Vol. 80/No. 11 March 21, 2016
(front page)
DC, Chicago protesters say ‘Abortion is a
woman’s right!’
As the court heard arguments in a challenge to a Texas anti-abortion law, more than 1,000 supporters of women’s rights gathered outside, far outnumbering a few dozen opponents of the right to choose abortion. Buses came from Boston, Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh and other cities.
The same day 75 people held a sister rally at the Federal Building in Chicago. The action was called by Feminist Uprising to Resist Inequality and Exploitation, or FURIE, which has been organizing in defense of women’s right to choose abortion. Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president, was among those who spoke to the overwhelmingly young crowd.
Lara Boyle, one of three members of Medical Students for Choice who drove to Washington from New York, said she wanted it known that the American Medical Association does not agree with the Texas law known as HB2. “These laws are not about protecting women’s health,” she said. Chants and signs at the action read, “Stop the sham.”
The case before the court, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, challenges two provisions in the 2013 Texas law: that doctors performing abortions must have admitting privileges at local hospitals, and that abortion clinics meet hospital-like standards. The first of these rules has been allowed to take effect, though a couple clinics have been granted temporary exemptions. As a result, about half of the state’s abortion providers have already closed. If the Supreme Court upholds the law, half of the others would also be shuttered, leaving no more than 10 clinics in a state that is larger than France. There would be none in the Rio Grande Valley or the western part of the state. This will make it much harder for working-class and rural women to have access to the procedure.
HB2 also bans most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy — one of the earliest limits nationwide — and imposes procedures on medical (pill) abortions that require women to make three or four separate trips to the doctor. These regulations aren’t part of the Supreme Court case.
The Texas law is one of hundreds that have been passed by state governments in recent years designed to shut down abortion providers and otherwise limit access.
These laws make use of the problems built into to the Roe v. Wade ruling that decriminalized abortion. The Supreme Court acted in 1973 to head off a rising movement for women’s rights that stood on the conquests of the massive struggle for Black rights.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has often pointed out, the decision was not based on women’s right to equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment, but rather on “privacy” and the rights of doctors. The whittling away by federal and state governments at access to safe and legal abortions, especially for working-class women, began immediately.
In 1992 the Supreme Court upheld major aspects of Roe v. Wade, while opening the door wider for onerous restrictions on the right to choose, such as imposing waiting periods, including in the earliest stages of pregnancy. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, it upheld laws openly intended to discourage abortions, as long as they didn’t place an “undue burden” on a woman making the final decision.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 21 states besides Texas have some type of mandate for abortion providers to meet hospital-like standards. Ten others have adopted requirements for doctors performing abortions to have hospital admitting privileges, although several are on hold pending court decisions.
On March 4 the Supreme Court blocked Louisiana from implementing its admitting privileges law, which would close all but one clinic in that state, pending a ruling in the Texas case.
Young people were a majority at the March 2 rally here. Fifty American University students met at a Metro stop in D.C. to come as a group. “I’ve never been to a rally,” said student Ally Bock. “But, I’m very passionate about this issue.” She grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood, Women’s Medical Fund and other groups had contingents at the action.
“I’m here because I can’t believe I still have to be here,” said Dazon Dixon-Diallo of Atlanta, a member of SisterLove and In Our Own Voice, a Black women’s organization. “This is most definitely a fight for equal protection under the law. Whether it’s a youth searched for a crime he or she did not commit or a woman exercising her basic human rights, the fight for the 14th Amendment is on.”
Ilona Gersh in Chicago contributed to this article.
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