As part of a nationwide bus tour to promote pro-choice actions, a colloquium of speakers entitled "Pro-Choice and the 2004 Elections" came to the Glass Pavilion this Tuesday. The event featured speakers from several pro-choice organizations including NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League), and the National Organization for Women (NOW). The event was part of a bus tour intended to promote the March for Choice, a march for Freedom of Choice that will take place in Washington D.C. on April 25, 2004.
Hope Kelaher, the president of College Democrats and a Co-Campus Organizer for Hopkins's newly founded NARAL chapter spoke first about the importance of choice in the 2004 elections.
"Choice is no longer just a woman's issue. Our generation will be changed forever if we don't work hard to preserve choice in the 2004 elections," said Kelaher "The Pro-choice movement is much bigger then abortion. It is about a women's right to make their own health decisions without government interference. It is about preserving legal access to birth control and emergency contraception, which would be threatened if more anti-choice legislation were passed. Lastly, it is about insuring that women have control over their own bodies, as well as have the appropriate resources to insure that they receive healthy and safe medical procedures."
Following Kelaher's introduction, Nitchie Ward, a field organizer from NOW, elaborated on the goals of the April 25 march in Washington. "What we want do is we want the politicians and the congressmen and anyone that has any type of authority to be more afraid of us when they look out their window than they are of the radical right," said Ward.
Ashlee Bagwell, the executive director of Maryland NARAL (soon to become NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland) reiterated the goals of April's March.
"We are marching to sound the alarm that our rights to privacy and right to chose are being threatened at every level. Roe v. Wade hangs by a single thread in the Supreme Court. The nation's courts are being packed with judges who are hostile to women's rights.
"The president and the majorities in both chambers of the United States congress are anti-choice," she continued. "At the state level, restriction after restriction is being passed to limit the access to family planning and reproductive health."
Sandy Rosenberg, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates for District 41 who wrote the holding of Roe v. Wade into Maryland law spoke about his history with activism.
"As students here, it's something that has been a given throughout your life, and we read often that it's people like you who take it for granted and figure it's always going to be here, Rosenberg said. By your present today and your presence in April in Washington you will recognize and make a statement that hard fought rights can be lost if we take them for granted."
The last speaker was Kate Michelman, who has served as the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America for almost two decades. Michelman gave a short history of the pro-choice movement and explained the implications of President Bush's recent anti-choice legislation.
Michelman also stressed the importance of the March in the spring.
"We are faced with a supreme court that could hand out three if not four nominations in the next four years. We are on the edge of losing many fundamental rights and at the top of the list is the right to privacy and the right to chose ... If the supreme court gets just two more justices like Clarence Thomas, Roe is gone. In 1992 we were one vote short of a supreme court complete over ruling of Roe. V. Wade. And guess what happened in 1992, we marched and we elected a pro-choice president. We are at the same place today, the difference is that many Americans don't know that," said Michelman.
Michelman further emphasized the importance of attending the March for Choice by saying, "The March is going to be our voice, our power, our way of marshaling what we know is the fundamental value of this country that we share. We are going to march into the voting booths from there out of Washington and elect a pro-choice president."
On campus, pro-choice groups publicized the event by staging a demonstration on the upper quad Tuesday morning. The demonstration featured wire hangers to symbolize women killed by illegal abortions before the act was legalized in 1973.
Kelaher elaborated on the demonstration.
"I think the demonstration was effective and perhaps shocking but that's the way we intended it to be. Sometimes you need shock factor so people can realize where we've come from, where we're going and how to get there."
