Tag: womens march
'Abort Abbott': Texas Rally Launches Wave Of Pro-Choice Protests

'Abort Abbott': Texas Rally Launches Wave Of Pro-Choice Protests

By Richard Webner and Julia Harte

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) -Women's rights advocates gathered at the Texas Capitol on Saturday to protest against the country's most restrictive abortion law, launching a series of 660 marches around the United States in support of reproductive freedom.

A crowd of more than 1,000 protesters assembled in sweltering heat in front of the building where lawmakers earlier this year passed a measure that bans abortions after about six weeks, which Governor Greg Abbott later signed.

"Abort Abbott" appeared on several of the demonstrators' signs and T-shirts, while others sported the Texas state slogan, "Come and Take It" next to a drawing of a uterus.

"Our vision for Texas is still rugged and resilient," Ann Howard, a commissioner of Travis County, which includes Austin, told the crowd. "But it's also open and inclusive and compassionate. Our Texas safeguards individual freedoms."

In Washington, D.C., protesters were set to march to the U.S. Supreme Court two days before the court reconvenes for a session in which the justices will consider a Mississippi case that could enable them to overturn abortion rights established in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case.

In a 5-4 decision on September 1, the justices denied a request from abortion and women's health providers to block enforcement of the near-total ban in Texas.

"This is kind of a break-glass moment for folks all across the country," Rachel O'Leary Carmona, executive director of Women's March, said before most of the demonstrations that the group organized got under way.

"Many of us grew up with the idea that abortion would be legal and accessible for all of us, and seeing that at very real risk has been a moment of awakening," she said.

Carmona said the number of marches scheduled for Saturday is second only to the group's first protest, which mobilized millions of people around the world to rally against former President Donald Trump the day after his inauguration in 2017.

The coast-to-coast marches were set to include not only Austin, but other cities in Texas, a flashpoint in the nation's battle over abortion rights.

The state's so-called "heartbeat" law, which went into effect on Sept. 1, bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo, usually around six weeks. That is before most women know they are pregnant and earlier than 85% to 90% of all abortions are carried out, experts say.

Texas also lets ordinary citizens enforce the ban, rewarding them at least $10,000 if they successfully sue anyone who helped provide an illegal abortion.

In the month since the law was enacted, hundreds of women in Texas have driven to other states for abortions, while others have sought abortion-inducing pills by mail or visited "crisis pregnancy centers" that encourage women not to get abortions. Abortion clinics are struggling to survive as patient visits decline and some staff quit.

Abortion rights advocates and the U.S. Justice Department have challenged the law in state and federal courts, arguing that it violates Roe v. Wade.

A federal judge in Austin on Friday heard the Justice Department's request https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-administration-urge-halt-strict-texas-abortion-law-2021-10-01 to block the law temporarily while its constitutionality is challenged.

(Reporting by Richard Webner in Austin and Julia Harte in New York; Writing by Peter Szekely; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis)

The Women Are Saving Our Country — So Be Thankful

The Women Are Saving Our Country — So Be Thankful

For the last Thanksgiving or two, Americans could be excused for wondering why exactly they ought to be giving thanks, as they watched a cruel and ignorant man abuse the highest office to degrade our country. Since November 2016, Donald Trump has imperiled all of the great gifts that we inherited as a nation, and inflamed the most disturbing suspicions about his loyalty. Thankful is not what most of us feel when we ponder his presidency, today or any other day.

But this November, the smashing result of the midterm elections refreshed our hopes and renewed our democracy. So on Thanksgiving, I feel deeply obliged to express my gratitude to those who drove that victory.

The women.

From the very first day, women have led the political and cultural resistance to Trump’s presidency, seeing its nascent authoritarianism as a threat to their autonomy and freedom. Still furious over the undemocratic defeat of Hillary Clinton, they rose up in unprecedented millions to organize and lead the Women’s March on January 22, 2017, dwarfing the celebration of his inauguration and putting him and his regime on notice.

Echoed by massive demonstrations in cities and towns around the United States and the world, all the way to Antarctica, the march famously became the largest single day of protest in American history. And yet a jaded note could be heard in much of the response, in the mainstream media at least, as observers wondered aloud whether the marchers could sustain that day’s commitments in political action.

The answer to that question arrived, loudly and decisively, on November 6, 2018.

During the months between the march and the midterm, American women mounted an unprecedented political mobilization in their neighborhoods, under various organizational names and rubrics. Women with years of experience in politics and women who had never done politics at all; women of every ethnic and religious background; women who had supported Hillary and women who had supported Bernie; women who had done every sort of work and women who had lived and loved in every sort of family; in short, women of every kind stepped forward to defend essential values.

Hints of what that upsurge might eventually achieve could be glimpsed in a series of special elections that were electrified by the work of women activists and an outpouring of women voters — including the Georgia Congressional race in a deep red district that Jon Ossoff lost narrowly, and the Alabama Senate race that Doug Jones stunningly won.

But the most promising portent came when the women began to declare themselves as candidates for nearly every legislative and administrative office, in numbers never seen before in any cycle. As Think Progress noted:

A record 272 women ran as general election nominees for U.S. Congress or governor this year, with 124 elected thus far. An equally historic 219 people of color were nominated, with at least 115 elected. For the first time, Native American women and Muslim women will serve in Congress. Massachusetts and Connecticut elected their first Black women to Congress, and Texas its first Latinas. Women will represent Arizona and Tennessee in the Senate and serve as governors of Maine and South Dakota for the first time, as well.

Indeed, female candidates overall and women of color in particular outperformed the average. Their candidacies were critical in returning control of the House to the Democrats and staving off a much worse loss for their party in the Senate.

New stars were born in this election, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York to Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan to Katie Porter in California, and many more. It is important to recognize not just the victorious but also the defeated whose brave efforts contributed so greatly to the blue wave. Their ranks include Stacy Abrams, the extraordinary Georgia gubernatorial nominee who displayed such grit and dignity in the face of an election rigged by her opponent, and Heidi Heitkamp, who cast a principled vote against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh at great cost to her own electability. In a nationalized election, every viable candidate matters.

And then there is Nancy Pelosi, the once and future Speaker, who fought Trump and the Republicans on every issue, then led the Democrats back into the majority. Pragmatic and compassionate, sensitive and tough, she is a masterful tactician whose leadership is more valuable now than ever.

Yes, I’m thankful for the women who have stood up and defied expectations. They gave us the best day of the Trump presidency so far. And they may yet save our country.

IMAGE: Hundreds of thousands march down Pennsylvania Avenue during the Women’s March, January 22, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

Danziger: #HeToo

Danziger: #HeToo

Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com.

How To Participate In The ‘Day Without A Woman’ Strike

How To Participate In The ‘Day Without A Woman’ Strike

Reprinted with permission fromAlterNet.

The Women’s March and demonstrations of its type are all about showing up. Participants aim to make their presence heard. As L.A. Kauffman, the author of Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalis told Vogue, they “create situations that shine a spotlight on injustice and force a crisis that authorities need to address.”

Many who attended the D.C. march couldn’t hear the speeches or were caught in human traffic jams so crowded they couldn’t complete the official route. All of which didn’t matter, of course, because the point was to be present. But what if there was one day where women didn’t show up? A day women made their value known by their absence?

For their next big project, International Women’s Strike organizers, including the activists behind the Women’s March, are calling for an event of the opposite kind. The March 8 general strike for women aims to showcase women’s importance by revealing what happens on a day without women.

Taking the day off from paid work is only the beginning. Planned to coincide with International Women’s Day, the organizers request that participants engage in one or all of the following actions on March 8, as listed on their website:

  • Women take the day off, from paid and unpaid labor
  • Avoid shopping for one day (with exceptions for small businesses and businesses owned by women and minorities)
  • Wear red in solidarity with A Day Without a Woman

Exactly how to use this time is up to each individual participant, but across the country, women and allies of the strike are staging rallies, marches, benefit concerts, and other gatherings to show support and solidarity. In New York City, they will assemble in Washington Square Park for a tour of sites critical to progressive history, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where young immigrant women died in a horrific fire in 1911, the deadliest industrial disaster in history at the time, which led to substantial labor reforms. In Philadelphia, strikers will stand in solidarity with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, who have been without a contract for 1,200 days.

Some critics, including Maureen Shaw, writing in Quartz, and Meghan Daum in the LA Times, argue that this strike will mostly amount to a day without privileged women—women who can afford to take the day off without fear of lost wages or other repercussions from employers. Shaw notes that, “As empowering as strikes may feel, they tend to be most effective when they are centered on achieving a particular policy goal,” and compares this strike to those of labor unions fighting for higher wages, better working hours, or specific additions to their working conditions.

But the women’s strike is only one step in fighting for a platform that includes all of these asks and more: environmental justice, reproductive rights, and fair wages. The point is to show how many unseen, uncompensated, and unvalued tasks women perform, and how much society depends on them.

It’s supposed to be inconvenient, but Daum and Shaw’s responses also assume that organizers haven’t considered the economic barriers to striking (in fact, they take pains to explain that there is more than one way to participate). You can attend a rally before or after work, wear red, decline to shop, or decline to perform unpaid labor if taking the day off from paid labor is not an option.

For more information, including a letter to inform your employer of strike participation, visit A Day Without a Woman. The International Women’s Strike website has a complete list of events around the country.

Ilana Novick is an AlterNet contributing writer and production editor.

IMAGE: People take part during an event organized by American expats and Canandian nationals, in solidarity with the Washington’s Women’s March, in Ajijic, Mexico January 21, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer