From the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride Rally in Fargo, North Dakota
August 18, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The following are excerpts from these speakers at the rally in Fargo:
Sunsara Taylor:
We have to rally forth an uncompromising movement of thousands, tens of thousands, and soon millions, that actually defeats this war on women and changes the way people feel—that's how history has been changed in the past, it's the masses of people who make history.
Abortion Rights Freedom Riders outside Operation Rescue in Wichita, next stop after Fargo.
Get connected and spread this in your community, on Facebook, on Twitter, through the Internet and in other ways, so that we stay connected and there's a growing force that is a beginning of turning the tide and changing, a national counteroffensive uncompromising about women's lives and women's liberation and relying on ourselves and building this movement that can change the course of history.
So I'll end, as I did last night, with a quote from the call for the World Can't Wait movement where it says: "History is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.
***
A young undergraduate student at University of North Dakota:
This is what we're here to do today—to de-stigmatize abortion because it is an essential part of every woman's life to have control over her reproductive rights. My mother has had an abortion. My mother is a part of the one in three and I am proud of her for doing so.
***
A young woman:
There's been enough generations of women who've had to fight for this right, who've had to see this. And with my generation we've seen this crazy assault, we've seen the murder of doctors, we've seen the bombing of clinics, and we've been denied real sex education and we have heard nobody say the word ABORTION. That's ridiculous! [Crowd yells "Abortion!"]
***
Another woman:
The anti-abortion movement has never been about life. It has never been about protecting babies, despite what this or that individual who relates or identifies with that movement believes about when life begins, the core and the essence and the objective effect of this movement has always been about controlling women. If you go and you ask any of these so-called pro-life organizations what they think about sex education and what they think about birth control, you'll find that they have ranks after ranks of lobbyists that are attacking those same rights, they're attacking a scientific understanding of reality altogether on every front. They uphold the literal interpretation of the Bible that says that women should stay silent. And we won't stay silent! [cheers]
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