Pam Kovacs and her 16-year-old daughter, Carolyn, stood side-by-side carrying the same “Derechos Reproductivos Son Derechos Humanos (Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights) “signs last week at the national march in Washington, D.C., but this march was a little different from the earlier one.
Kovacs 14 years ago pushed Carolyn in a stroller in a smaller march in Boca Raton, Fla.
This time, however, Kovacs marched for her daughter.
“My daughter is partly why,” she said. “I just want her to be able to have choices and have information to make good ones.”
Four buses filled with VCU students and faculty headed for Washington, D.C., to march on the national mall, where media reports estimated some 500,000 to 800,000 people carried banners and shouted messages such as “Hey hey, ho ho, George Bush has got to go” in D.C.
Groups representing Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the National Organization of Women and others organized the march.
Kovacs, an associate professor of social work, said after showing Carolyn the promotional video for the march, the two decided to go.
“I wanted to get her involved with social justice,” she said. “We’ve worked really hard to give her a social conscience.”
As for Carolyn, she said she was marching because she thought women should have access to the morning-after pill and other birth-control aids.
“It wouldn’t be good to have a child that wouldn’t have a really good home,” she said.
Mira Signer, a social-work graduate student, recalled her first march for abortion rights with her mother, Marjorie, in 1992.
“It was extremely powerful and very moving,” she said. “I think I woke up to a lot of issues affecting women.”
Her mother, a spokeswoman for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, has been a major influence on her life, she said.
“I don’t think I would have gone (in 1992) if she hadn’t said, ‘Mira, we’re going to this reproductive-rights march,’ ” Signer said, adding that the D.C. march was about more than abortion. “It’s so much about our right to our own bodies. What we choose to do is so personal. For me it’s also about the empowerment of women and just how great women are.”
Kovacs, who wore a “Pro-Children/Pro-Family/Pro-Choice” T-shirt left from the march 14 years ago, stressed that this one in the nation’s capital was about basic human rights, specifically reproductive rights.
“To me it’s much bigger than abortion,” she said. “That’s a very narrow perspective. I think we should keep the abortion rate as low as possible. I’m not pro-abortion. I’m pro-choice. It’s not just about women’s rights. It’s about human rights.”
Michael Sheridan, another associate professor of social work, said she was glad to march alongside her social-work colleagues just as she marched against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
“It’s been a while since I’ve marched on Washington,” she said.
Abbie Kinnebrew, a social-work graduate student, wore a T-shirt that read “Revolution” on the front with a picture of two connected Venus symbols and “Justice” on the back with a small rainbow at the top.
“My main reason to be here is for lesbian visibility and women’s-rights issues,” she said. “(The march is) making a statement to make the whole country aware of issues.”
At the D.C. march, anti-abortion activists lined Pennsylvania Avenue behind barriers, while members of Operation Witness of Pennsylvania carried babies and signs with statements like “Aren’t you glad your Momma chose Life?”
“I’m out here because I don’t believe in pro-choice,” said Dixie Lochrie of Operation Witness. “I think that all babies deserve to be born. I think that if you can kill your own baby, you hate yourself. I think they (the marchers) have a lot of issues, and I think they need a lot of prayers.”
Ken Service, also of Operation Witness, said he hoped some of the marchers become anti-abortionists from having contact with people from Operation Witness.
“I’m out here to support life,” he said. “I feel sad to be honest with you. I understand what their beliefs are, but I’m hopeful that some people will come to believe the truth.”
One anti-abortion protester held a sign that read “Message for you/Repent NOW/ Submit NOW/Stop Abortion NOW/Kitchen NOW” in reference to NOW, the National Organization for Women. Along with the men and women protesters, a few teenage boys held up skateboards on which they had written “Go back to the kitchen” in chalk.
Signer, moreover, said seeing the older white men protest the march agitated her.
“What could they possibly understand about what it means to have a vagina and give birth?” she asked a few days after the march. “(The protesters) were so inconsequential. They were such a small part of the day. It wasn’t about them. It was about us.”
On the other hand, Kovacs said she told her daughter people would protest the march. She said Carolyn, too, was agitated at the teenage boys protesting the march.
“We had talked before we went up about how it could get ugly,” Kovacs said. “(The protesters) kind of helped her get the broader issue.”
The two, Kovacs said, moved to the middle of the crowd whenever “it got a little tense” between the protesters and the marchers.
How successful was the march?
“It really brought out young women who have been quiet for so long,”
Signer said. “I think young women are starting to realize that these are not guaranteed rights. It seemed like it was also about working in coalition. I just think that we are stronger when we work together.”
Though she said she was encouraged by the turnout, Signer said she wanted to ensure that people kept fighting for reproductive rights.
“The march is not the end,” she said. “The march is really the beginning. I think a lot of people really think, ‘We marched, now our job is over.’ I don’t want people to go to sleep again. People really need to carry their energy forward.”
Kovacs reminisced about the older women at the small Florida march who had shared stories about their previous marches with her.
“It was almost a legacy thing of them saying we have to keep doing this,” she said.
Shortly after returning from D.C., Kovacs expressed the thought that she was doing the same thing for Carolyn.
“I felt like I was helping her see a bigger part of the world than she would see in high school in Richmond, Va.,” she said. “I’m just happy that she’s learning to think about big issues.”