'Stars, stripes, basic human rights': July 4th abortion-rights protest flows onto streets

The Louisville skyline was interrupted Monday by dozens of angry signs, lifted up by a large crowd of even angrier protestors, as abortion-rights advocates gathered downtown to protest the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade.

More than 150 people gathered around 5:30 p.m. on July 4, holding signs with messages like "I am a woman not a womb," and "Stars, stripes, basic human rights."

Many protestors and speakers also emphasized Supreme Court ruling applies to all people who have a uterus, including many nonbinary people and trans men, not just women.

Chants of, "Abort the Supreme Court" and "Pro-life is a lie, they don't care if people die," rang through the streets of downtown even as the sun began to set.

Summer Dickerson has been involved with organizing for seven years. On a megaphone, she shared her story about surviving human trafficking and how important it is to her that people have access to abortion.

"I hung my flag upside down, as a sign of distress. I won't take it down because I'm an American, but if this isn't a state of distress, I don't know what is," she said.

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Ultimately, Dickerson wanted to make sure people stayed safe. She urged people to stay outside of the Kentucky Court of Justice and not march in the streets.

"We don't have medics or security," she told the crowd. "If you go to the streets, the police will f--- you up."

Even so, about an hour into the protest, as chants of “My body, my choice” reached their peak, a group of about 20 protestors rushed into the middle of Sixth and Jefferson. Their numbers soon swelled to about 100.

Over the next hour, the group marched twice down Jefferson, past gawking onlookers, many of whom joined in the chants themselves, on Fourth Street, down Muhammad Ali Boulevard and finally up Sixth street to where they began.

At one point, a group of the protestors sat down forming a line across the road on Jefferson. The group never fully blocked traffic, and police left them alone.

Ariana Cays was one of the marchers at the front, and said she went out in the street to try and get the message across that these new abortion bans are already having frightening impacts.

She cited a 10-year-old girl from Ohio who was pregnant and recently had to leave the state to receive an abortion because her pregnancy was three days beyond Ohio's six-week ban.

“Marching in the street is an invitation for people to join us, to come with us,” Cays said. “To see how many people were honking their horns and raising their fists for us was really empowering.”

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The crowd was comprised of people of all ages.

Collins O'Neil, age 6, lead a chant of, "My body, my choice" with the megaphone in hand. It was the first time she had ever spoken into a microphone, her and her mother said.

"I want her to know we have a voice," Laurie O'Neil, Collins' mother, said. "This is unconstitutional."

O'Neil was not the only person who brought her child to the protest. Joslyn Davis traveled two hours from Russell Springs, Kentucky, to attend. With her were her children, ages 3, 4 and 6.

"My daughters have less rights than their grandparents," she said. "I'm really scared they're going to come for gay marriage, interracial marriage and see how far they can take it."

Dressed in all black and thrusting into the air a sign that said “Pro-lifers just want to breed taxpayers," Matthew Fadziejewski and Karissa Linde said they were fed up.

Fed up because if Linde’s mother and sister had not been able to get safe abortions, they would have died from their respective miscarriages, she said. Fed up, because Fadziejewski said he has not seen nearly enough white men like himself show up to protect a right that affects everyone, not just people who can get pregnant.

But they were also, they made sure to note, fed up with the Democratic Party’s decades of inaction on abortion rights.

Democrats have held control of the House, Senate and presidency under four presidents since abortion rights were first made legal nationwide, including currently under President Biden. Abortions rights have still not been codified into law, they said.

Others are reading: Kentucky federal judge to step down, opening seat for Biden's anti-abortion GOP nominee

The Courier Journal recently reported that Biden had plans to nominate an anti-abortion Republican to be a Kentucky judge the day Roe vs. Wade was overturned.

“I’m tired of just voting and it doing absolutely nothing,” Linde said, barely pausing for a breath in her anger. “It feels like we can’t trust anyone that is running our country anymore. So we’re trying to promote people to really start unionizing and build our own power.”

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: 150 gather for Louisville Independence Day abortion-rights protest