Also on hand were antiabortion demonstrators who tried to drown out the pro-abortion rally. Many had participated in a so-called March for Life of 50,000 people earlier that day.

Speaking by telephone to the large antiabortion action, President George Bush said he would sign legislation banning late-term abortions. These medically necessary procedures are given the emotive and inaccurate name of "partial birth abortions" by opponents of a woman’s right to choose.

The counterdemonstrators were answered by participants in the NOW rally with chants of "We won’t go back!"

Speaking in defense of women’s rights, Angie Roberts from the University of Nebraska in Omaha said that in Nebraska, 97 percent of the counties provide no facilities for abortions. "Fight for your rights!" she urged the crowd. Among the other speakers were NOW President Kim Gandy, and Eleanor Smeal, head of the Feminist Majority.

Nineteen-year-old Julia Matson was at the abortion rights rally with 12 others from Xavier College, a Jesuit college in Cincinnati, Ohio. "I strongly believe women should have the right to control our own bodies," she told the Militant. She said they were bucking the college administration on this issue, adding that "there must be separation of church and state."

Parris Hatcher, 23, was there from Greensboro, North Carolina. "This is an important issue, especially for women of color," she said, "and it is broader than just abortion, it’s a question of women’s rights and our liberation."

For some women this was their first demonstration. Their refusal to be pushed back was evident in their spirited chanting and the many signs reading, "Never Go Back."

Several of the official speakers sounded an alarmist note, saying that further legal restrictions on abortion rights had become more likely since the November elections, in which the Republican Party gained the majority in the House of Representatives to add to its majority position in the Senate.  
 
Reduced access to abortion
Since the 1973 Supreme Court decision, restrictions on abortion have been imposed by both Congress and various state legislatures. Thirty-two states now require women under 18 to obtain parental consent. Eighteen states require a waiting period, generally 24 hours, between mandatory counseling and the abortion procedure.

Today, some 87 percent of all counties in the U.S. have no abortion providers, while the number of U.S. abortion providers has fallen to its lowest level in three decades.

At the same time, support for the availability of abortion remains widespread. In a New York Times/CBS poll released on the anniversary, only 22 percent of respondents said that abortion should be banned while 39 percent responded that abortion should be "generally available."

Given these attitudes, which register the broader social gains won by women as well as the conquest of the movement against previous abortion restrictions, prominent presidential adviser Karl Rove expressed some caution when interviewed by the Times on the administration’s plans.

"For now, we’re focusing on getting the partial-birth abortion ban and doing something about cloning," he said, referring to the administration’s ban on medical stem cell research, which involves cloning technology. "Let’s get those victories before we start making prognostications about what might be years in the future," he said.

During the Roe v. Wade anniversary week volunteers from the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force mobilized in the morning hours to ensure the clinics remained open and to prevent any possible attempts at blockades.
 
 
Related articles:
Defend right to choose abortion
Right to abortion won by struggles of women  
 
 
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