My personal report on the "Standing up for SD Women" Rapid City rally

liberalhistorian

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Thu Mar-09-06 08:49 PM
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My personal report on the "Standing up for SD Women" Rapid City rally

"The American Taliban in South Dakota", "Why Don't They Trust SD Women?" "If I Can't be Trusted with Choice, How Can I be Trusted with a Child?", "Every child a wanted child", "Come to South Dakota, Go Back in Time", and "South Dakota, Land of a Thousand Coathangers", signs mixed with chants of "We Won't Go Back", "Women's Rights Now", "Not the Church, Not the State, women must decide their fate" on a dry but chilly, windy South Dakota afternoon on the steps of the federal courthouse in Rapid City.

"Christians for Choice" signs were side-by-side with "I Talked to God and She's Pro-Choice" signs, which caused much laughter.

The anger was palpable, as was the determination of those present to stop this Taliban madness and safeguard hard-won rights and freedoms, and the turnout was large and vocal. Women and men, young and old and in-between, students, grandmothers carrying grandchildren, politicians, a very wide mix of individuals, all united in a common purpose and a common goal. And all absolutely shocked and infuriated at the gall of the legislature, the same legislature that can't be bothered to address the real needs and issues that affect the state's citizens.

Such as the high percentage of pregnant women murdered by their boyfriends or husbands. The refusal to even consider raising the minimum wage, as requested by the republican governor. The refusal to do anything about the high numbers of South Dakotans without health insurance and/or access to health care, INCLUDING babies and children. And the decades-long indifference of and callousness towards the tremendously disproportionately-high mortality numbers of Indian babies and children, despite endless efforts to get the legislature even slightly interested, as one Indian columnist angrily wrote last week.

The sheer gall of even refusing to include an exception for rape or incest was an especially sore sticking point with the crowd. Senator Bill Napoli's assertion that there were degrees of rape and that possible exceptions could only be made if the girl were a teenage virgin who was particularly brutalized brought forth the crowd's creativity with signs such as "Incest is Best, according to your legislature", "Rape Victims to be Traumatized Twice", "It's only rape if you're a virgin", and "You're Only Traumatized if you're Sodomized."

And the fact that the only exception allowed, in the case of a life-threatening medical emergency, is VERY restrictive, to the point where almost nothing would be considered a justifiable emergency, not even cancer or a heart attack, really angered people.

One of the main issues this "ban" has shed light on is the fact that the state was, quite literally, hijacked by outside interests. Several signs read "Do You Want Outside Interests Making Decisions on Inside Lives", and there were many other variations, and they really resonated with people, renewing our determination to fight such arrogant usurpation of democracy.

I made the comment to people I talked with that I'd gladly left Ohio last summer for a job in Rapid City, thinking I'd left the Taliban behind. Ohio is being run straight down into the ground, going to hell in a handbasket, with people, especially college graduates and the best and the brightest, leaving the state in droves, and all the legislature can be bothered with is banning gay marriage, gay adoption, strip clubs and abortions, and other such ridiculous foolishness that seemed to increase daily. Little did I know that I'd stepped right into the hornet's nest of yet another damned American Taliban. They all nodded knowingly, and several said that they were ashamed, that this isn't really the way their state is and that it's been hijacked.

The usual counter-demonstrators made their presence known, of course, and, because of where I had to park, I had to walk straight through them to get to the rally on the other side of the street. Huge, blown-up pictures of fat, smiling, happy babies, signs reading "Jesus will help you", "Catholics for Life", "Why isn't it called murder", etc., all being waved around. They were very nice while I was first walking through, probably assuming that I'd come to join them. But I stood at the curb waiting for the light to turn red, then calmly walked across the street to pick up a sign, get a sticker, and join the rally.

Things were considerably cooler, of course, when I had to walk back through them to return to my car at the end of the rally, but no one said anything and there were no problems. Glares and dirty looks, of course (hide the children, here comes one of those dirty hippie godless commie man-hating family-hating child-hating murderous liberals, I could almost hear them thinking, lol), but no other problems. And they did, of course, have just as much right to be there as we did.

One of the most moving moments was when republican state senator Stan Adelstein, an angry, vocal, fierce opponent of the legislation, spoke about his memories of growing up on the prairie and of what women had to deal with when it came to pregnancy, childbirth and raising children. It was not the sweetness and light and roses and puppies that those conservatives with rose-colored glasses loved to wax poetic about. And if they think a law will stop desperate women, then they know nothing at all of history. He also brought up the point that the Task Force appointed to study abortion had been terribly biased, made up mostly of well-known anti-abortion activists, and it had refused to allow many women with personal knowledge and experiences to speak and had cut off or hadn't listened to those they did so graciously allow to speak. And they did not even permit many medical personnel to speak, which had been especially galling to him.

When another of the march's organizers spoke, she made the very valid point that this fight was not just about abortion rights. It was about the whole gamut of women's rights and issues, from contraception (of which there are already murmers of restricting) to the lack of affordable child care, to the right to control our own lives and reproductive choices, rights for which women in this country did not even have until the last half of the past century. We did not even have the right to vote until 1920! We are not property, we are not chattel, we do not exist to serve men and do their bidding, and we never will again and we will not give up or give in, she shouted, to tremendous cheers and applause.

It was at this point, during the speeches, that the other side attempted to drown us out. The effect was quite the opposite, however, we just laughed and spoke and cheered and shouted louder and louder. Cars honked for both sides, singing and chants grew louder, and the police stood around and looked bored.

We then fanned out with our signs and stood at the curbs. People often honked and waved and gave the thumbs-up sign. Those who didn't just stared stonily ahead. Sometimes, people with pro-life signs would drive by, some in open cars, and then the fun really began. A car with some younger men came past holding a huge "SD is pro-life" sign. "Damnit, you're a man, what in the hell would you know?" the woman standing next to me at the curb shouted out, and everyone laughed, nodded, and clapped.

One time when the light turned red and cars were forced to stop right by us, a car with pro-life signs was sitting right in the curbside lane. A woman stepped forward with a sign that caused all kinds of flurry in the car, and we looked over to see what the sign said, then doubled over with laughter. In bright multi-colored letters over a white background, she'd made a sign reading "If the fetus is born GAY, would you still bother to fight for it?" The light turned green and the car sped forward, none too soon for its red-faced, angry occupants.

All too soon, it came to an end and we all had to hand in our signs and head back to work. But not before receiving word of the next planned actions and making plans to attend. The Planned Parenthood spokeswoman said that their membership, and calls about membership, had increased dramatically in just the last couple of weeks. This has really galvanized everyone, and we are NOT going to go back!

And as I stood at the curb, I suddenly realized with a jolt what day this was. It was nearly twenty years to the day that I'd stood on the mall in Washington, D.C., participating in the huge March for Women's Lives rally with my college group. And I thought of the woman I'd met there who'd been holding a huge sign, white with red scraggly letters spelling out "My mom had an illegal abortion. I don't miss the baby. I miss my mom." She'd said that she was younger when it happened and that her desperate mother just could not face another pregnancy, not with a husband who didn't even want the children they had let alone another one, but who refused to use any birth control, what little was available at the time. She'd never gotten over her anger at people who'd considered a two-month-old fetus to be more important than her mother and who'd left her motherless. And she was especially angry at the fact that most people didn't even ask about her mother, they'd always ask things like "so, don't you miss having another brother or sister?" As if her mother didn't even exist outside of her baby-making purpose.

And I thought of the women my grandmother had told me about, friends and acquaintances of hers who'd been desperate and who'd suffered horribly, one even losing her life. Decades later and the anger was still palpable in her voice and manner. And the men involved, of course, got away scot-free. Yes, indeed, she'd say, women are sluts, while men are studs. There isn't even a word in English for men who sleep around, but plenty of them for women. Slut, tramp, whore, harlot, etc., etc.

And I thought of the women, young college students, my college sociology professor, a woman in her sixties at that time (in the 80's) told me about, young, healthy women with their whole lives ahead of them. Women who died or suffered horribly because they'd been desperate. And why were they desperate, she asked. They were desperate because society so badly stigmatized them, because they wouldn't have been able to find jobs or would have likely been fired from the ones they had, because the boyfriends/fiances didn't want to deal with it and didn't have to deal with it, etc., etc. She'd never forget one student, who came into her office when she was working at night, bent over, white-faced, bleeding and begging for help. The professor rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late. She died a couple of hours later. She'd been bleeding in her dorm room for a few hours, too afraid to say or do anything. Especially because the OH laws were so stringent and the punishment she'd face would not have been pleasant. I've never forgotten the look on her face as she talked about it, over twenty years later.

And I thought of the friends my own parents told me about, one who had to have an affair with a doctor in order to get an abortion and one who nearly died but who'd been desperate enough to take that chance.

And I thought of the woman I'd recently read about, a single woman in Cape Coral, FL, in 1965, who'd been pregnant and who'd made an appointment with the local "butcher" (who wasn't even a doctor and had no medical training or knowledge, and who was a Hungarian immigrant), and withdrawn $300 from her bank the day before her disappearance because, as her sister said, she would have been fired and faced stigmatization, been ostracized, etc., even if she'd chosen adoption. You just did not want to be a single woman who was pregnant. And her boyfriend was nowhere around. She then disappeared for twenty-five years. It was finally discovered that she'd died of complications from the "butcher's" abortion, and in panic he and a staff member had wrapped up her body and dumped it in the Biscayne Bay. She was a lovely, vibrant young woman, too. Think of the panic and fear she must have felt and the desperation she must have felt to have taken a chance like that. And multiply that by the thousands.

And I thought of what many of the older women at the rally had said, that they well remembered how bad it was for women pre-Roe, that they all knew women who'd suffered or died, and that they absolutely will not allow us to go back to that. No one likes abortion, no one wants abortions to happen, no one, not even the staunchest pro-choice person, sits around thinking with joy of abortions happening. But women still bear the brunt of the consequences of pregnancies, the major share of the blame, guilt and responsiblity (how well I remember that from my own unplanned pregnancy experience!), and too many men are still attempting to make decisions for us. The choice must be made available, in a safe, legal environment. Desperate women who will have abortions no matter what the law says do not deserve to die or be maimed because of it. Their lives are important, too.

And I thought of all the desperate women to come if these American woman-hating Taliban have their way. And that is why we are fighting, why we must continue to fight, endlessly if we have to. We do it for the women of the past, who did not have the choices we have now and that we're in danger of losing, and those of the future. We owe them nothing less.