Áine Pennello reported this story for WUFT-FM.
On Monday morning, about 35 protestors gathered at Gainesville City Hall to fight for reproductive freedom.
The strike was in commemoration of the second-year anniversary of the overturning of the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which established a woman’s legal right to have an abortion.
The event mirrored the national Women’s March association's “National Day of Action,” making it one of many across the country.
Some protestors’ signs read, “address the elephant in the womb” and “the Handmaid's Tale is not a playbook.”
The protest started at city hall, where protestors marched east on University Avenue up to NW 13th Street and back again, shouting, “not the church, not the state, people must decide their fate.”
Misti Rucks, a 33-year-old Gainesville resident and University of Florida IFAS instructional designer, was the sole organizer of the protest. This was the first event she’s ever hosted, she said.
“I felt called to host an action here in Gainesville and bring the community together,” she said. “It feels good to actually speak out about these issues and be a part of the national women’s strike on this day.”
Just across the walking path of city hall, two citizens gathered to counter-protest the march, holding a megaphone and signs that said, “Jesus saves from hell” and “God grants conception.”
Michael Patterson, a 27-year-old resident of the “kingdom of heaven,” said his main mission was to “save babies and save souls.”
“Abortion is America’s holocaust,” he said. “God’s wrath will burn against you. You will burn in hell.”
Michael was later approached by Gainesville police due to noise complaints by citizens in the area, an official on-scene said.
Kristy Ward, a 26-year-old Inverness resident, was a women’s march protest attendee. Ward and her family drove more than an hour to support the movement. The biggest struggle attending protests is feeling unsafe, she said.
“It does take a mild amount of bravery to come out here and say what you believe in and stand in front of people who disagree with you,” she said.
Kari Tedrick, a 49-year-old Inverness resident and Kristy’s mother, said conversations about reproductive rights weren’t too common in her household because that freedom wasn’t a problem back then. “[Reproductive rights] were a given,” she said. We had already won this fight.”
Elena Vargas, a 34-year-old Gainesville resident, has marched in protests for three years now. Vargas was happy to feel the solidarity of other women at the protest, she said. “The more people, the better,” she said. “The more women speak out, I feel the more awareness there is.”
Last year, Vargas camped out with the Occupy Tallahassee organization to speak out against the signing of the current six-week abortion restriction, where she told her story in front of the state legislature, she said.
“I watched everybody cry,” she said. “I saw the effect [the signing of the bill] had immediately.”
Suzy McGinnis, a 74-year-old Gainesville resident, was a protest attendee. She believes the biggest misconception she sees around reproductive freedom, or the women who fight for it, is the brutality.
“The way some of these men talk about abortions, they have no clue,” she said. “There is nothing brutal or violent that happens.”
Laura Blecha, a 41-year-old Gainesville resident and UF professor, is a member of the National Women’s Liberation organization, or NWL. The Gainesville chapter works with other local organizations including Gainesville Radical Reproductive Rights, the UF and Santa Fe college chapters of Planned Parenthood Generation Action, UF League of Women Voters, and the Alachua County Labor Coalition. Although Blecha couldn’t be at the protest, the event marks one of many around the county to increase awareness of reproductive rights, she said.
In Florida, the citizen-led initiative added Amendment Four, which protects abortions for up to 24 weeks, will be up for ballot vote in the November election.
Currently, NWL is partnering in a local coalition to do community outreach events to get people to vote on Amendment Four. Blecha feels strongly about the amendment, she said.
“In Florida, it feels like a very hostile environment,” she said. “I really believe we can win on this amendment in November to restore abortion rights.” Reproductive freedom isn’t just a women’s issue, she said.
“Everybody has someone in their lives who needs reproductive healthcare,” she said. “Now is the time to get involved. We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines for this one.”