BONUS. The Successes and Failures of the Women’s March
The Women’s March organized rallies for abortion justice across the country. Thousands marched, but did organizers miss the mark?
Guest: Josie Pinto, executive director of Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire.
Listener-submitted audio from Alexx Noumena of Tampa Bay Abortion Fund, Angela Vega, and Asha Dahya.
Read about Black women-led Hoochies of Houston and their experience with Women’s March organizers on Twitter.
Logo by Kate Ryan, theme music by Lily Sloane.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[intro music]
Garnet Henderson [00:00:58] Hello and welcome to ACCESS, a podcast about abortion. I'm your host, Garnet Henderson. Today I'm bringing you a bonus episode about the marches for abortion rights that happened across the country on October 2nd. There was the main event in Washington, D.C., and there were more than 600 satellite marches from coast to coast. This was exciting, to be sure, but I spend a lot of time talking to people who work in abortion access, and many of them had very complicated feelings about these marches. On the one hand, they were thrilled to see people show up. But on the other hand, they felt that the Women's March, which organized these rallies, really failed to reach out to actual abortion rights and justice groups in the initial planning phases. This put those organizations which are already so overextended in a tough spot, they had to dive in at the last minute and scramble to right the ship. So I wanted to give space to both these things today. The successes and the failures, because right now we are standing on the brink of the total loss of abortion rights in large parts of this country. And if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that many people functionally lost those rights a long time ago. So everything we do right now, and in particular every dollar we spend really counts. I asked you to send in some audio from your local events and several of you obliged. The clip you heard at the very top of the episode came from a listener named Angela Vega in Austin. Thank you, Angela. Here's another clip from about 1400 miles away in California.
Asha Dayha [00:03:20] This is Asha Dayha in Malibu, California, and I'm at the protests here. It's a sister match, and we have a band from the local theatrical company and they are singing a song which they wrote called My Body Is Nobody's Body But Mine, and I love it. Fans of our bodies.
Garnet Henderson [00:03:48] Thank you. Asha, I live in New York City, so I went to the march here. I have to admit, I was really excited to be there. My original plan for this podcast was to travel and talk to all my guests in person. Obviously, I haven't been able to do that because of the pandemic. So getting to walk around with a microphone and talk to people face to face was thrilling for me. Here's some of what I heard here in New York.
T’kia Antari [00:04:18] Well I'm T’kia Antari and I am part of the Resistance Revival Chorus. So we are here to support the amazing marchers who started at Foley Square and are making their way here. We are deeply connected to the movement to ensure that women's bodies, the decisions they make are their own decisions. We vehemently oppose anybody trying to control our bodies. I'm a mom of eight and a grandmother of four, and so three granddaughters, like there's no one that has the right to tell them, now, or when they get older, what they can and cannot do with their bodies. My daughters neither. Right. And so we this is this is not okay what's happening right now. And we are going to lend our voice. New York might be okay right now, but you never know. Right. If if they came for Texas and they're coming from other parts of the state, they may come for us. And even if they don't, we all have an obligation to make sure that we are standing up for women's rights, all of us. You know, my son understands it. My husband understands it, you know, our partners understand it. Like we have to make sure that everyone this impacts everyone. It's not just a women's issue. It's a health issue.
Unidentified [00:05:33] That's the key.
Megan [00:05:40] I'm Megan and I'm from Texas. So this kind of hits really close to home. I have really always been upset by what Abbott has done to the community and how much he's harmed women. So I'm here because it's close to home, but also close to everybody's home. Abortion access is just so key to building up a society, and it's so disgusting that we've taken that out of like one of the biggest states in the country.
Speaker 5 [00:06:08] Yeah. So lots of women in my family have had abortions that were from New York and have experience and came from lower income neighborhoods. I've experienced a lot of gender violence and abortions have been kind of like how they've survived. So it's not theoretical. It's, you know, something that like my mom talks about and I'm just really passionate about everybody having that access, especially in lower income communities where it has the biggest effect.
Speaker 6 [00:06:54] Yeah, I'm here today because like while, you know, like we may not be in Texas, like, you know, this could happen anywhere. And I think it's really important to you know, stand up for what you believe in.
Garnet Henderson [00:07:12] Thank you guys so much. Thank you for letting me interrupt you for a minute.
Speaker 6 [00:07:15] No, thank you.
Speaker 7 [00:07:16] Whenever you know it happened, Roe versus Wade passed 73. So I don't know if it was 72, but up in the streets of New York and down in Washington Square, I was there. It was in a cold and I remember it was cold. I even remember what I was wearing. And I remember feeling so proud because I had been a victim of not being able to get a legal abortion before that year. So it was very personal.
Garnet Henderson [00:07:48] You said that you had been a victom of not being able to have a legal abortion. Does that mean you wanted an abortion and you weren't able to get one?
Speaker 7 [00:07:53] I wanted it. And I got it. And it was illegal. And it was not in this country. And it was a botched abortion, which I paid a lot of money for. I was very fortunate that I had very supportive parents or who knows what would have happened to me. Eventually I got a legal abortion a couroutage it was called here in New York, because now it was a medical necessity.
Pro-Choice Chanting [00:08:23] When abortion rights are under attack, what do we do. Stand up fight back. When abortion rights are under attack, what do we do. Stand up fight back. When women's rights are under attack, what do we do. Stand up fight back. When trans rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back. When abortion rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back.
Nina Henry [00:08:44] Hi, my name is Nina Henry. I'm a law student at New York University's School of Law. And I'm here because I'm a text-a-line counselor with Jane's Due Process, which works with young people seeking birth control and abortion in Texas. And I want to show them that there are people out here who are willing to fight for them. And very often we get people reaching out to us, saying that they're feeling really afraid or apologetic. And I want to show them that we would not be anywhere else in the world but by their side.
Trish [00:09:21] Ready? Okay. My name is Trish. I live in Inwood. I am here because I think it's important to say no. It is important for as many of us as possible to be on the record, to say we are not. We don't agree with this bullshit and that's okay.
Erica [00:09:41] Hi, my name is Erica. My mother had an illegal abortion. It was unsafe, she almost died. She almost got into trouble with the law and risk losing her teaching license. And we can't go back there. .
Garnet Henderson [00:10:42] So there was a lot of great stuff here. Excitement, energy, people talking about abortion in public. So what did I mean when I said there were some failures? Well, let's take a little step back. These rallies were initiated by the Women's March. That's the nonprofit organization that formed after the election of former President Donald Trump. The first Women's March in 2017 was the largest single day protest event in U.S. history. But the Women's March has faced a lot of criticism for its failures to fully include people of color, disabled people and trans people, among other issues. So when the Women's March started planning an event originally called the March for Reproductive Rights, a lot of people were skeptical. But like I said, reproductive justice organizations did jump in to help. The name of the big D.C. event was changed to rally for abortion justice. And speakers were brought in from organizations actually doing the work on the ground in Texas. After all, this event was meant to be a response to SB eight. They made it a really loud and proud pro-abortion event, and that was certainly the vibe here in New York City as well. But the Women's March doesn't have a direct hand in planning all of its satellite events. In fact, pretty much anyone who wants to plan a march can just fill out a form and get their event listed on the Women's March website. So there was a lot of variation out there. Some events enthusiastically adopted pro-abortion messaging and others did not. One past guest from the show told me that local organizers in her area were telling people not to even say the word abortion. A listener named Alex reached out and told me that the speakers at her local march weren't talking much about abortion either.
Alexx Noumena [00:12:44] Hi, my name is Alexx Noumena and I volunteer with the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund. The first thought was, despite the amount of speakers there, really nobody besides myself spoke on reproductive freedom and justice. And that was really interesting because the majority of the speakers were actually people who were talking about, you know, things like Black Lives Matter Indigenous history, culture, rights, things like that trans and while specifically trans but people in the LGBTQ plus community speaking about their experiences. But it was interesting to me that nobody actually brought those those topics full circle to reproductive justice or the abortion. What we were calling it was the Rally for Abortion Justice. And we all felt that that was really interesting because not much was said except from my organization, the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund in terms of action steps. So like, you know, you can do this to help. You can send money here. We need drivers, we need childcare providers, you know, things like that. All of the nuanced things that you don't really, well, you wouldn't necessarily think about unless you're well versed in the abortion process. So I think the biggest thing that we talked about is how do you balance all of these important topics, you know, things that really do matter, how do we collectively, as a society who all believe in the same kind of things mend these topics together so that the main goal isn't overshadowed by something that doesn't necessarily have to do with reproductive justice, but maybe could be better tied in to that that narrative?
Garnet Henderson [00:15:08] Elsewhere there were even bigger problems on Twitter. A group called Hoochies of Houston spoke out about their experience with the Women's March in their city. Hoochies of Houston is a grassroots organization dedicated to the empowerment of black people and protection of black women. Despite the fact that their organization was listed as a co-host of the Houston event, Hoochies of Houston said they were constantly sidelined by white organizers, that their speaking time was cut short, and that throughout the planning process, their concerns about lack of inclusion for people of color, disabled people and trans people were dismissed. I reached out to them and they decided they didn't want to talk about this any further. But I'll link to the Twitter thread in the show notes. Another big question I've had is will these marches translate into action? And did they really benefit the individuals and organizations who are actually out here helping people get abortions on that front? I wanted to bring you a conversation I had with another abortion funder.
Josie Pinto [00:16:19] My name is Josie Pinto. I use she they pronouns. And I'm the executive director of the Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire, which is New Hampshire's only statewide abortion fund.
Garnet Henderson [00:16:29] Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire is just getting off the ground after about two years of fundraising and setup. They started funding abortions in February of this year.
Josie Pinto [00:16:41] To date, we have pledged over 135 abortions and over $40,000 worth of care, which is, quite honestly, a higher volume than I expected us to hit in our first year. So we have a weekly budget that we're always looking to increase, but right now we give roughly 1500 a week and it's kind of a first come, first serve basis. And we do a lot of like triaging. Like if your appointment isn't this week, then we ask you to call back, you know, during the week that it is so that we can help as many people as possible.
Garnet Henderson [00:17:12] So the Women's March was potentially a big opportunity to introduce the fund to a wider community, but Josie was a bit apprehensive about it from the beginning.
Josie Pinto [00:17:23] So when I first heard the Women's March was happening, I think there was a sense of collective dread among us and other groups working on reproductive justice, because not only did we just have to respond to what was happening in Texas, but here in New Hampshire, we actually had all clinics that provide abortions get defunded just a few weeks after the Texas ban.
Garnet Henderson [00:17:43] Josie's talking about a decision made by the New Hampshire Executive Council. This is a governmental body unique to New Hampshire. It's an elected group of advisors who act as a check on the governor. And one of the things they do is approve contracts. This year, they denied contracts and therefore funding to the state's abortion clinics, which normally receive funds through a state family planning program.
Josie Pinto [00:18:09] So it kind of was just coming at a really tough time and there's just so much work to be done, like between fundraising to continue helping our own patients, to filing proactive legislation and in hopes that we can actually codify Roe before next summer. Planning an action was like the last thing on our minds, given the lack of capacity. So from the start, I felt like this really put us in a tricky position because we either had to decide to not get involved and let others set the messaging, the speaker lineup. Or we could spend our non-existent capacity trying to make the event, be in our framing and have a chance to tell people about our abortion fund. So ultimately we decided that we had to be involved in some way because being a pretty newly launched fund, it felt really important to have a presence at the marches, even though we didn't want to persay it was such an opportunity to fundraise and spread the word about the work we were doing, which a lot of people still don't know we exist. That's still one of our biggest barriers. So it was something we couldn't pass up but at the same time did not have capacity for. It's an intent versus impact thing. Obviously, intentions are good. They meant well, but I don't think anyone knew what kind of position they were putting us in of just having to do so much extra work on top of just an already really stressful time.
Garnet Henderson [00:19:28] So was it all worth it?
Josie Pinto [00:19:31] I think it got new attention towards us. Like I can safely say more people know that we exist, but I'm not seeing it translate directly into a bunch more monthly donors and stuff like that. And something that was really hard for me at the march is, you know, I got asked to speak. I gave a whole speech about what we're doing and how much money it takes to sustain something like an abortion fund, because obviously all we do is give out money, thousands a week. That takes a lot of work to sustain and at the end of the event, one of the organizers at the end got up and said, If you want to continue to fight for reproductive justice, donate to the orgs who organized this event. And then she she went on to list every single organization that took part. Majority of which they don't do any repro work and then completely left out our abortion fund. And so my heart just sank in that moment because to me, the only reason I was really there and doing that was to get the attention towards donating to us and being uplifted as one of the best and most direct places you can donate. So to not even be listed in this long list of orgs to donate to. That was just really hard because yeah, we really need community support. And I think the other thing is people are great at the rapid response, like I'll donate one time because here in New Hampshire we just defunded health centers, like take $100. But actually I would. Much prefer that person take their single big donation. Become a monthly donor with us and spread it out over the year. Because that is like reliable, predictable money that we can get. And I've just been seeing such a disconnect between people who are willing to invest one time and like feel good or, you know, buy a piece of our merch, which of course we need that. But actually getting them to commit to the long haul, the every day, the give us some amount of money every single month, there's just such a disconnect with that. And that is what we desperately need is a reliable, steady source of revenue.
Garnet Henderson [00:21:36] I've heard these sentiments echoed by many other abortion funders and reproductive justice organizers. Another common concern, which Josie shared, was the fact that a lot of messaging at these marches framed illegal abortions as dangerous as you heard from some of the people I spoke with here in New York, unsafe illegal abortions are absolutely a part of the history of abortion access in this country. I think it's important for us to hear those stories. There are people alive today who survived unsafe pre row abortions. There are others who should be here but didn't survive. However, some things are very different now. Self-managed abortion using pills is safe and effective. So effective, in fact, that anti-abortion lawmakers are trying to ban it, claiming that it's dangerous. It's important to push back on that lie and make sure that people have the information they need about self-managed abortion rather than making them afraid of it. Josie also brought up the fact that the Women's March is a big national organization with lots of fundraising power, but they're not really spending money in a way that supports abortion access.
Josie Pinto [00:23:01] I have to say, one of the most infuriating parts of it all was getting that targeted ad of can you donate to fund a porta potty at a women's march? In that moment when I saw that ad, I just my blood started boiling. I was just like, your money can have so much more of a direct impact to help abortion access. And here they are saying fund a porta potty for our march. And I also heard some people did that because they didn't even know what an abortion fund was. So to them, that was a better use of their resources. And so I do think with the women's marches, we also have to be talking about how much they're diverting attention and funding away from just directly supporting organizations, because even though it is a good opportunity for us to get donations and stuff like that, there's still a lot of money that goes into planning these things that could just be spent, like directly donating in the first place.
Garnet Henderson [00:23:53] Marches and rallies can be incredibly powerful. They draw attention to a cause and get people really fired up about it. But the big question is, how do you translate that energy into action? Well, here's what Jose suggests.
Josie Pinto [00:24:10] As always, donate to your abortion funds. Volunteer with your abortion funds. It's one of the best ways you can have the most direct impact. And yeah, that is just forever my advice. And it's.
Singing [00:24:22] And up and up and up. Sing up get up, change everything. Brothers, sisters, women, girls. Time is now to change the world. NoNo story forgotten, no soul erased. The promise left empty were taking our place. If one woman hurts and one woman cries. If one man bleeds, rise. Rise. Get up, get. get, up. Get up. What time is it? Time to rise up!
Garnet Henderson [00:25:15] Speaking of marches and rallies, there are several actions planned for December 1st. That's the day of oral arguments in Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court case that could overturn Roe versus Wade. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which is arguing this case, is holding a rally at the Supreme Court, starting bright and early at 7:30 a.m.. Interestingly, the Women's March has its own separate action planned for the same day. I'll be there in D.C. covering all of this and bringing you a special episode about it. Access is produced by me, Garnett Henderson. Our logo is by Kate Ryan and our theme music is by Lily Sloan. Thanks again to Angela Vega, Asha Dyer, Alex Nomina, Josie Pinto, and everyone who let me acost them with a microphone at the New York City Rally for Abortion Justice. If you want to support my trip to DC, you can donate to the show or buy merch from our store. The merch is so fun if I do say so myself. We have T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, totes, stickers and so much more which read say the word abortion. That link and the donation link are in the show notes. You can always support access by simply sharing the show on social media or directly with a friend. If you have a story to tell, you can always contact me at Access podcast at protonmail dot com. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a rating or review so more people will find the show. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Access Pod. A full transcript of this episode will be available on our website. A podcast about abortion dot com.
