WASHINGTON - It was the place I had to be last Sunday. The abortion-rights majority was rousing itself from a sleepy delusion that reproductive freedom and abortion rights were secure. After years in seeming hibernation, the movement was clearing its throat, shaking off its lethargy, provoked by an administration and Congress outwardly hostile to not only abortion but contraception and sex education. A war against women has been waged since President Bush came to office and I wanted to know who would show as the defending army.
Until turning to column writing, I had been an abortion-rights activist myself. I had physically defended an abortion clinic by locking arms with others to keep the crawling Operation Rescuers from blocking the entrance. I spent nights for a year volunteering my legal skills to the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, assisting on briefs that would find their way to the Supreme Court in abortion-rights cases.
We were noisier then, my peers and I. Upholding those rights was taken as a personal responsibility.
In making plans to attend the April 25 March for Women's Lives, I arranged to stay at the home of one of my dearest friends, Mary Jane Goodrick, who lives on a pastoral five-acre spread in Montgomery County, Md. We would take the Metro to the march.
Traveling along the Red Line from Shady Grove, Mary Jane and I made some disquieting mental notes. The parking lots at each stop were far less than full. The subway car was only sparsely peppered with women heading to the march; and except for one apparent mother-daughter combo, all the demonstrators looked over 50.
Is this the movement, we wondered? A group of sturdy-shoed, aging feminists?
We talked about the importance of the day. Mary Jane shared that her mother had given herself an abortion with a pair of sterilized scissors. Her mom lived in a small farming community in Missouri and was married at the time. "That's what women did," said Mary Jane matter-of-factly. "It's the way you didn't have nine children back then."
I started to worry that the only women for whom abortion rights resonated were those who knew stories like this. The ones who had memories of 32 years ago, before Roe vs. Wade.
But when we got to the Mall and looked out over the throngs, all trepidation vanished. Youthful faces, full of spirited indignation, were everywhere. Here, the hiphugger set stood arm-in-arm with those in elastic waistbands. It was the Powerpuff Girls - saving the world from George Bush by bedtime - joining forces with Rosie the Riveter. Together, they were renewing a movement for personal freedom that had been allowed to grow tired and quiet.
Eighteen-year-old Jaimee Towers exemplified this synergistic energy. Sporting a tiara and a sign reading, "I'll be missing my senior prom to save the rest of my life," Towers explained that she and her friends had sacrificed going to their prom at Winona Senior High School in Minnesota to be here. The bus ride took 24 hours.
"And I'm here for 10 other friends who couldn't make it. We all are," she said, sweeping her arm to indicate the others in her group. "If this doesn't make a difference, what will?"
She's right. Turning out 1-million people (or thereabouts) is a powerful statement of political will. It should make a difference. It has to. Otherwise the antiabortion forces will continue to gain ground not only in imposing new and tightening restrictions on abortion access - such as recent federal legislation barring certain late-term abortions and giving fetuses independent legal standing from the mother - but in blocking funds for international family planning, turning sex education in the United States into an empty just-say-no mantra, and preventing stem-cell research because, ya know, that speck of sand is a human being. Last year, 558 antiabortion bills were considered around the country and 45 became law. This anti-intellectual, antifreedom, antiwoman campaign cannot be allowed these steady victories.
That's what brought out Fawn Pattison and a group of her pals, all of whom were dressed as "girl Fridays" in front of a row of manual typewriters. Wearing 1940s garb, including hats, white gloves and crocheted pink roses, the young women took dictation for anyone who wanted to send a letter to their congressional members in support of reproductive freedom. The group called itself the "keys of resistance" and hailed mostly from Chapel Hill, N.C. Pattison said their purpose was to "help people connect with their public representatives in a way that makes a difference," and a typewritten, snail-mail letter gets more attention than e-mail.
Creative, poignant humor was on display everywhere. There was the H.o.t. D.i.s.h. Militia from Duluth, Minn., which stands for "hand over the decision, it should be hers." According to Sunny Winder, 28, the idea is that women in Minnesota get things done over hot dishes. A casserole cookoff raised $8,000 to get 50 women to the march.
Oh yeah, there were speakers too. Gloria Steinem, who has turned 70, announced to cheers that one-third of the march was made up of women under 25 years old. Everyone seemed to understand that this day represented a certain passing of the torch.
Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued Roe before the high court 31 years ago, reminded the assemblage that she was only 26 years old when that bit of history was made.
Actor Ashley Judd and and the singer Moby shared the stage with old-guard celebrity activists Susan Sarandon and Carole King.
But the celebrities, politicians and professional activists couldn't upstage the crowd. Those such as Amanda Kendal-Brown, 14, with her "Pro-choice activist in training" sign. Along with her mom, Yvette Kendal, Amanda came on a charter flight from Miami along with 173 others. Those such as the female Air Force senior airman from San Antonio, Texas, who carried a sign that read "Terminate an unwanted presidency." With a thick accent and a "yes ma'am" response to questions, the airman said she was risking her career by being here, but she understood what was at stake if Bush remains in office.
Our train car on the trip back was full of ebullient chattiness. What a day. Everyone was energized, feeling that the march put abortion rights back on the political radar. For me, who had been involved in the battle so many years ago, the day was a potent reminder that individual rights still stand a chance.
