'Bans Off Our Bodies': Worcester rallies for abortion rights at City Hall in nationwide protest
WORCESTER — More than 300 people rallied on Saturday in front of City Hall to protest in light of the May 2 leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that revealed intentions to overturn the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which protects abortion rights.
Planned Parenthood Advocacy Group organized the event online calling for a nationwide “Bans Off Our Bodies” protest on May 14 shortly after the leak.
Events were held in Boston and Portland, Maine, but also in Washington, D.C., Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina, among other cities and states.
The Independent Socialist Group, a Worcester-based organization, led the rally in front of City Hall.
Chants as “Abortion Rights for All!” and “Justice for All!” were echoed by Worcester-area residents who showed up in support.
“Roe v. Wade was won in the first place because of a movement of people, and a movement like that is necessary to protect Roe v. Wade and to win more access to abortion,” Ashley Rogers, a member of the executive board of the Independent Socialist Group, said. “This is a call to the to the people to build a mass movement that is capable of protecting our rights.”
Liz Callan, a Worcester resident who protested in support of the rally, held a sign that said, "I was a forced pregnancy. Never again.”
She grew up in an orphanage in Romania, where she had been abandoned in the 1980s after her biological mother was unable to get an abortion under the ruling of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s government.
"To this day I still have consequences from the time I spent in the orphanage,” said Callan, citing physical abuse. “I did get adopted in 1995 by a Worcester family, but many of the children didn't and continued to live in those conditions.”
Callan also said that she had aborted an unwanted pregnancy at Planned Parenthood last year.
'A hard decision'
She said that the pregnancy was the consequence of a rape.
“It was still a hard decision,” said Callan. “I took the time, considered the pros and cons, and even though the final straw was that nobody was supportive – neither my family nor my ex-boyfriend — I did it."
Kat Kraszeski, a Worcester State University English and Gender and Sexuality major, who attended the rally held a sign that read, “Keep your laws off our bodies.”
"What we want to achieve is the freedom of choice to have an abortion,” Kraszeski said. “We’re here today just trying to get our voices heard. The more people show up, the more will people realize that like there's a large community that feels the same way.”
More than half of U.S. abortions are done with pills rather than surgery, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The trend has spiked during the pandemic with the help of telemedicine.
In 2020, pills accounted for 54% of all U.S. abortions, up from roughly 44% in 2019.
About 630,000 abortions were reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2019.
At least 276,000 women terminated their pregnancies outside their home state between 2012 and 2017, according to a 2019 Associated Press analysis of data collected from state reports and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion rights would still be protected in Massachusetts under state law.
State Sen. Harriette L. Chandler of Worcester told the Telegram & Gazette earlier this month that this would be possible because of the implementation of language in her proposed ROE Act legislation. It allows abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy in cases with a fatal fetal anomaly or if a physician decides it would best support the health of a patient, and lowers the age that someone can seek an abortion without consent from a parent or judge from 18 to 16.
Chandler also said that those living outside the state who seek abortion care in Massachusetts will also be protected under law.
“(Revoking Roe v. Wade) will cause very real harm to people across this country,” Chandler said at the time. “Women will still be able to get legal, safe abortions going into the future no matter what the Supreme Court says."
Contact Toni Caushi at tcaushi@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @tcaushi
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Planned Parenthood held nationwide event against overturning Roe v. Wade
