Hundreds rally, march across Arizona in defense of abortion rights 1 month before midterms

Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of the plaza where the rally took place in Phoenix. The rally took place at Wesley Bolin Plaza, in front of the Arizona state Capitol.

Donna Rowan braved the Phoenix sun on Saturday morning as she waved about a provocative two-sided sign at Wesley Bolin Plaza.

“Mandatory vasectomies — come on guys, let’s save lives,” read one half of Rowan’s homemade sign as the 50-something-year-old Avondale resident stood in a crowd of several hundred demonstrators at an abortion rights rally across from the Arizona Capitol.

“Why don’t they regulate the blue pill?” Rowan said, referencing anti-abortion and anti-contraceptive legislators and the wide availability of Viagra. “They have no right to tell me what to do with my body.”

Organized by the Women’s March, the rally was part of nationwide demonstrations a month before Election Day on Nov. 8.

The rally came a day after an Arizona appellate court halted a pre-statehood ban on nearly all abortions. The ban had been reinstated Sept. 23 by a Pima County Superior Court judge.

The court’s move is “a win, but a minor one,” Rowan said.

Among the rally’s speakers was Cindy Hans, a Democrat running for state Senate in the 13th District. While at the mic, Hans, 69, for the first time publicly spoke about an abortion she underwent. Hans said she was an unwed teen seeking to terminate her pregnancy in 1970 in a Midwestern state where abortion was illegal.

Hans told The Arizona Republic she was moved to share her experience after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June overturned the Roe v. Wade decision from 49 years before.

Hans found herself at a clandestine clinic where the doctor who was going to perform the abortion on her was drunk. She fled and eventually got the procedure done in New York where it was legal.

“We are now back to where I was when I was 17. That is horrifying because I know that what I went through, people are going to go through again,” Hans said in an interview. “I’m flabbergasted that we have to keep having this discussion.”

Hans said since her choice to abort, she went on to marry and become a mother and even donate a kidney. Taking Friday’s halt on the ban into account, Hans called the current process “a legal seesaw.”

At the rally, 19-year-old Glendale resident Justin Bullock carried a sign reading, “The people this affects couldn’t vote in 1864,” a reference to when the ban originally took effect. Bullock also argued the halt on the ban was of little consolation since such an old law was reinstated to begin with.

“They brought back a law from 1864 today,” Bullock said. “A ban on the ban is what I want to see.”

Tania Lopez, 30, prepared to march with rallygoers as she flashed a sign bedazzled with rhinestones and written in pink and red marker.

“Mind your own uterus,” the Laveen resident’s sign read in part.

Lopez said the people who drafted the archaic law banning nearly all abortions were “dead white men” without a uterus.

The rally featured other candidates in local and statewide races as speakers, including Democratic nominee for attorney general Kris Mayes. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, also spoke.

“It is so important to channel this outrage into fighting for reproductive justice and voting for candidates who will protect abortion rights,” Hobbs told the crowd.

Similar chants heard at NAU in Flagstaff

Flagstaff also saw an abortions rights rally and march take place.

The march began with a powerful story from Northern Arizona University senior Emma Burns recounting her own experience getting an abortion. “I would not be alive here today if I had not had access to a safe abortion,” she said. But even on a liberal campus in a city with legal abortion, Burns said the process was still unnecessarily challenging.

Traveling through Flagstaff displays the unique mix of opinions in a relatively liberal city in a conservative state. With every passing car that honked in support of those marching, there was a pickup truck right behind them ready to cover the crowd in exhaust fumes.

While more than 50 people marched for reproductive rights, there was only one counterprotester, an NAU freshman who walked along with the group but held a sign stating simply, “Don’t Kill Babies.”

Cole Corley, a Christian originally from Texas, said “If you see a great evil, to not speak out against it, to not at least make yourself present for it and doing what you can to show it doesn’t go uncontested, then I think you’re doing wrong in your complacency.”

While he said he has gotten some dirty looks and was the intended recipient of a few middle fingers, the day has remained peaceful. “I still respect what everyone here has to say,” Corley said. “I believe it’s my personal responsibility if I believe this is wrong to be here.”

Kyle Nitschke, who is running for state Senate as a Clean Elections candidate, is realistic about his chances against Wendy Rogers.

He implored the crowd to seize the power they have with both their voice and their vote. But more than just winning his race, Nitschke is focused on the bigger picture for the Democratic Party statewide by increasing voter turnout and expanding progressive messaging.

“This will be a winnable district before they redraw their lines in 2030, I do believe that,” he said. “We just have to keep fighting and making sure folks know they have an option.”

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Hundreds gather for abortion rights rally at Arizona Capitol