The March for Women’s Lives was sponsored by Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, National Organization for Women/New York City, Black Women’s Health Imperative, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and others.

A large majority of the marchers were young. Most were from the New York/New Jersey area, but a substantial number came from across the country.

“I’m here because abortion is a woman’s decision to make, no one else’s,” said Nathalie Chica, a 16-year old high school student from Hackensack, New Jersey. “In a lot of places young women face restrictions on being able to get an abortion. I’m opposed to those restrictions.”

Many, like Anique Halliday and Alyssa Best, students at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said they had attended the nearly million-strong April 25 pro-choice march on Washington. Others were attending their first such demonstration.

The New York march was one of the larger protest actions being organized around the Republican National Convention. Most of the speakers focused on opposing the Bush administration at the polls, implicitly backing Democrat John Kerry. Among the speakers were Kerry’s sister, Peggy Kerry, and Democratic congressman Major Owens of New York. “This is the most important election in 50 years,” asserted Owens, a Kerry supporter. “If Bush is reelected, we will be smothered by a fascist, totalitarian government.”

Many of the marchers favored Kerry, believing his election will make a difference in protecting reproductive rights. Although there was an abundance of anti-Bush signs, only a handful of pro-Kerry signs were visible, and support for the Democratic candidate was mostly lukewarm.

Abhas Gupta, 23, a first-year student at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, was part of a contingent of youth called South Asians for Women’s Lives. “Our platform is to mobilize against the global gag rule,” he said.

He was referring to a U.S. government policy that denies U.S. funding to any organization that engages directly or indirectly in offering abortion services or counseling in other countries. The 1984 rule was restored by the Bush administration in January 2001. The Clinton administration had rescinded the measure in 1993, but then approved a limited “gag rule” in 1999.

Others expressed reservations about the Kerry campaign. “I’m protesting the Bush administration and the political war on women,” said Justine Davies, a student from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. “But this is not just about Bush. This is a march for abortion rights and expanding our rights.

“At first I thought Kerry was better than Bush,” she said, “but I don’t think Kerry thinks the right to choose is a priority. He said abortion is wrong, but supports the right to choose. He doesn’t have a strong line on it. And on Iraq, Kerry is more like Bush.”
 
 
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