The 2024 Women's March
Washington DC Edition
It’s 10:26 and I’m lying in my hotel bed with an 8 year-old reading over my shoulder, sipping a Starbucks Doubleshot Energy, and trying to finish up before Kamala makes a “surprise” guest appearance on SNL. But when you spend the day documenting history in the making, a girl’s gotta write.
Today, after months of planning, I attended the Washington DC Women’s March at Freedom Plaza with about 15,000 or so of my friends. We waved banners, wore slogans, shook hands, shared a few backstories, and hooted and hollered all the usual calls-and-repeats to get revved up for a short walk over to the south lawn of the White House. I wanted to buy a T-shirt, but turns out a $20 donation only gets you a pair of “feminist as f*ck” calf-high socks.
“Where are you going to wear those?” my 13 year-old asked.
“They’re going in the mail to Auntie Kitty,” our local family feminist superhero.
And despite the numbers, despite the visible and (most definitely) audible presence of thousands of women and their allies, there really wasn’t a lot of blowback from Trump supporters, anti-feminist groups, or really anyone protesting the women’s rally. I kept an eye on the surrounding buildings, mostly government offices, looking for flickers of movement, late-afternoon sunlight catching on something shiny and out of place. All the deep-rooted fears of attending crowded events. Another reason to march.
I chose to bring my kids, something I learned from my mom actually. “Always go see history, whether you like it or not. Don’t wait to read about it. Be there.” Then it was the WTO riots and a rally at Key Arena in Seattle. I think Jello Biafra was there, though maybe that’s confabulation. Since then I’ve made the effort to drag the poor things to every core memory I can find, promising that it’ll matter more to them later.
But today they got it. They asked questions. They danced and sang. They high-fived colorful new friends. They chanted “no justice, no peace!” And they didn’t know all the vocabulary—I think they assumed “grab ‘em by the pussy” has something to do with cat ladies—but they got the gist. And sure, there’s always a little projection from parent to child when passion and politics are concerned. But I at least want them to think about things, look and listen to the people who understand what the hell is going on around here. I’m not sure that’s me.
But one thing did turn into a longer conversation after the rally, walking on tired, tender feet back to the hotel. One small protest that caught their eye.
“Mom, why were Christians upset with us? We’re Christians, too, right?” The deep-seated conundrum: how can a Christian possibly support abortion?
“Well, religions are funny that way,” I said, “because anyone in any religion can choose a political party and make it align with their religious beliefs. But really, if you take a step back it might not, or at least not all the way. So you have to do your homework. You have to really dig and see what all these things mean. Does ‘reproductive rights’ simply mean ending the life of an unborn child? Is it a child? Are cells a human?”
It was a much longer conversation, and one I’ve had in my head for years. Because I do worry about it. Are my political and religious beliefs contradictory? Can I call myself a Christian and believe something that’s a little (or a lot) outside the spiritual box? And what can I do about it? Well, I do what I always do—I turn to math.
Because folks, here’s the deal, you can have people running the country whose religious beliefs differ from yours, and actually end up with better results, biblically speaking. In fact, in the past 30 years or so Democratic presidents have reduced abortions by a greater percentage than Republican presidents, consistently, including after the overturning of Roe v. Wade (it’s actually increased). Now, I used two sources that differ greatly in the numbers (CDC and Guttmacher Institute), but the percentages of growth and decline are the same. And guess whose policies scaled down the numbers of abortions in the U.S. the most? Well, that was Barack Obama, and it lines up pretty perfectly with the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Because access to healthcare and free birth control not only allows women to seek out abortions, but it helps them prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. And if I’m a Christian who is on the fence about being pro-choice, if I have an option that reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, reduces the number of abortions, and keeps women safe and alive in greater numbers, I’m going to call that pretty fucking “pro-life.”
And if we’re honest with ourselves, conservatives and liberals, that’s the #1 issue that has a death-grip on Christians in America, chaining them to the Republican Party. Because if the reproductive-rights debate disappeared, then all of a sudden the spotlight on the MAGA Cult Circus would become blindingly clear, the “scales falling from our eyes,” as it were, and evangelical voters would be left with a room full of felons, frauds, false prophets, and let’s be honest, a very un-redacted, very long list of Epstein’s chums.
But I digress.
With 15,000 we marched, wearing green bandanas that said “bans off our bodies” and our new “feminist as f*ck” socks, and made our way to the White House. By then my littles had been standing and walking for over four hours, and we took a few pictures on the south lawn and in front of the Washington Monument, and called it a day. But when we did the MPD had to make room to let us out, the women and allies still coming, still chanting, still singing, still pumping their fists and asserting the power that has waited 235 years to boil over.
I’ll leave you with a few Nina Simone lyrics as we roll towards Election Day, the ones I can’t get out of my head.
I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I could break all the chains holding me
I wish I could say all the things that I should say
Say 'em loud, say 'em clear
For the whole round world to hear
So glad to read this and get your recap. And great points about the abortion rate under various presidents.