When Molly Yard, president of NOW, shouted out over the public-address system, ”Oh, my God, they`re still coming! They`re still coming,” the disbelief in her voice was understandable. Constitution Avenue was a mile-long sea of people, stretching from the Washington Monument to the steps of the Capitol Building.
By all estimates-300,000 according to United States Park Police-it was a record-breaking crowd for such an event. (In January, 67,000 anti-abortion activists marched in Washington.) People came from every state, including Alaska and Hawaii, and from 12 foreign countries.
But if the people who marched expected to rediscover the spirit of `60s demonstrations, they were disappointed. There were no singing, hand-holding crowds, no community spirit of moral outrage. Times have changed, and this issue is more complex. While proponents argue for a woman`s right to an abortion, they express the fervent hope that she won`t have to have one.
Rather like the `80s, this march was about individuals. They didn`t expect a leader to rouse them. They came alone or with family and friends to express their convictions about choice, and then they went home. This was grassroots America marching.
The passengers
The contingent that convened in Washington came by plane, train, car and bus. There were 2,000 buses carrying marchers to the Capitol, NOW reported. Sixteen of those came from the Chicago area, including Bus D. There were 45 passengers, most of them in their 20s. Half of them went alone, and many-like Margot Gordon, 26, a lawyer-had never marched before.
”I`ve come because I`m really frightened about the abortion issue,” she said. ”Marching is the only thing we can do; you can`t lobby the Supreme Court. They aren`t responsible to the public.”
Looking ahead, Gordon added, ”I think that it is important for the legislators at the state level to see the numbers of marchers, because if Roe v. Wade gets overturned, it`s the state we must turn to.”
Gordon said she knows many women who have had abortions. ”Having the child would have destroyed their lives,” she said.
Juanita Secor, 17, a senior at Lourdes High School on the Southwest Side of Chicago, is the youngest marcher on the bus-and is confronting the abortion issue head-on: Four of her high school friends are pregnant.
”I`m still in shock,” she said. ”We need sex education. What are we going to do if we get in trouble? For myself, I don`t think I would have an abortion.” This was Juanita`s first march, and she was eager for the experience and perplexed at her classmates who told her they thought the march was a waste of time.
”It`s our future,” said Secor, whose mother, also named Juanita, accompanied her on the march.
Beila Simon-Kunis selected the seat behind the Secors. A young 60, she was nevertheless the oldest marcher on the bus. A nutritionist, Simon-Kunis was a founder of the Chicago NOW chapter (1963) and is a veteran marcher.
She dates her feminism to 1944, when her family, too poor to buy her a dress, sent her to high school wearing her uncle`s trousers.
”Girls weren`t permitted to wear pants to school then,” she said.
”They threw me out, but I kept coming back until they readmitted me-in pants.”
Simon-Kunis hoped the march will ”show Mr. Bush that women are going to be self-directed whether he likes it or not.” While a lot of people rode the bus because they didn`t have the money to fly, Simon-Kunis chose it for the sense of participation and sisterhood she found there.
”Brotherhood,” too, because there were also four men on the bus. All in their 20s, they came by themselves because the issue was important to them.
Thomas Tsuneta, 27, works at Green Earth, a health-food store in Evanston that paid the $70 round-trip bus fare. Tsuneta has personal reasons for marching, he said. Two women he was seriously involved with earlier in his life had had abortions.
”I was 19 the first time and 21 the second time,” he said. ”My whole life would have been different and changed if abortion had not been available.” Tsuneta`s wife couldn`t join him on the march. She is expecting twins in June.
Perhaps the most appropriately named marcher on the bus was Lois Roewade. April 9 was her 50th birthday and she wanted to celebrate it ”making a statement for women`s rights,” she said.
”Even my brother thought this was a good idea, and he`s a Bush Republican.” Roewade (she got some startled looks when she was introduced), is a veteran activist and feminist. For her birthday, several of her friends sent contributions in her name to NOW (she`s a member).
35 hours on a bus
It`s a long way to Washington by bus, and the trip became increasingly uncomfortable. Less than an hour into the ride, the driver pulled Bus D into a parking lot where the convoy was to meet. In a dispute over payment by check rather than cash, the drivers refused to budge for two hours. Some, like Bus D, also were delayed even longer by mechanical problems.
It takes stamina and a deep sense of purpose, not to mention cash, to spend 35 hours on a bus to march four or five hours. The enthusiasm of the early moments of the ride began to dissipate. Riders waited passively for someone to handle the problem.
Finally, a Chicago NOW official got the bus drivers paid in cash.
By the time Bus D rolled into Washington, D.C., and parked in a Pentagon parking lot-and the riders took the subway to the Washington Monument, where the march was to begin-the morning rally of songs and speeches was over and the march to the Capitol had begun.
It was a great day for a march, with sun and moderate temperatures. Spring had arrived in the capital; tulips, forsythia, cherry blossoms and daffodils lined the march route.
There were people everywhere: fathers with children on their shoulders, teenagers with signs, pregnant women marching alongside a gay-rights group. It was shoulder-to-shoulder people between the monument and Constitution Avenue. The group from Bus D had to duck large banners, watch out for baby strollers, step over mud puddles, squeeze between masses of moving bodies and parked cars. Once on the avenue, the going became easier and more orderly.
Bus D had been told to join the Illinois delegation. But there was no sight of an Illinois delegation, and the group from Bus D scattered in search of the delegation or friends and familiar banners to march under.
Neither NOW nor police were prepared for the massive turnout. There were not enough police, nor crowd marshals. Prepared for 100,000, NOW had run out of souvenir T-shirts and buttons. Many of the passengers on Bus D complained later that they searched for but never found the ”Illinois delegation.”
Others, unperturbed, fell in with strangers from other states.
Tsuneta and his bus seatmate, Delores ”Tot” Kunda, 33, an advertising account executive, spotted a ”JANE Chicago Abortion Service” banner and joined that contingent. (JANE was a group of abortion activists in Hyde Park. Its members, referred to collectively as JANE, organized a referral network for women to get abortions. The JANEs learned to perform abortions. The group disbanded after the Roe v. Wade decision.)
Later, Tsuneta said that the march might have seemed quiet in other areas, but it was ”pretty vocal” around the JANE banner, though not owing to any confrontation with anti-abortionists, who were barely visible this day.
Tsuneta and Kunda reached the Capitol in time to hear Joan Baez sing and Jesse Jackson speak. When Jackson called out in a hoarse voice, ”March on, my sisters,” the till-then silent crowd took up his words and began to chant. Tsuneta said, ”I was moved that so many people cared enough to come out. Some of my friends don`t even vote.”
Lois Roewade was walking past the National Gallery of Art when she sighted a large banner: ”Evanston Moms and Children Pro-Choice.” Roewade, who is from Evanston, recognized some familiar faces in the group and joined them for a while.
The two girls carrying the banner were Beth Valukas, 17, and Erica Fuson, 16, juniors at Evanston Township High School. They marched with their friend Myla Goldman, 16, also a junior at ETHS, and their mothers.
”Teenagers are on the front line in this issue,” said Karen Fuson, Erica`s mother. ”They`re dealing with it in their daily lives. They all know someone who is or has been pregnant.”
Prompted by a letter they saw in the Reader, Erica and Beth had gotten 200 classmates and teachers to sign pro-choice petitions, which they sent to the American Civil Liberties Union, with copies to President Bush.
”I see a lot of promiscuity, and I realize that some of those people are going to wind up in trouble,” Erica said. ”Some of them are in the 7th or 8th grade. For anyone of that age to have to have a child. . . . That`s so frightening to me.”
As the afternoon of speeches by such politicians and celebrities as Gloria Steinem, Lee Grant, Linda Ellerbee and Bella Abzug wore on, the event began to wind down. Marchers began to wander away, some to the Smithsonian Institution, others to vendors selling hot dogs, pretzels and pop.
By 7 p.m., Bus D`s passengers reassembled for the journey back to Chicago. Most were exhausted and fell asleep once they boarded the bus and slept through much of the 16-hour ride back to Chicago.
A special birthday
Young Juanita Secor felt reaffirmed by the march. ”God, was I surprised by so many people! It was great.” She has agreed to speak about the march to a Chicago pro-choice group meeting in May.
Joan Weisberg, 39, a Chicago data-processing consultant, had mixed feelings. ”The march was worthwhile,” she said, ”but I expected the crowd to be more aroused. The feeling of a group spirit was missing for me. And I missed that there wasn`t a real Illinois delegation.”
She planned to write letters about pro-choice, but she didn`t know if she would get more involved than that.
For Roewade, on the other hand, it was a wonderful birthday.
”I stood on the steps of the Capitol,” she said, ”and as far as I could see was this mass of bodies. That`s when I became aware of the enormous size of this movement and how many people out there really do care. I knew that there were at least 10 other women I knew who in their hearts were standing there with me. I feel proud that I went.”
A week after the march, Tot Kunda reflected on what the weekend meant. An activist in her undergraduate days at Smith College, Kunda had marched before. ”I was amazed at the incredible diversity of people,” she said. ”I think that a lot of groups feel that pro-choice is greater than just pro-choice.”
Though the statement of support demonstrated by the vast turnout was emphatic, its influence was limited.
Within days of the march, a bill sponsored by Rep. Penny Pullen (R., Park Ridge) passed the Illinois House Judiciary II Committee. It would require a physician to determine whether a 20-week-old fetus could survive outside the womb before an abortion could be performed. (The time span assumed for fetal viability under Roe v. Wade is 24 to 28 weeks.) Under the bill, physicians who violated the provisions of the law could be charged with a Class 3 felony, which carries penalties ranging from probation to 10-year prison terms.
Ann Kuta, director of the Illinois Pro-Choice Alliance, said of the bill: ”It`s an attempt by the anti-abortionists to restrict abortion by making it too inaccessible and too expensive and delayed. It`s outrageous, but not surprising.”
Meanwhile, 35 Chicago area groups have banded together to form a pro-choice umbrella organization, Illinois Campaign for Choice. It includes such diverse civic and religious groups as Cook County Democratic Women, the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago and the Women`s Bar Association.
”Our phones are ringing off the hook” since the march, Kuta said. She said that the Alliance is planning a rally June 17. Information, 427-7330.
