For the second day in a row, hundreds of people gathered in downtown Dallas to protest the cancellation of Roe vs. Wade, but with less emphasis on emotion and more on action.
“It’s time to stop playing well,” Kristy Noble, president of the Dallas County Democratic Party, in front of the Main Street Garden speakers to kick off the “Rising Together Rally” Saturday morning. “We have to be petty, we have to be strong and we have to fight for our rights.”
Noble was the first of many Saturdays to call the crowd to vote, in elections at all levels. He cited Dallas County statistics for 2020, when more than 400,000 registered voters did not attend. If something needs to change, he said, those numbers should do the same.
“What we need to do is get to work and get all the votes,” Noble said. “Talk to everyone you know.”
The high court decision of 6-3 in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization reversed nearly 50 years of constitutional protections against abortion, leaving states to establish their own abortion laws. In Texas and 12 other states, “activating laws” will ban or ban abortions almost completely.
In June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning abortion within 30 days of the ruling becoming final for Friday’s ruling, which could take several weeks. The law will subject those who practice or help perform an abortion to a life sentence and fines of $ 100,000.
An abortion rights advocate raises a poster in front of a mural by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a former Supreme Court judge, during a march Saturday in downtown Dallas. (Elias Valverde II / Staff Photographer)
Asking for change
As the crowd marched down Main Street chanting “Vote it out,” several people wore “Beto for Governor” T-shirts and hats for Democratic Gov. Beto O’Rourke.
“We need to focus on how we will overcome it and make sure every Texas woman can make her own decisions about her own body, her own health care, and her own future,” O’Rourke said. Friday in a posted video. on Twitter.
“The only way to do that,” he continued, is to win in November. O’Rourke was in Houston Saturday working to achieve his goal of knocking on 30,000 doors to register more jeans to vote for.
A similar sentiment was shared in a protest in front of the Tarrant County Courthouse in Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported, with attendees calling Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
There were no counter-protesters in Dallas, but a small group showed up in Fort Worth.
“You’re killing innocent babies,” one is heard saying in a video posted by a journalist. “You are paying the Lord with wickedness and murder.”
‘Far from giving up’
Elected officials and Democratic candidates came to show their support for a “Texas turned blue,” including state Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas. Johnson said the first person he called after seeing the news of Friday’s sentencing was his 16-year-old daughter, adding that he is “scared by the environment he is entering.”
“I don’t really understand the environment where some people are more afraid that their daughter will compete in a track competition against a transgender child, but they don’t talk about her daughter being forced to have her rapist’s son,” she said. followed by a round of applause from the crowd.
Johnson said that while local and state elections are important, he believes nothing will move forward until there are substantial changes in leadership at the federal level.
“We will have to do it [abortion] a federal right, “he said.” You have to vote for people who recognize it as a constitutional right. Don’t count on the courts, people, the courts are gone. “
Proponents of abortion rights carry signs on stage behind a loudspeaker during a rally in Main Street Garden Park in downtown Dallas. (Elias Valverde II / Staff Photographer)
Shelby Miller, 52, said, regardless of leaders’ discrepancies in the best way forward, “everyone agrees we just have to act.”
“I feel like I have no choice but to do my best to turn these dubious independents and those stubborn Republicans into a new direction,” Miller said.
Holding up a sign that said “Why are we going backwards?” Miller was moved by the concurring opinion of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas, who asked the court to reconsider previous rulings protecting contraception and same-sex relationships.
As a queer woman, Miller said she is “tired of being afraid,” but “far from giving up.”
“I cannot change the Supreme Court. I’m just a person, “Miller said.” But I know I can help change my neighborhood, my community, and my city. If people on the other side want us to feel defeated, to surrender, rest assured. that he will not receive it from me. “