More than 1.1 million people from across the US and dozens of other countries took part in what organizers said was the largest-ever women's-rights protest on abortion, aimed partly at influencing politicians ahead of the Nov. 2 presidential vote.
Older women in their Sunday best mingled with college students in T-shirts in a massive demonstration sparked largely by what they see as US President George W. Bush's efforts to chip away at a women's right to an abortion.
Organizers put the turnout at 1.15 million, saying the count was done in designated grids on the National Mall, which are designed to hold a predetermined number of people, and verified by 2,500 volunteers at key entry points to the march area. Police did not issue any crowd estimate.
PHOTO: AP
Waving signs that read "Fire Bush" and "Keep Abortion Legal," the crowd packed onto the Mall -- the grassy esplanade that links the Congress, the White House and the US' most revered monuments and museums.
"All the people are here today not only to march on behalf of women's lives but to take that energy into the election in November," Senator Hillary Clinton told the crowd before the march began.
"What we need to try to communicate as clearly as possible to all women and men who are fair-minded in America is that a vote for a pro-choice candidate is a vote for conscience," she said, urging the crowd to cast votes for the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry.
Opponents of abortion rights also turned out in far smaller rival protests, many carrying pictures of aborted fetuses and denouncing what they see as infanticide.
"It's murder. It's wrong," said one man from San Diego, who declined to give his name. "This country has become an abomination before God. What's it going to take for this country to repent and come back to God?"
Sixteen people, mainly anti-abortionists with the Christian Defense Coalition, were arrested at the rally, police said.
More than 1,400 civic groups worked together to organize the protest, sparked by recent efforts to curtail the reach of a landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that recognized women's right to abortions.
"If the government takes safe, legal clean abortions away from women -- knowing that if a woman needs an abortion, she may have one anyway -- then they are encouraging women to kill themselves. That's why I'm marching," said Hollywood actress Whoopi Goldberg, one of the organizers of the event.
The roster of other US and international celebrities, who have endorsed it, includes Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Helen Hunt, along with actresses Julia Stiles, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Kirsten Dunst and Salma Hayek.
Activists are particularly concerned by two laws passed in the last six months, one which bars some late-term abortions and another that adds criminal penalties for attacks on pregnant women that injure or kill a fetus.
Women's rights activists from dozens of other countries also joined the protest, citing the ripple effect of US policies overseas -- especially the so-called "gag rule" that withholds US aid dollars from groups providing access to or counseling about abortion.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS