It wasn't the just the Politico-reported leak of a U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion that showed the court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade that drew local woman Jeanne Howard to downtown Bloomington on Tuesday. It was her lived experiences, and a promise she made to herself back in the 1970s.
Howard was in college when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, which means she knows what it was like in the days before the right to abortion was recognized as the law of the land.
"One of my friends on (my) floor got pregnant; she had to get on a bus with the money we all scraped together and go by herself to New York City, have an abortion alone at 18 years old, and come back," Howard said in an interview. "I vowed then that I would work the rest of my life to make sure that never happened again."
That was how she found herself among dozens of others gathered at the steps of the McLean County Museum of History on Tuesday evening, rallying in support of abortion rights. The event was led, in large part, by local Democratic leaders and candidates for office; several faith leaders also spoke at the event.
Lyndsay Jones
/
WGLT
Carolyn Moon, a former board member of Illinois Planned Parenthood, said people in Central Illinois should prepare for the local ramifications if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned.
“Seventeen health centers in Illinois (would) expect to see 2-5 five times as many patients as we see now,” Moon said. “Many of those people will travel to our health centers here right here in central Illinois, which will be their nearest location when their home states ban abortion. We must be ready to meet that demand. Central Illinois plays a vital role in this fight, and we need you to stand up and protect reproductive rights in Bloomington, in Springfield, in Champaign.”
Speaking with WGLT earlier Tuesday, current Planned Parenthood Illinois board member Nikita Richards said Illinois saw an increase in patients in the days after Texas’ SB 8 abortion law went into effect last fall, despite the long distance between the two states.
Richards said she expects a similar influx of people seeking “refuge” if Roe is indeed overturned.
“We must put in a mandate and galvanize, to ensure mutual aid for these people who will be coming this way. Whether that’s increasing the financial support for them to travel, providing them with safe housing and an opportunity for them to heal as they receive care — it’s our opportunity to do that,” Richards said. “It’s going to be a very interesting journey for us.”
Carol Koos read a statement to the gathering on behalf of the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, saying the matter-at-hand isn’t limited to abortion, but the right to privacy and other “fundamental” choices people make for their lives.
“Roe was based on the concept of individual decisions, who to marry, whether to use birth control, whether (to) have children and how many,” Koos said. These things “are beyond the government's legitimate power to decide. In short individuals, not the government, should make these decisions. Our most fundamental right — to decide our own fate, our own place in the world — will be in the hands of a Supreme Court majority that seeks to return us to a repressed past in which ‘father-knows-best’ about birth control, abortion and marriage.”
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Abortion rights supporters gather by the dozens at downtown Bloomington rally - WGLT
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