Demonstrators rallied through downtown Chicago’s Loop Saturday afternoon to protest the wave of restrictions to abortion access emerging across the country.
Thousands of passersby turned to watch as around 80 protesters shouting chants and beating drums marched up State Street and spoke through bullhorns at Millennium Park’s “The Bean” and by the iconic lions of The Art Institute of Chicago.
“This is all about female enslavement, and whether women are able to control our lives, our bodies, our destinies,” Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights organizer Jen Becker said as the demonstration started at Federal Plaza. “This is a wake-up call. We cannot let these assaults keep happening and growing.”
The protest, calling for a broader movement to push back against abortion rights restrictions, came at the end of a week marked by judicial decisions that could affect the ability of people in all U.S. states to take the drug used in the majority of medical abortions, mifepristone.
Less than a year after conservative Supreme Court justices reversed Roe V. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright, the court is now set to make a decision on mifepristone access after an April 7 ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas launched a developing legal battle.
The far-reaching and virtually unprecedented order from Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, sought to block FDA approval of the drug, ruling the agency did not properly assess safety concerns when it approved it decades ago.
A federal appeals court ruled prohibited mailing the widely-used abortion medication and limited the drug’s use to only the first seven weeks of pregnancy Wednesday, despite the two-drug regimen’s approval for use through the 10th week of pregnancy.
Meanwhile, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Friday a bill approved by the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature to ban abortions after six weeks or pregnancy.
Leaders at the Chicago protest Saturday painted the mifepristone legal saga as proof that restrictions on abortion access will affect people even in states where governments have preserved and reinforced abortion rights, including Illinois.
“It’s certainly not about letting each state decide,” Becker told the crowd. “Revoking approval of mifepristone would be a major step toward banning abortion nationwide.”
After listening to speakers at Federal Plaza, the rallygoers marched on State Street’s sidewalk. The busy shopping and entertainment district they passed through was filled with tourists and pedestrians enjoying the warm, sunny afternoon, many of whom paused to watch the roving demonstration.
Some people snapped photos through store windows. Others honked or cheered, while a few complained as they tried to pass along the crowded sidewalk. Police followed the group to make sure demonstrators didn’t walk into the road and directed traffic away.
The protesters paused in front of the Walgreens at State and Randolph streets. Activist Allyson Nojag of Addison noted the corporation’s early March decision to not sell the mifepristone pill by mail in 20 states and called on the crowd to not buy from the store, chanting “Walgreens hates women.”
Mother-and-daughter duo Catherine Sullivan, 54, and Audra Lee Dobiesz, 17, of Pilsen marched beside one another as the crowd moved to a packed Millennium Park, where hundreds of people visiting “The Bean” sculpture turned away from their reflections as the loud protest group arrived.
The right to choose to get an abortion that Sullivan had for most of her life is being stripped from her daughter, Sullivan said.
“I don’t want to see her obliged to carry out an unwanted pregnancy and bring a child into the world that doesn’t have the material, economic support to live a full life,” she said.
Like many of the protest’s speakers, she called for a broader mass movement of protests, strikes and walkouts to push back against the wave of abortion rights restrictions. Her daughter, Dobiesz, said she won’t live in a state with strong restrictions.
“Of course not. I would have a lack of access to basic health care,” she said.
Melrose Park resident Erin Harmon, 26, said her mother, an ultrasound technician, sometimes learns the pregnancies of women she scans are clearly not viable. Governments should better support children and recognize motherhood as a job, she said.
“I don’t want people to decide my future,” she said. “I want it to be between me and my doctor.”
Danny Carraher, 24, said he was marching because his 90-year-old grandmother and his mom couldn’t. Many women in the Oak Park resident’s family have worked for abortion rights over decades, he said.
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“It’s something that is hard fought, hard won and easily lost,” Carraher said.
Lincoln Square resident Aaron Christensen, 55, walked with a homemade sign that said “Ask me about my vasectomy.” Men need to take more responsibility for their part in bringing life into the world, he said.
The restrictions on abortion rights come from “fear” and a desire to control women, he said, adding that he thinks more men should fight against the restrictions on behalf of their sisters and daughters.
Theresa Boysen of Hoffman Estates thought about her 5-year-old daughter as she marched, she said. Boysen, 43, wouldn’t have been able to have her child if she hadn’t had an abortion after an earlier miscarriage that threatened her ability to successfully give birth in the future, she said.
“I wanted to be a mother. I wanted nothing more than to be a mother. My body wasn’t agreeing,” Boysen said.
If she faced the same situation in many states now, she said, she wouldn’t have been able to get the procedure.
The Associated Press contributed.
