Spartanburg residents rally downtown in support for abortion rights

Spartanburg residents took to the street Tuesday afternoon to protest the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The demonstration comes days after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade on Friday, June 24. South Carolina followed the ruling with the "Fetal Heartbeat Act."

The act bans abortion once a heartbeat is detected, which could be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

More than 100 people gathered Tuesday along the side of East Main Street in the heart of downtown Spartanburg. Their chants could be heard along Morgan Square and some people blew their horns to show support.

"My mom broke down crying when she found out about the court decision. She was born in the '70s when Roe v. Wade had just passed the Supreme Court. But she's also grown up hearing the horror stories of what happens when abortion isn't legal," said Jasmine Webber, who organized the protest and is a student at the University of South Carolina. "Children are truly important to me, but so are the women that have to give birth to them."

Webber does research on parenting techniques that promotes child health. She said supporting abortion rights doesn't mean a person doesn't care about children.

Protesters carried signs reading, "Don't like abortions? Just ignore them just like you do with children in foster care." Another sign said, "Girls just want to have fundamental rights" and another one read "Pro-life is a lie, you don't care if women die."

And since the state "Fetal Heartbeat Act" was passed Monday, abortion advocates are expecting to see more children given up for adoption after they are born. And yet the foster care system does not seem to fulfill the needs of many children to grow up in a healthy and stable environment.

Ariana Barber recently went through a miscarriage. At the age of 17, Barber had found out she was pregnant and that the father had left for Washington.

On May 9, three days after she had seen her fetus without a heartbeat in the ultrasound, she decided to have a procedure to terminate the pregnancy.

If she had waited more than a month later, around June 27, Barber would not have been able to have the procedure and would have had to wait for her body to naturally terminate the pregnancy.

"I'm honestly feeling trapped," Barber said. "I think it's wrong that you're worried about the clump of cells inside of people's bodies rather than the actual person that's living and breathing."

Barber, who identifies as a pansexual female, feels she "does not matter" in a world where she said only "straight, white, Christian males" have rights.

"I'm still living with my mom, and I'm still growing up as is," Barber said. "I was terrified to have to raise a kid at my age. I watched my mom be a single mother and her struggles with me because my dad decided to walk out. I knew that I was going to have to be enough for both parents and I was really worried that I didn't (have enough)."

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Sarah Owens, a student at Wofford College, believes the ban on legal abortion as soon as six weeks into pregnancy is an infringement not just on women, but also on people of color.

"It's already hard being a woman of color, especially a Black woman in South Carolina," Owens said. "We're shaped by religious and cultural epithets and disbeliefs because people who choose abortion are seen as immoral. We need to foster a healthier culture and environment for girls so they can properly make the decisions for themselves."

Margaret Simon, a white single mother who had just given birth 10 months ago, told the Herald-Journal she had the privileges that allowed for her to give birth, but she understands giving birth is not an option for many.

"I chose to have my kid although the father was not going to be involved," Simon said. "But everyone should be able to have the choice that I was allowed to make. I had the family support and generations of wealth, but most women in Spartanburg don't have the kinds of support that I have."

Alex Blue, a Black man, came to protest in support of women, queer communities, same-sex marriage, and for people of color.

"To me, it feels like they (pro-life activists) just want babies, and white babies," Blue said. "It feels like it's a way to make the white population in the majority because banning legal abortion will disproportionately impact people of color."

According to the South Carolina Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Review Committee established by state law, 16.4 white people die in every 100,000 live childbirths from 2014 to 2018. For "Black & Other" people of color, 43.3 people die in every 100,000 live childbirths.

For these deaths, the committee concludes that 55% of these pregnancy-related deaths were preventable.

Hope Osment and Isabelle Addis, both white women who have grown up in conservative Southern environments, came out to support the protest.

"I grew up in a very Southern Baptist family," Osment said. "After I moved out, I learned a lot about the world, and I realized that the world isn't just a Southern Baptist Church. Some people are hateful and are using God as an excuse for this to be OK. God brought us here with free will, so I think that's what we should have no matter what."

Addis believes in the choices of different individuals. For people who don't think abortion is for them, she said they don't have to go through it. But at the same time, they cannot stop other people from choosing abortion.

"I was raised as a preacher's kid, and they don't like homosexuality or transgender people," Addis said. "And I'm gay. So pretty much everything that my family has ever said I disagree with, and I've been in therapy since I was 10.

Among the protesters was Spartanburg City Councilwoman Erica Brown. Brown echoes the sentiments about abortion being people's right and choice and notes the disproportionate impact the ban would have on people of color.

"This is literally going to kill people," Brown said. "The law in South Carolina is signed based on religious views and not on science. No matter what this law does, it's not going to stop abortion. What the law needs to do is to be in place so that women can have safe abortions. Right now, they're going to be risking their own lives to make their own choices."

This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Spartanburg residents gather downtown to support abortion rights