Abortion

‘Stop the Global Gag’: Repro Rights Advocates Rally at the White House

Lauryn Gutierrez
Danielle Crossley (at right) stands in Freedom Plaza. She went on strike from her job as a professor to participate in the march. Crossley told Rewire, "Using my body as a protest sign elicits power to the message that I want to send. Also, the female body innately attracts the attention of men charged with creating such oppressive rule [the global gag rule]. I like to use the phrase, "The feminine mystique," the title of Betty Friedan's famous book, to empower a feminine message."

Crossley commented to Rewire after the march protesting the global abortion ban that it "provided an aura of dimension to the issue; a visual cue that the action of such a rule has tangible consequences. The march also brought a sense of urgency to the issue; more than a mere letter or a phone call to a congressman." Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
The "pink pussy" hat and the word "persist" are prevalent features at resistance gatherings of late in Washington, D.C. Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
"Once again, the women have exceeded expectations!" cheered Terry O'Neill (not pictured), president of National Organization for Women, to the crowd. Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
"Women around the world deserve the freedom to decide if they want to parent, and when they want to parent," said Sung Yeon Choimorrow, interim executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (second from right, holding banner) in her remarks at the rally.
Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
After weeks of fencing barricading the area for Inauguration purposes, the public can again gather directly in front of the White House.

"Trump is afraid of us. You know who else should be afraid of us? Any member of Congress who doesn't respect our rights!" said O'Neill (not pictured). Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
We are "living in a regime led by a predator in chief [who] would like to push us back to a time when women were gagged, silenced, objectified, forced to have babies, made to feel guilty about sex and desire, and denied agency over our bodies,” author and activist Eve Ensler (not pictured) shouted to the crowd.
Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
"This is the #DayWithoutAWoman: [With the strike], we have closed school districts, we have closed restaurants and we're celebrating International Women's Day the only way we can—by RESISTING!" said Feminist Majority Foundation leader Ellie Smeal (not pictured). Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
“If international organizations provide abortion services, talk about abortion, or refer their patients for abortion with their own money—not U.S. money—they cannot receive U.S. funding. This a failed policy, and it’s outdated!” said Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity.

"We know women die when safe abortions are not available. It's unacceptable, it's deadly, and we must resist," Sippel said. Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, told the crowd why Trump and his administration are not solely anti-abortion, as his administration is working against initiatives for universal access to contraception and policies that support working moms. Instead, she said, "they are anti-empowered women who are free to make our own decisions with dignity—and we will not take it!" Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
"Trust Black women!" said Michelle Batchelor, of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda (not pictured).

"We bring our voice into the fight so that we can have children if we choose to; [or] we can choose not to have children; [or] we can raise [our children] in safe, nurturing environments without interference. It's not too much to ask for. And yet, here we are." Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
"[The global gag rule] is so cruel," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "Health-care workers cannot even mention the word abortion, let alone provide medical care" to women who are in dire need of information and choices, Smeal said.

Smeal continued, "We must stop a man like President Trump, who will shamelessly trade the lives of poor women in the global south to make cheap political points here in the United States." Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, OB-GYN of Physicians for Reproductive Health, informed the crowd of the severe consequences of Trump's global gag rule.

"We know abortion restrictions don't make abortion go away, it just makes it less safe. Trump's global gag rule would leave many of my patients with unsafe options .... it is an outrageous intrusion on the patient/provider relationship." Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
Darakshan Raja of the Muslim American Women’s Policy Forum shared some powerful words: "To be a woman is to resist this patriarchal society and world that uses our physical bodies to send messages of terror and control. It's 2017. I am sick of white men controlling my life," at which the crowd erupted in cheers. Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
Stephen Chukwumah of Advocates for Youth shared a heartbreaking story of witnessing his aunt's complicated labor in Nigeria. The decision had to be made to save the mother or the baby. The mother wanted to live, and begged the doctor for the care she needed. The doctor said no, fearing legal repercussions: The only way he would perform the procedure was if her husband signed his permission for an abortion—and he was nowhere to be found. Chukwumah's aunt died in childbirth.

Chukwumah said that day still haunts him. “The truth is, if you don’t speak up, women die. When the global gag rule exists, women die.” Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
Dázon Dixon Diallo, president and CEO of SisterLove, gave stirring remarks on why she was striking on the Day Without A Woman.

"I strike because America is greatest when we champion the dignity and human rights of all people—especially women, lesbians, gays, transgender, bisexual, gender-nonconforming individuals, working people, poor people, incarcerated people, migrating people, immigrants people, birth giving people, birth preventing people. I believe in the human rights of everyone, and I strike because America is not so great at that right now."
Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
This 2030 voter is being raised to know that "women's rights are human rights." Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire
As the participants showed, the fight for women's rights is multigenerational, and future voters are up to the task of resisting attempts to take those rights away. Lauryn Gutierrez/Rewire

About a thousand people gathered at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., to march to the White House on Wednesday, International Women’s Day, dubbed A Day Without a Woman by the organizers of the Women’s March.

Reproductive rights advocates organized the protest, one of a few held that day, against President Trump’s executive order to reinstate the “global gag rule”, known as the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibits any U.S. family planning aid from going to foreign nongovernmental organizations that provide information about or perform abortions.

Many women also were striking from work to highlight the significance and economic power of women around the world.

“Trump’s response to the largest mass mobilization in recent history was a ruling to literally gag us, choke us, shut us down,” said author and activist Eve Ensler of Trump’s decision to sign the global gag rule on his third day in office, at the rally. “Ultimately those polices will kill and hurt millions of women throughout the world,” said Ensler.

Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity, called the order in a Rewire article a “deadly attack on women and girls globally.”