By the time the Rally for Roe began Tuesday afternoon, more than 200 people carrying handmade signs, coat hangers and pink hats had gathered at the steps of the Whatcom County Courthouse to rally for reproductive rights.
The rally, a gathering featuring local and federal politicians, was organized on the fly after a draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision repealing Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that protected a woman’s right to abortion, was leaked Monday night.
The draft, a scathing indictment of the 1973 decision and the subsequent 1992 Casey v. Planned Parenthood case, indicates the Supreme Court will vote to overturn Roe.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the opinion. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled.”
The response at the rally was forceful.
“Hopefully, this is one of the last times we’ll have to band together to ask for rights for our own bodies,” Bellingham City Council member Kristina Martens told the crowd. “I am exhausted. … I am sick of privileged men making decisions for and about me.”
Martens was joined by another local council member, Hollie Huthman, as well as state and federal representatives.
“We’re one of the 17 states and territories where [abortion] is inviolate,” U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen told the Cascadia Daily News. “This is not just a Washington State fight. This is a fight across the United States, and frankly, it’s a global fight too.”
During the rally, Larsen called on his fellow congressmen to waive the filibuster rule in order to pass universal reproductive health measures into law around the country, like they did when they voted on the debt limit.
In Washington, abortion access was codified in 1991, though state Rep. Alex Ramel (D-Bellingham) is concerned a Republican legislature might try to reverse it.
“Our legislature is the last line of defense here,” he said. “The legislature can change the law, and we’ve certainly seen from Republicans, introduced every year, bills that restrict women’s right to choice.”
Others, too, were concerned with how the state manages reproductive healthcare.
“Over 75 percent of hospitals in Washington state are catholic owned and do not provide the full spectrum of health care,” explained Morgan Dykeman, the final speaker of the evening. “We need to keep fighting because … all is not sunny.”
In 2016, Dykeman told the crowd, she was denied an abortion at her primary care clinic because it was tied to a religious group, even though her pregnancy was ectopic and could kill her.
Representatives from Mount Baker Planned Parenthood, the only clinic in the county that provides abortions, spoke against the draft opinion.
“The Supreme Court aims to make women prisoners of their bodies,” Lee Che Leong, the treasurer of Mount Baker Planned Parenthood, told attendees. “[The justices] are wringing their hands over the fact that the draft was leaked. It’s almost like they think that they should be able to make decisions in private.”
Marissa McGrath, one of the organizers of the rally, called the last-minute event “a whirlwind,” but was enthusiastic about the size of the crowd.
“It really shows the power of this issue and how many lives it touches,” she said. “Everyone knows somebody. If you have not had an abortion yourself, everyone knows and loves somebody who has had one.”
Between speakers, McGrath led chants with the crowd, calling for the passage of the long-stalled Equal Rights Amendment and for equal access to reproductive healthcare.
