Abortion rights advocates rally in Orleans, Hyannis, Falmouth
ORLEANS — Eighty-one-year Kip Keene was determined to be the first to arrive and let her feelings be known about abortion rights.
"It's lousy watching the world go backwards," Keene said at rally for abortion rights held at the Orleans rotary on Saturday.
"I've been fighting this since the 60s, I marched then and I did a lot of marching and now I can't march so I'm gonna sit and yell," Keene said
Supporters of abortion rights hosted three “Bans Off Our Bodies” rallies on Saturday in Orleans, Hyannis, and Falmouth.
Keene sat close to the road on the triangle-shaped grass island off the rotary holding a sign with a hand-drawn image of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg that read "My body, my choice." Next to that image was a hand whose fingers each carried a message in sharp-edged bubble letters: tmy privacy, my health, my future, my identity, my life.
Women and men parked their cars along Rock Harbor Road in Orleans and walked up to the grass with signs, posters, and bottles of water.
By 1:15 there were well over 75 participants at the rally organized by the Outer Cape and Lower Cape Indivisible chapters, member Laurie Veninger said. Cape Indivisible came together following the election of Donald Trump to promote the left's causes. The organization is part of a larger nationwide group.
The two Indivisible chapters have been joining forces due to shrinking membership after President Biden was elected, Veninger said.
'What we've all known was coming is here'
"The Supreme Court installed by an extremist Republican Party is set to do what they've been promising to do for decades and that's undue women's rights, not just to abortion but to birth control I'm sure will be next and who knows what else," Veninger said.
“It seems like what we’ve all known was coming is here,” she said.
The rallies grow out of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion ruling published on May 2 in Politico that indicated the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that secured women’s right to abortion without excessive government interference would soon be overturned.
Gov. Charlie Baker said in a social media statement last week that striking down Roe v. Wade would be an "enormous setback for women across the country" and that he was proud Massachusetts "has and will always protect every woman's right to choose what is best for them."
He said he's open to the concept of a law shielding providers from liability if they offer abortion care to patients from states where such services are illegal.
What are the expectations of the rally?
Veninger does not expect the rally to stop the Supreme Court from dismantling Roe v. Wade.
‘I am hoping that we can mobilize more people to get involved and make sure we get a true majority in the Senate in November so that we can overcome the filibuster and pass things like the Women Health Protection Act," she said.
Keene wants to get the word out to the community, not do things backwards, and give people their rights, and “know that a woman has the right to her own body.”
What causes the most worry?
Veninger is worried women will become second-class citizens.
Women have only enjoyed the right to abortion for 50 years “and I don’t think young people are prepared for what’s to come,” she said.
Keene is worried the younger generation will sequester themselves in their own groups and won't embrace people outside their own circles.
Getting involved
The organizers offered participants a business card with a QR code that took them to a Bans Off Our Bodies Toolkit PDF equipped with:
An indivisible Massachusetts Coalition Statewide calendar.
Information on how to pass legislation and reforms in Congress.
A site to find other MA legislators.
Tips on how to elect more pro-choice pro-democracy Democrats.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Abortion rights: Orleans rally brings crowds of people out in support
