Live From the March for Women's Lives
From Washington D.C.

by Kelpie Wilson

t r u t h o u t
Saturday 24 March 2004 -- Sunday 25 March 2004
www.truthout.org

9:31 A.M. Eastern
Saturday 24 April 2004

I've just arrived at National Airport and am sending this from the baggage claim. My travel agent refuses to call it Reagan National Airport. It was Ronald Reagan who first issued the Global Gag Rule that yanked vital funding from women's health clinics worldwide. Mary gave me a cheer when I told her I was going to the March for Women's Lives, and I'm arriving with a whole lot of cheers from friends in Oregon. I'm marching for them too.

The plane from Chicago was packed with marchers. I sat next to a high school teacher and her 11 year old daughter. “The best man for the job might be a woman,” said the button the daughter wore.

The last time I flew to DC, I wore a spotted owl costume -- on the plane. I went with a contingent of spotted owls and salmon to lobby for ancient forest protection. The salmon spawned on the Capitol steps, dropping a load of bright pink ping pong balls. A collection of experiences like this has qualified me to be Truthout's environment editor. So why, you may ask, is the environment editor covering the March for Women's Lives? The long answer is that women's lives and environmental protection have everything to do with each other. More on that later. The short answer is: I am a human being who finds it essential to have control over my own body. I don't want to be beaten, raped, imprisoned, poisoned, experimented on or have my womb turned over to G. W. Bush and his army of fundamentalist terrorists.

11:04 A.M. Eastern
Saturday 24 April 2004

The shuttle dispatcher asked me if I was here for the march. “How did you know,” I asked suspiciously. “Just there's so many women coming through here this morning. Gonna be a million women here this weekend. I'm going fishing.” We both laughed. “In the Potomac?” I asked. “Naw, striped bass, Chesapeake Bay.”

It's going to be a beautiful sunny weekend here in the Capitol, for fishing or marching.

I got to my hotel and immediately got a call from my old friend TC. There's a demonstration at the Vatican embassy right now, do I want to meet him there? Can't miss that, so a quick shower and I'm out the door.

1:54 P.M. Eastern
Saturday 24 April 2004

I just got to meet one of my personal heroes - Frances Kissling of Catholics for Free Choice. I interviewed her standing in front of the Vatican embassy in protest of the politicization of her religion. “The Vatican is causing deaths with its anti-woman, anti-family policies,” she said. “Catholics need to stand up and take back their religion.”

She spoke against fundamentalism and I asked her if things had ever been any different in the church. She said yes, that for the first 1000 years priests were allowed to marry and they naturally had more sympathy and understanding of women and families.

What can ordinary Catholics do, I asked. Get political and raise our voices was her reply.
TC and I just had a lovely brunch. The cherry trees are blooming, birds are chirping and helicopters are whup-whupping overhead. TC just got a cell phone report that things are really hot over at the World Bank demo. I am going to stroll back over to DuPont circle and see what's in the Planned Parenthood tents.

4:20 P.M. Eastern
Saturday 24 April 2004

I'm sitting in Dupont Circle where a few hundred people are milling about amongst hot pink banners, stickers and T-shirts. It's a young crowd, the third wave of feminism very much present. There has been a parade of young, mostly female, singers and comedians over the past few hours. The big speeches are being saved for tomorrow, so the mood is light. Sarah Weddington is speaking now. She's the attorney who won Roe vs Wade thirty-some years ago. Things look bleak, she said, but you all are the reinforcements and the reinforcements will save the day.

This event is very much about telling our stories and there is a 20 foot-long bulletin board covered with fluttering pink sheets of paper where people have answered the question: I am marching because... I'll share some of them with you:

For freedom.
I've got my own Bush to worry about.
I march for all rape survivors.
For Emma.
Because I was a wanted child.
I would have died if I had not had a safe, legal abortion.
Because I have a daughter and a granddaughter and because I can remember.
My God is pro-choice.
I have a HS diploma and 2 college degrees thanks to my freedom of choice.
I am named for my great aunt, who died before I was born, of an illegal abortion.
I'm marching because I can.

6:38 P.M. Eastern
Saturday 24 April 2004

I picked up an interesting book at Dupont Circle today. It is called Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century. It's by Alexander Sanger who is, you guessed it, Margaret Sanger's grandson. Alex Sanger was there at the table signing books so I got to do a mini-interview with him as follows:

KW: The blurb on the back of your book says that the pro-choice movement must re-think its message and change the rhetoric if we are to be successful. How do we need to change the rhetoric?
AS: We need to put abortion in the context of human reproduction. It's supposed to be a reproductive rights movement yet it does not put abortion in the moral context of what is needed for successful reproduction. Women are dying all over the world because they are having too many births.
KW: That was certainly true in your grandmother's day. I read her autobiography. She talked about how women were worn out and used up from having these huge families. But is that really true today, outside of the third world?
AS: Yes. Childbirth is very hard on women. One third of births in this country are by ceasarian section. Women need abortion to be available so they aren't forced to push themselves beyond their capacity for successful reproduction.
KW: So what specifically needs to change about the rhetoric?
AS: We need to appeal to men. It's not just about women's rights. Men want children too.
KW: And they want healthy, successful children, so they should support access to abortion?
AS: Yes.
KW: We were talking about the film called My Fetus that was broadcast in Britain recently. It has footage of an abortion being performed on a woman who is 4 weeks pregnant as well as images of aborted fetuses. It is an attempt to take another look at the images of aborted fetuses that have been used so successfully by the anti-choice crowd to stir emotion. But they don't like the film. They say it makes abortion look too easy. What do you think of this film?
AS: Well I haven't seen it yet, but I think it's a terrific idea to face up to what abortion is and not be ashamed of it.
KW: Is it killing?
AS: Not killing a human being, but it is ending a life.
KW: A sperm is alive. An egg is alive.
AS: Exactly.
KW: So what is it like to be Margaret Sanger's grandson?
AS: My grandmother valued children for their own intrinsic worth. It was wonderful being her grandson. She was a wonderful grandmother. And I'm proud of her. She started this whole movement.
KW: Thanks. I'm looking forward to reading your book.
Well there are all sorts of concerts and raves going on tonight, but after last night's red-eye flight from Oregon I'm ready for a little shut-eye. I'll be back in the morning to cover the big march.

9:04 A.M. Eastern
Sunday 25 April 2004

Good morning.

One thing I did not accomplish yesterday was to find a pro-choice T-shirt. By the time I got to Dupont Circle the Planned Parenthood shirts were all gone. So I was overjoyed to find that the pro-choice fairies had left one in a bag hanging on my door this morning! That's service. Now if only we could deliver women's reproductive health care services so easily.

I'm having breakfast in the hotel dining room and a very beautiful woman in traditional African dress just walked by. Many international women are staying at this hotel. My press packet lists contacts from more than 60 countries. As bad as things are here, the challenges are so much greater in poor counties. I know we'll hear a lot about that today because US policies like the Global Gag Rule are killing women around the world.

I saw the antis yesterday with their bloody fetus truck. Last night on the news, they interviewed a woman sobbing hysterically about the “holocaust” of abortion. “They talk about the deaths in Iraq,” she cried, “but the holocaust of children's deaths is so much greater.”
What is she talking about? The three-week old embryo I once had to abort? I've seen pictures of such embryos and they don't look at all like a child. More like a tiny worm, less than a centimeter long. Ninety percent of US abortions take place at this stage, but the pro-life movement would have us believe that they are all like the twenty week bloody fetus picture on their truck. It's too bad we can't unite on a common goal of reducing abortions to the smallest number possible by providing women with the contraceptives and health care they need and not throwing obstacles in their path so when they do need to abort they can do it when it looks like a worm and not a child.

11:02 A.M. Eastern
Sunday 25 April 2004

I promised yesterday that I would explain why an environmentalist would be concerned about reproductive choice, so I stopped by the office of Population Connection this morning to collect some snacks for the march see what they had to say. Turns out it's not a complex connection between women, population and the environment.

I spoke with communications director Timothy Cline who told me that without exception, everywhere women have been allowed total access to health care, education and economic opportunity, women have chosen smaller families. Do I need to explain how growing human population hurts the Earth? Just one example should make the point. Think about water.

Years of drought have reservoirs dropping throughout the west. There's not enough water for growing populations and spawning fish. Our excess reproduction hurts the reproductive opportunities of fish and other creatures. Give women the choice and they will not only do what's right for their own families but what's right for the earth.

I'm at the mall now and Hilary Clinton just took the stage to an absolutely earsplitting screaming cheer. She says over 50 million women who were eligible did not vote in the 2000 elections. Let's elect a pro-choice president this fall.

11:12 A.M. Eastern
Sunday 25 April 2004

One of the most exciting things about the march is the emphasis on total choice -- not just access to contraceptives and abortion.

Speaker after speaker is saying we must have reproductive justice. We must end poverty because women who have no economic opportunities have no choice.

It's incredible here, people as far as eye can see and so many young people, women and men. We are the future.

11:58 A.M. Eastern
Sunday 25 April 2004

I've just walked the whole length of the mall - packed with people the whole way. Hoping to find my friend Nancy with the Cleveland Unitarians. The Texas coalition just marched by -- don't mess with Texas. The march is about to step off.

12:32 P.M. Eastern
Sunday 25 April 2004

Couldn't find Nancy so I'm wandering and taking pictures of the crowd. Here is a black and pink cheer squad. They seem to be part of the black block. Imagine orange hair, cheerleader boots, black bandanas, a pink tutu. And some precision call and response cheerleading. A snappy drum back up.

I thought the march was stepping off but it looks like anarchy around here. A four headed pink pro-choice dragon just slithered by me.

1:09 P.M. Eastern
Sunday 25 April 2004

“Women of color know that portraying the movement for choice as simply a desire to have an abortion is an evil, machiavellian strategy. Women of color know that choice is so much more. We are dying of AIDS and poor health care. We must fight together for true choice which is the essence of freedom.
-- Jewel, from the stage

2:13 P.M. Eastern
Sunday 25 April 2004

Well we are marching now. Made it off the mall and we're heading down Constitution. I found the other Black Block: Black Women's Health Imperative. They have a dynamite cheering section too. “Women's Health, Not Corporate Wealth.” “Not the Church, not the State. Women should decide their fate.”

And what have we here? Bellydancers for Peace and Justice. Fabulous! They are singing:
“1,2,3,4 - patriarchy's at the door. 4,5,6,8 - stop the patriarchal state.”

Plus they are wearing T-shirts that say: “What Would Durga do?” I've found my spiritual home at this march.

A sign I love held by a young man: “Stop control of the fetus by the penis.”

4:09 P.M. Eastern
Sunday 25 April 2004

Cameron Mannheim: “I hope John Ashcroft is listening because YOU are a direct threat to his vision of America. And Bush, you better beware. When women vote, Democrats win!” From the stage.

We are back at the mall.

Carol Mosley Brown just told us that we have made history today. This is the biggest march ever in DC. Wow.

I am going to sign off now. It has been an incredible weekend marching with more than a million women and men. I'm going to sit here for awhile and listen to the rest of the speakers and think about what I can do to help send Bush a pink slip in the fall.