A call for abortion rights

WASHINGTON – Abortion-rights supporters marched in the hundreds of thousands Sunday, galvanized by what they see as an erosion of reproductive freedoms under President Bush and foreign policies that hurt women worldwide.

Amid the clamor of an election year, the throng of demonstrators flooded the National Mall. Their target: Bush, like-minded officials in federal and state government and religious conservatives.

Speaking beyond the masses to policy-makers, Francis Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice declared, “You will hear our pro-choice voices ringing in your ears until such time that you permit all women to make our own reproductive choices.”

Women joined the protest from across the nation and from nearly 60 countries, asserting that damage from Bush’s policies is spreading far beyond U.S. shores through measures such as the ban on federal money for family-planning groups that promote or perform abortions abroad.

The rally on the National Mall stretched from the base of the U.S. Capitol about a mile back to the Washington Monument. Authorities no longer give formal crowd estimates, but various police sources informally estimated the throng at between 500,000 and 800,000 strong.

That would exceed the estimated 500,000 who protested for abortion rights in 1992.

Carole Mehlman, 68, came from Tampa, Fla., to support a cause that has motivated her to march for 30 years, as long as abortion has been legal.

“I just had to be here to fight for the next generation and the generation after that,” she said. “We cannot let them take over our bodies, our health care, our lives.”

Advocates said abortion rights are being weakened at the margins through federal and state restrictions and will be at risk of reversal at the core if Bush gets a second term.

“Know your power and use it,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, House Democratic leader, exhorted the masses. “It is your choice, not the politicians’.”

A much smaller contingent of abortion opponents assembled along a portion of the route to protest what they called a “death march.” Among them were women who had had abortions and regretted it; they dressed in black.

Tabitha Warnica, 36, of Phoenix, said she had two abortions when she was young. “We don’t have a choice. God is the only one who can decide,” she said.

Police used barricades and a heavy presence at that site to keep it from becoming a flashpoint. Both sides yelled at each other as the vanguard of the march reached the counter-demonstration.

“Look at the pictures, look at the pictures,” shouted abortion opponents, holding up big posters showing a fetus at eight weeks.

“Lies, lies,” marchers shouted back.

Police arrested 16 people from the Christian Defense Coalition for demonstrating without a permit and another anti-abortion protester for throwing ink-filled plastic eggs at rally signs.

Copyright ©2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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