Women's March in Phoenix: Several hundred gather at Arizona Capitol

The seventh annual National Women’s March takes off Saturday morning in Phoenix with accompanying marches in multiple cities across the country.

The event supporting abortion rights is planned from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Arizona Capitol, 1700 W. Washington St.

March organizers are calling the rally "Bigger than Roe" because of its focus on abortion rights.

The march traditionally takes place the weekend of Jan. 19-21 in recognition of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Jan. 22, 1973, landmark decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe in the 6-3 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.

Follow live coverage of the march from Republic reporters.

Marchers make their way around Arizona Capitol

After listening to speakers in front of the Arizona State Capitol, hundreds of marchers began to make their way around the Capitol building.

Chanting "Our Body, Our Choice" and other slogans while carrying signs of support for the reproductive rights movement, marchers — including mothers pushing their children and babies in strollers, dogs walking with their owners and men and women of all ages — made their way around the Capitol.

Despite the overcast weather and scattered rain, marchers stayed around to participate in the march at the end of the event as they held signs displaying various messages including, "Bans off our bodies," "Bigger than Roe" and "Abort the Court" — a reference to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe in it's Dobbs v. Jackson decision.

— Morgan Fischer

Activists, groups gather signatures for ballot measures

Liz Thelen, a signature gatherer for Arizona for Abortion Access based in Mesa, said she experienced lots of positive feedback from Arizonans from whom she has collected signatures.

"People want this. They want unrestricted abortion," Thelen said.

Organizers are looking to collect 500,000 signatures to get the constitutional amendment on the ballot, and while the threshold to get on the ballot is lower, organizers are looking to collect more than is needed in case of legal challenges to signatures.

Another organization that is seeking to land on the ballot for the 2024 election, Arizona Works Together, attended the event and tabled alongside abortion rights activists. Arizona Work Together is seeking to get on the ballot to eliminate the "right to work" laws in Arizona and strengthen unions.

While the organizations work with each other indirectly, Bobby Nichols, the chair of the campaign, wanted to show up to the Women's March to show solidarity as the two groups "show up at the same spaces, help each other out … make sure that people who come and sign our signatures are signing their signatures."

Nichols was also impressed by the turnout and engagement at the event.

"We're seeing incredible work happening across Arizona, this is an encouraging moment to see so many people here, just working together, loving on each other," Nichols said.

Other community action organizations, such as Save Our Schools Arizona, also came out to support and share their own message at the Women's March.

Raquel Mamani, an organizer for Save Our Schools, came to the Women's March for several reasons. As a teacher and a mom to a young daughter, "we have to be down here to fight and speak up so that my children have the same or more rights than I did," Mamani said. "And unfortunately, that's not the way it's been going."

As a full-time teacher, "the last thing I want to do on Saturday is come on out," Mamani quipped. "But it's so important and so we're doing the work that needs to be done to protect our communities and move forward in this country."

— Morgan Fischer

Women's March: Hundreds rally at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix

Attorney Allred speaks about her own experience

Famed feminist attorney Gloria Allred spoke to loud cheers.

“No one has ever given women any rights … we’ve always had to fight to win them,” the 82-year-old Allred said, later adding, “The women’s movement is the only movement in which the participants become more radical as they get older.”

She recalled the abortion she had following a rape in the 1960s. Illegal in California at the time, the amateur abortionist left her hemorrhaging and near death. The nurse, Allred said, coldly told her, “I hope you’ve learned a lesson from this.”

Allred used the anecdote to urge rallygoers to vote for pro-abortion rights advocates and to keep Donald Trump from winning the presidency, noting he has taken pride in helping reverse Roe.

“We’re going to teach him a lesson,” she said as the crowd broke into applause.

— Jose Gonzalez

'This fight is quite literally for our lives'

Rachel O'Leary Carmona, executive director of the National Women's March, led hundreds of people in chants to open the event Saturday at the Arizona State Capitol.

"The fight today is bigger than Roe," Carmona said. "We have seen in tragic examples over the last few months what happens when government regulations interfere with life-saving medical decisions."

Other speakers also fired up the crowd.

DeShawn Taylor, the founder and doctor of a reproductive justice center in Phoenix, spoke of the changing abortion landscape in Arizona.

"Every year, more and more obstacles are created here for people to hurdle," she said. "No abortion bans are acceptable, not one single one."

"We will be the next state to enshrine our rights to abortion through the ballot," Ana Hernandez, a Phoenix abortion-rights activist, said. "This fight is quite literally for our lives."

— Morgan Fischer

'It’s none of the government’s business'

Connie Campbell Henry joined several hundred people gathered on Saturday at Wesley Bolin Plaza before the women's march. Henry marched in the early 1970s before Roe, and remembers two women in her college dorm who endured botched abortions — one died and the other was left infertile.

“Never thought I’d be doing this again,” Henry said. “It fries my bacon that we’ve gone this way.”

Now Henry, 69, of Anthem, fears for her five granddaughters and three daughters-in-law, one of whom suffered a miscarriage while visiting Arizona for Christmas a few years ago. She needed an abortion provider to extract the approximately 22-week-old fetal remains. “The baby was gone,” Henry said, adding she fears a doctor would deny her granddaughter the same care now.

“It absolutely breaks my heart because I don’t want my children or my grandchildren or my daughters-in-law to suffer the fate of not having choice. It’s none of the government’s business,” Henry said.

— Jose Gonzalez

What to bring to the march and what to leave at home

Women’s march organizers created a list of what you should bring to the march and what is best to leave at home.

What to bring

• Small backpacks and bags

• Water and snacks

• A sign

• Comfortable shoes

• A mask and hand sanitizer

• “Your feminist spirit, your defiance to injustice, and your demands to protect our freedoms”

What not to bring 

• Anything that can be construed as a weapon, including pocket knives, multi-tools, mace, scissors, etc.

• Illegal drugs

• Coat-hanger imagery: “We do not want to accidentally reinforce the right wing talking points that self-managed abortions are dangerous, scary and harmful.”

• Participants dressed in The Handmaid’s Tale theme: “The use of Handmaid's Tale imagery to characterize the controlling of women’s reproduction has proliferated, primarily by white women across the country, since the show has gained popularity. This message continues to create more fragmentation, often around race and class, because it erases the fact that Black women, undocumented women, incarcerated women, poor women and disabled women have always had their reproduction freedom controlled in this country. This is not a dystopian past or future.”

— Abigail Celaya

How to get to Phoenix’s Women’s March

If you are attending the women’s march today at Wesley Bolin Plaza at the state Capitol in Phoenix, you may be wondering how to get there. If you live in the area and are not planning on attending the event, you may be wondering which streets to avoid.

For those driving to the event, there are two parking lots for Wesley Bolin Plaza. One parking lot is located on Jefferson Street, between 17th Avenue and Centennial Way. The other lot is on Adams Street between Washington Street and 17th Avenue.

Overflow parking will be available on Jefferson Street between 17th and 19th avenues.

Those attending the event using public transportation can check out Valley Metro’s website to plan the best route for their trip.

Valley Metro said they did not anticipate any impacts to light rail service due to the women’s march. However, travelers should be aware that eastbound stations in downtown Phoenix are closed through 5 a.m. Monday morning due to system upgrades.

If you can’t make it to Phoenix, see if there is a march near you.

— Abigail Celaya

State lawmaker: ‘Important to be visible and to show people how important this movement is‘ 

Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, said she won’t be able to attend the march but encouraged marchers to make their voices heard.

“It’s really important to be visible and to show people how important this movement is and how much support we really have,” Gutierrez said Friday. “We’re not going to stop until Arizonans can choose to have an abortion.”

— Reagan Priest

What has happened since Roe v. Wade was overturned?

Arizona saw a return to stringent abortion restrictions after the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, which had legalized abortion in the country. In late September, a Pima County Superior Court judge ruled an 1860s-era anti-abortion law that imprisons doctors and amateur abortionists could be enforced.

Months before in March 2022, Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Both the pre-statehood ban and the more recent one are to be decided on by the Arizona State Supreme Court, which heard arguments on both laws in December.

The Women’s March organizers stated that the pro-abortion rights stance has prevailed in every ballot initiative in 2022 and 2023. Nonetheless, organizers are warning about anti-abortion policies.

"Over the past year, we have seen the destructive outcomes of abortion bans on the lives of real people all across the country," read a statement from the Women’s March. "This is a real fight with real consequences on our families, friends, neighbors, and loved ones right now."

— Jose R. Gonzalez

Why this weekend?

The march traditionally takes place the weekend of Jan. 19-21 in recognition of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Jan. 22, 1973, landmark decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe in the 6-3 Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.

— Jose R. Gonzalez

Why is this year's Women's March in Phoenix?

The original Women’s March took shape Jan. 21, 2017 in Washington, D.C., a day after Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. Ever since, the event has rotated to different cities. This year the march is set for 11 a.m. Saturday at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix.

Organizers of the Women’s March 2024 dubbed Arizona the “next major abortion battleground” in a statement, calling the state’s role “crucial” in the fight for abortion rights.

According to organizers, Arizona is one of nine states expected to have ballot measures on abortion rights.

Since at least September, there has been a signature-collecting effort to put on this year’s general election a ballot enshrining abortion rights in the Arizona Constitution. Called the Arizona Abortion Access Act, the proposed amendment would allow for an abortion any time before viability, or generally the approximately 24-week gestation period a fetus can survive outside the womb.

The initiative needs a minimum of 383,923 valid Arizona voter signers by July 3.

Organizers are arguing there is a consistent female voter turnout when abortion rights are on the ballot.

Arizona is “a key swing state that will shape the 2024 elections,” read a statement from organizers. “Our presence here is a statement: Women vote to defend abortion rights, and in doing so, we defend democracy from far-right extremism and GOP policies that threaten our freedoms and values.”

Though not mentioned by Women’s March organizers as a reason for centering Arizona for this year’s national march, the state is where the late former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor made her legal career and called home.

O’Connor was a deciding vote when the highest court upheld the right to an abortion in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case. She died on Dec. 1 in Phoenix.

— Jose R. Gonzalez

Who are the speakers at the Phoenix Women's March? 

Organizers announced that the Phoenix march would include the following speakers:

• Gloria Allred, women's rights attorney.

• Celina Martinez, Healthcare Rising Arizona organizer.

• Rachel O’Leary Carmona, Women’s March executive director.

• State Rep. Analise Ortiz, D-District 24, Phoenix.

• Dr. DeShawn Taylor, Desert Star Institute for Family Planning abortion provider.

• Kischea Talbert, Planned Parenthood Arizona registered nurse and patient navigator.

• Parris Wallace, Working Families’ Arizona senior organizer.

• Celina Washburn, Healthcare Rising Arizona community organizer.

— Jose R. Gonzalez

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Women's March 2024 in Phoenix: Follow our live coverage