At noon in East City Park, it looked like any other weekend. A family barbeque in one corner, a group of teenagers playing volleyball in the sand pit and children on the playground. However, this past Saturday, an hour later, there was a protest.
“Isolation, fear, intimidation; those are really powerful tools,” Dulce Kersting-Lark, the MC for the rally, said. “But we’re not going to be silenced. Our voices are not going to be silenced, and you better believe our vote is not going to be silenced.”
The protest, titled “Roe the Vote,” began in front of city hall, as crowds joined together to create signs and learn chants that they then recited along the half-mile walk up to the park.
The protest was organized by Bans Off Moscow, a local advocacy group that formed after the Alito opinion was released.
“We met on Reddit and hooked up and organized it (the event),” Ann, who asked not to be identified by her last name, said. “We have a team of about six membership leaders and founding members.”
Ann is one of the founding members of Bans Off Moscow. The group was also selling their own merch at the protest in order to raise funds.
“We had 200 people show up the weekend after school was out,” Ann said. “It was pouring rain, and we thought, maybe we have some momentum here.”
This past weekend, many more showed up to protest. For a protest, the event was very family friendly. There were several children sitting among the crowd, and dogs weaving between legs. One little girl was even in a wagon decorated as a parade float for the rally.
“She was not planned, and I chose to have her, but I’m very passionate about the fact that it should be nobody else’s business,” Jessie Campbell, the mother of the little girl in the wagon, said. “I’m scared for her and my other daughter, and what future they’re going to have with these ridiculous laws. I’m also here to make a stand and show her that she can stand up for her rights, even though she doesn’t know what’s going on.”
At the very front of the line, waving an American flag, was Karen Hansen.
“It’s our flag,” Hansen said, “Not their flag. It’s about all of us. The United States, right now, is a democracy…I will not allow a faction to take it away.”
Once the procession got to East City Park, a variety of speakers took the stage, including representatives from the campus community.
“At the very, very least, we need to be able to have conversations surrounding reproductive care on, of all places, a college campus,” Martha Smith, the ASUI Pro Tempore, quoted from the ASUI resolution.
Also speaking was Luigi Boschetti, the President of the faculty union.
“This is an extremely authoritarian move,” Boschetti said. “Where not only do they pass a law with extreme criminalization of abortion, but also to shut down any possible debate.”
Dr. Jo Elsbury, a retired family doctor in the area, was also speaking. Elsbury outlined all the reasons abortion might be necessary, that are not allowed for by the law, including consent of the person with the fetus.
“As a physician, I cannot force a patient to undergo any medical procedure,” Elsbury said. “…Pregnancy would be the only medical condition in which we require people to donate an organ to somebody else. We need to change that.”
After Elsbury, several political candidates took the stage, namely Senator David Nelson, Trisha Carter-Goodheart, who shared her own abortion story, and Tim Gresback.
Gresback then closed out the speakers by leading the crowd in the chant of “Don’t Agonize, Organize.”
Abigail Spencer can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ABairdSpencer
Kris Freitag
Except for the fundamental right for women choosing what to do with their bodies in the state of Idaho.
Don Kaag
In point of fact the U.S. is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic. We have majority rule, but with the rights of minorities protected by our federal, state and local laws.