Women’s March in nation’s capital targets not Trump but Project 2025 authors
It was the first organized protest in the District since Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest. But the hundreds of people who gathered at Union Station on Saturday morning were not there to question the legitimacy of the election; there were few, if any, anti-Trump signs in the crowd. Instead, they marched down Massachusetts Ave. NE to the Heritage Foundation, they said, to signal opposition to the conservative group’s proposals in Project 2025 to curtail women’s reproductive rights.
Project 2025, intended by the policy group as a guide for the new Trump administration, calls for the prosecution of anyone who mails abortion pills, recommends making it harder to get certain emergency contraceptive care covered by insurance and would end federal government protections for members of the military and their families to get abortion care.
Trump distanced himself from the policy document on the campaign trail, saying on Truth Social, “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
Many of the 2025 proposals, however, including those on abortion, come from veterans of his first administration.
Protesters said they wanted to keep any of the proposals from becoming law.
“We may have lost the election, but we are not powerless,” said Trish Todaro, 66, a retired schoolteacher from Wilmington, North Carolina, who drove to Washington to take part in the protest. “I have friends who just want to bury their heads in the sand, and I’m tickled there are so many people here who don’t want to do that.”
Todaro carried a sign reading “We will resist. We will persist.”
Saturday’s hastily planned protest was organized by the Women’s March, a grassroots protest organization formed in 2016 following Trump’s first election, as a way to give people an opportunity to publicly share their reaction to the results of Tuesday’s vote, said Tamika Middleton, managing director of the Women’s March.
Many in the crowd vowed they will be back in the District for the People’s March on Washington, a protest planned for Jan. 18.
“Folks need to have a place to register their dissent and have their voices heard,” Middleton said.
Saturday’s event had more the vibe of a buoyant fall street party than a gathering of a recently vanquished political tribe. Protesters danced and waved their signs aloft in unison as a DJ blasted Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” from a stage in front of the Heritage Foundation building.
Michelle McEvoy, 39, of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, held her sign high above her head as the music played. It read, “My Dad did not give his life for a country that would take away my rights.”
McEvoy said her father, Richard McEvoy, was a West Point graduate who was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2015. She said she came to Saturday’s protest to represent him and because “I want to feel like I still have a voice and that I’m doing something for my country.”
Freedoms were important to her father, McEvoy said, “and he would want whoever is president to represent everyone. So I hope Trump gets that message.”
D.C. resident Rebecca Flyer, 37, brought her two young daughters to the rally. As they played kazoos, she talked about why it was important for her to attend the event.
“I want my daughters …” Flyer began and then stopped. She wiped away a tear. “I want my daughters to have the same liberties I’ve been blessed with my whole life and that my mother fought for me to have.”
Her older daughter began to cry. Her kazoo had broken. “We’ll find another one,” she reassured her.
The rally, Flyer said, was emotional: “I’m hopeful. I’m inspired.”
A large contingent of D.C. police officers watched from the perimeter, but the rally was peaceful and no incidents were reported. A small group of young Trump supporters, some wearing red Make America Great Again hats, stood nearby but didn’t interact with the protesters. Most declined to be interviewed because they said their workplaces would not allow them to be quoted.
But one, Spencer Silbey, 24, an independent consultant who lives in the District and voted for Trump, said, “Democracy has spoken. This was a referendum on the moral direction of America.”
Silbey said the protest in front of Heritage was “an understandable reaction to the outcome of the election and a way to voice disagreement in a peaceful way.” He said he hoped Trump’s election would lead to a decrease in the number of abortions.
For Sally Reid, 18, and Charlotte Reilly, 17, Saturday was the first time they had participated in a protest. The Annapolis teens said although Maryland voters approved a state constitutional amendment Tuesday guaranteeing abortion access, they wanted to be there to push for everyone in the country to have that right.
“This exceeded my expectations,” Reid said as Reilly held up her sign that read “Girls just wanna have fun-damental rights.” Looking at the crowd, she continued: “It’s awesome to be in an environment with women we agree with.”
Nearby, Lucia Ruta, 75, expressed weariness over having to continue to fight for what she sees as basic rights. But she was energized by the presence of the many young women in the crowd.
“That’s always encouraging to me,” Ruta said. “Even though I’m old and exhausted, we can’t sit out and not participate in humanity.”
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Video: Protesters danced and waved signs with slogans in support of women’s rights and reproductive choice outside of the Heritage Foundation in D.C. on Nov. 9.© 2024 , The Washington Post
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