People lined up holding signs and chanting. Twenty-five people blocked traffic for 15 to 20 minutes, ignoring the NYPD who kept blasting out their taped threat to arrest people if they did not leave. Photo: revcom
Do not squander the courage of the testimony we have heard today, the hopes of those who have tuned in, donated, spread the word and are watching... and the strength and defiance of those who are about to put it on the line.
These were the words of Sunsara Taylor at the end of a powerful rally on Sunday, February 27, in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, one of the major headquarters of reactionary anti-abortion politics—right before she led people to step into the streets to block traffic on 5th Avenue. Twenty-five people blocked the street for 15 to 20 minutes before Sunsara and six others were arrested for disorderly conduct. (They were released Sunday evening.)
Sunsara Taylor with Araceli Herrera, Founder of Domesticas Unidas (Domestic Workers Alliance). Photo: revcom
Merle Hoffman, founder and CEO of Choices Women’s Medical Center in Queens, NY, one of the first abortion clinics in the U.S.; organizer of the first pro-choice civil disobedience at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989; and an initiator of RiseUp4AbortionRights.org. Photo: revcom
Jim Fouratt, a founder of the Gay Liberation Front in New York City. Photo: revcom
Kia Corthron, playwright and novelist: Kia read “An Amy Coney Barrett Nightmare,” a piece from a reader of Revcom.us on how she was forced to carry through a teenage pregnancy and put the baby up for adoption. Photo: revcom
Lori Sokol, Executive Director of Women’s eNews, and an initiator of RiseUp4AbortionRights.org. Photo: revcom
Cinda Lawrence, actor: Cinda did a dramatic reading of the testimony of Phyllis Chesler, writer and psychotherapist, who had two abortions in the 1960s when it was illegal everywhere. Photo: revcom
The action followed an afternoon of testimony that was wrenching and, yes, courageous. Araceli Herrera traveled from Texas that morning to tell her story of being gang-raped as a teenager in Mexico, denied an abortion, and then cast off and made into a pariah by family and classmates—with her hopes of being a biologist forever dashed. Jim Fouratt, a former member of ACT UP, told of the time a dear friend bled out from a botched abortion by the time he had returned from the drugstore to buy extra-strength Kotex to help her. One after the other… the audience was rocked to tears. These are the stakes. Merle Hoffman, the long-time New York abortion provider and a co-initiator of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, opened the testimony by talking about her own abortion, her later adoption of a daughter at a time of her choosing, and her coming into political action 40 years ago when the Hyde Amendment—a law denying federal aid for abortions to poor women on Medicaid—went into effect. Artists dramatically read the written testimony of others. And Lori Sokol, Executive Director of Women’s eNews and a co-initiator of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, drew the connections between the move to decimate abortion rights and the effect that will have both on other struggles for justice and the overall atmosphere in society. (We will post excerpts of this testimony by tomorrow evening, as well as other sights and sounds of the day, as well as a report from an action in San Francisco.)
Co-MC Amaris Modesto, at RiseUp4AbortionRights rally. Photo: revcom
Co-MC Michelle Xai, a leader of the Revolution Club in Los Angeles. Photo: revcom
Lovette, who said that the right to decide when to have children enabled her to send two girls to college. She said, “We need to be able to make our own choices. We are not incubators. I want to repeat, we are not incubators.” Then she made a passionate pitch for people to donate “so we can win this fight,” noting that she gave $50 she couldn’t afford, and other people should donate in the same spirit. Photo: revcom
Sammy, an older white woman: Sammy talked about the disrespect, mistreatment, and the dangers when abortion was illegal. A few weeks after getting an abortion, she saw that same doctor’s picture in the newspaper—charged with murder after fatally perforating the uterus of another of his abortion patients. Sammy realized, “That could have been me,” and was moved by her experience to become a fighter for abortion rights, including joining the 1989 protest at St. Patrick’s. Photo: revcom
People drew inspiration from the struggles and recent victories in Mexico, Argentina and just last week Colombia—and many wore the green scarves popularized in Argentina as a symbol of this movement.
The taking of the streets was electric—spirits were high, determination was palpable.
Marching right onto 5th Avenue, a very busy street in New York City. Photo: revcom
After a powerful speak-out where people movingly told their stories of the importance of the right to abortion – and the horror when women do not have that right—people lined up and marched across the street to the front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a major headquarter of reactionary anti-abortion politics. Photo: revcom
And the send-home message from Sunsara Taylor was clear, and worth quoting at some length:
Stand with those who spoke today and bear witness with them. Spread what they are doing on social media. Let their courage soak into you.
Tonight, as soon as this is over—start texting everyone you know. Get on the phone. Go to your religious leaders. Go to your best friends. Go to your family. Go to your classmates and coworkers and colleagues, the people in your building, the stranger on the street.
Tell them about this emergency facing women. Tell them about this movement that is refusing to bow down. Most of all: Tell them that they need to be in the streets on March 8—INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY.
In a courageous act of defiance, a number of women stayed in the street and seven people, including Sunsara Taylor, were arrested for disorderly conduct. Photo: revcom
And tell them to be at the mass organizing meeting this Wednesday night at 7 pm—tell them you are going to be there, too—and you need to be. Wednesday night, we will honor those who do civil disobedience today. And we will roll up our sleeves and work together to turn out people across this city—students and young people, people from the arts, medical professionals, people locked at the bottom of society and everywhere in between—on March 8, International Women's Day.
International Women's Day is a day when the struggle for the liberation of women all over the world is declared, and in the revolution that I am fighting for, women's liberation is completely bound up with the emancipation of all humanity. To make this real, this year we must fight with all we've got for the right to abortion.
Photo: revcom
So let's make this INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2022, MARCH 8, IN THIS CITY AT 3 PM AT UNION SQUARE AND IN RALLIES AND MARCHES AROUND THE COUNTRY—the day that the fascists and the women haters begin to get nervous, to realize that those they have stepped on, those they have silenced, those they have discounted and disrespected and treated as zeroes started to turn the tide of history. Started to make what had seemed impossible, possible. Just like Argentina. Just like Mexico. Just like in Colombia. And through our struggle, let us not only draw strength from the women in Poland who have waged this fight relentlessly, but let us also feed strength back to them as they continue to fight—unbroken—until they win!
And from there—we go for real to the hard but necessary and inspiring work to spark and spread and organize a movement big enough, sure enough of our righteousness and relentless enough to stop this overturning of abortion rights dead in its tracks. And even more, to begin to turn the tide against the terrible future these fascists and the system that spawned them is trying to lock down, here and around the world.
This is what we are called on to do. This is what makes life worth living.