https://themilitant.com/2019/02/16/rally-protests-attacks-on-abortion-rights-in-kentucky/
Rally protests attacks on abortion rights in Kentucky
By Jacquie Henderson
Vol. 83/No. 8
February 25, 2019
Amy Husk, SWP candidate for Kentucky governor, left, and supporter
Jacquie Henderson, right, talk with Planned Parenthood interns Ruby
Lestrange, center, and Kerrigan Young at Feb. 7 protest in Frankfort
against government attacks on women’s right to choose abortion.
Militant/Ruth Harris
Amy Husk, SWP candidate for Kentucky governor, left, and supporter
Jacquie Henderson, right, talk with Planned Parenthood interns Ruby
Lestrange, center, and Kerrigan Young at Feb. 7 protest in Frankfort
against government attacks on women’s right to choose abortion.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — More than 100 protesters gathered at the state Capitol
here Feb. 7 to demonstrate in defense of a woman’s right to choose
abortion.
They were speaking out in opposition to a bill in the state legislature
that would ban abortions from the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected,
usually around six weeks into a pregnancy, as well as against other
moves by the state government to further limit women’s access to abortion.
The action was called by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Indiana and
Kentucky, together with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.
“Abortion is not something a woman takes lightly. But this is my right
as a woman. I get to decide!” Louisville poet and writer Hannah Drake
told the crowd. “My womb, my choice, my reasons — I will not go back.
This is about reproductive freedom and we will not go back.”
Kate Miller, advocacy director for the Kentucky ACLU, told participants
that there are several bills in the legislature that would restrict
abortion rights. “These people who claim they want to protect human
lives express no concern for the fact that the U.S. has the highest rate
of maternal deaths in the developed world,” she said, “and that Black
women die at double that rate.”
“I’m tired of being talked about like my only purpose on earth is as a
vessel to reproduce,” Nichole Stipp from Planned Parenthood said. “If
you’ve had enough, get out and change it. Go home and tell your story.”
Many of those at the protests shared experiences and exchanged ideas on
how to fight to win the fundamental right of women to control their own
bodies. Among them were Amy Husk, Socialist Workers Party candidate for
governor of Kentucky, and a number of her campaign supporters.
How can we win?
Husk introduced herself to Annie Prestrud, an activist with the
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and the Kentucky Health
Justice Network, who said she became radicalized as a teenager around
the question of women’s right to choose abortion. “Abortion is really a
question of health care just like any other medical procedure,” she
said. Husk agreed, saying it’s a fight in the interests of the entire
working class.
“Workers are facing worse and worse conditions today and we need to
organize to fight against what the bosses and their government are doing
to us, but we can’t do it if we’re divided,” Husk said. “The fight for
women’s right to abortion is part of the fight to unify the working class.”
“Yes, capitalism isn’t working,” Prestrud said. She got a copy of In
Defense of the US Working Class by SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters and
said she wanted to hear more about the SWP campaign.
This reporter met Tracy Gregoire, a nurse who works in labor and
delivery, and we discussed how to fight for abortion rights. “In too
many places we have to appeal to ‘experts’ to say if you are ‘qualified’
to have an abortion,” she said.
“Some of the challenge we face lies in weaknesses in the Supreme Court’s
Roe v. Wade decision itself,” I said. “It doesn’t rest on fundamental
constitutional rights of the woman, but on a doctor’s agreement and with
restrictions based on the science at the time, which opened the door to
anti-women’s-rights forces pushing back.
“Our right to abortion comes from the 14th Amendment to the
Constitution, won out of the mighty second American Revolution in the
war to abolish slavery,” I said. “That amendment made government
interference with the rights of anyone in this country illegal, and
guaranteed equal protection of the law to all. That should make it
illegal for any government to interfere with the personal decisions of a
woman.”
Upon meeting Husk, Gregoire said that she was concerned about those who
support the legislators’ attacks on abortion rights because they
personally don’t like the idea of abortion.
“When we knock on the door of workers who say they are personally
opposed to abortion, we explain that the point isn’t what you or I think
about it, or whether we would ever have one. It’s that doctors and the
government shouldn’t have the right to tell women what to do with their
bodies,” Husk said. “When they think about the fact that the government
shouldn’t interfere with anyone’s personal choices, many are won over to
support this right.”
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •US troops, warplanes, bombs out of Korea now!
•‘Amnesty for immigrants in US, unify the working class’
•Rally protests attacks on abortion rights in Kentucky
•Baghdad book fair organizers: ‘We won’t be stopped by terror’
•Trump ‘State of Union’ talk touts jobs, hits ‘endless war,’ ‘socialists’
•New York forum discusses political crisis in Venezuela, says US hands off!
Feature Articles •Cuba and Algerian revolutions: an intertwined history
Also In This Issue •Readers help ‘Militant’ zero in on $10,000 appeal
•Capitalist crisis blocks ‘affordable family formation’
•Iraqi protests condemn assassination of novelist
•The Algerian Revolution and its impact on popular struggles in Africa,
worldwide
•NY meeting celebrates 60 years of Cuban Revolution
•Manchester rally backs anti-gov’t protests in Sudan
•Join the Socialist Workers Party campaign!
On the Picket Line •Chicago charter school teachers strike over pay,
conditions
•Junior doctors strike over work schedules in New Zealand
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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Carl Sagan
“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind
and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says
everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the
fallibility of all the human beings involved?”
― Carl Sagan
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