were physically harmed by any of them. Though, I did find it interesting that Fox News' Sean Hannity managed to portray pro-choice marchers as the angry ones on one of his post-March for Women's Lives broadcasts.

After the march, we settled on the lawn, sipping water and eating snacks while we watched and listened to the guest speakers deliver their thoughts and hopes for the future of women's healthcare and reproductive freedoms. That was the first time I ever saw Hillary Clinton in person. She mingled with the crowds and became an average woman, just like the rest of us. I also saw the Executive Director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Kate Michelman, National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, and various star-activists like Gloria Steinem, Whoopi Goldberg, Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon, Ani DeFranco, Ashley Judd, and too many more to name.

The March is still a memorable event for me, and today's shocking Supreme Court decision serves to remind me that the struggle to free ourselves from the tight hold that legislators have on our bodies is far from over.