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Volume CXXXIII, Number 15 |
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Bowdoin women to join in 'March for Women's Lives'
MARA GANDAL
CONTRIBUTOR
April 25 sounds like a long way off. Between now and then there are mid-terms to take, spring breaks to relax on, and entire sports seasons to play. But for the members of the Bowdoin Women's Association and affiliates of the Women's Resource Center, April 25 is fast approaching. They can't wait for it to get here, and they can't wait to march.
On April 25, 2004, The March for Women's Lives will take place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. March participants will assemble at 10:00 a.m., march around the Mall from noon to one, and then take part in a rally from one until four. Nationally co-sponsored by Feminist Majority Foundation, NARAL: Pro-Choice America, National Organization of Women, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the March is expected to have over one million participants, which would make it the largest demonstration of its kind in history.
The Women's Resource Center has already signed on as a co-sponsor of the March. The Center's director Karin Clough said, "The WRC is a co-sponsor of the March for Women's Lives because the march fits into the mission of the WRC, which is to support and enhance the academic, personal, and extracurricular development of women at Bowdoin, and to build awareness of gender issues existing on campus and in society. Certainly individual freedom to make reproductive choices is one of the most important issues facing women in our society today. The march will be a powerful statement that women will not cede their constitutionally-protected right to privacy in matters of reproductive choice and health."
The women's studies program has also made the March for Women's Lives a priority in its planning for the Spring Semester. Professor Jennifer Scanlon, Chair of the Women's Studies Program, discussed the history of women's reproductive rights in the United States.
"Many people aren't aware that debates about reproductive rights, and women's ability to own and control their bodies, have a long history in the United States," she said. "Abortion was widely practiced in the United States in its early history-by married and unmarried women, middle-class and working-class. In the last nineteenth century, states began to place restrictions on abortion, largely at the urging of the newly established American Medical Association, which wanted to gain a monopoly on medical practice-including abortion-in the country. Any restriction on abortion, though, met resistance from women from the start."
Scanlon added, "Many of us have grown up with legal birth control and abortion, but few of us realize that legality is just one issue. The fundamental issue, of women's right to own and control their bodies, like women's history generally, seems again and again to be lost and then, by necessity, found. This March in Washington is extremely important in an election year and is a reminder that women's rights must be valued, maintained, and improved."
Some students have already made their plans to attend the March with family members. Kristin Pollock '04 is planning on meeting her sister Elizabeth, a senior at Georgetown University, to march together. Pollock explained why they've joined the March. "I am marching with my identical twin sister because I shared a womb with her and-like every woman-we share the right to choose. I am marching because I simply believe in women's rights to love, nurture, and protect their own bodies."
Jessie Solomon-Greenbaum '04 is also meeting family in Washington. "Almost all of the women in my family will be going down to Washington for the March for Choice: my sister and I, my mother, my aunt, my cousin and her 3-year-old daughter. We're coming from all over; my sister is even driving from Iowa. We're planning to meet up to have a sort of reunion-I think it will be a potent moment-many generations of women in my family coming together to secure the rights of future generations.
For those students still figuring out how to get to the March for Women's Lives, Bowdoin Women's Association (BWA) is planning to send a delegation to the March. Bree Dallinga '06 described why she is marching with the delegation from Bowdoin. "I am marching because I know that women's lives are being threatened when this government attacks our right to choose. I am marching because choice is my right and this is my body and no one else is going to tell me what I can and can't do with it."
Becky Bogdanovitch '04 added, "I want to feel the power of people who believe in something. The energy that comes from attending a mobilization like the March for Women's Lives is the largest source of hope and optimism for change that I can conceive of. If you've ever marched for something that you believe in-with the music, the cheers, the dancing-then you know what I am talking about. Plus, every women deserves to live and choose for herself."
BWA will ride buses to Washington on Friday and Saturday nights and return to Maine early Monday morning. The group will be fundraising throughout the semester to help defray the cost of the $50 bus tickets on buses arranged by Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE).
Between 3,000 and 4,000 Mainers are expected to make the trip to Washington, D.C. Laura Harper, an organizer from PPNNE, said, "We're organizing activists throughout Maine-from Bridgton to Sangerville, from Portland to Farmington. Many have marched before. Some remember the horrors women faced before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in 1973. Others, especially college students, have not experienced a reproductive rights march in Washington in their lives and don't have the collective memory of friends and sisters dying from illegal abortions."
"But far from being apathetic about increased state and federal restrictions on family planning services, students from USM, UMF, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, and SMCC are challenging one another to send the largest student contingent to the March in April," she said. "This healthy competition is increasing awareness among young women and men about the fragile state of choice under the current administration-and about the necessity for action."
BWA is aiming to send 50 members of the Bowdoin community to the March.
A preliminary informational meeting for students, faculty, and staff interested in attending the March will be held this Sunday, February 22, at 3:00 p.m. in the Union. Information on transportation, housing in D.C., and events leading up to the March will be discussed.
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