Women’s March director says “reproductive freedom is bigger than Roe”

This Sunday marks the 50th Anniversary of the Supreme Court landmark case Roe v Wade. It will be a bittersweet day for abortion rights activists as it marks the end of the summer’s decision. Even though the federal abortion protections were removed, the fight now turns to the states. They will be fully displayed at the National Women’s March Madison, Wis. is the site, with sister marches around the country.

Rachel O’Leary Carmona It was one of the 470,000 participants At the first Women’s March Held in Washington, D.C., Jan. 21, 2017. Carmona, inspired by the experience that she had on that day, joined the Women’s March organization one year later, and is now the executive director. MAKERS I had the pleasure of sitting down with Carmona and discussing the history of the march. This conversation was condensed and slightly edited to improve clarity.

You’ve been at this for six years now; what motivates you to continue this fight year after year?

Sometimes people think mobilizing people and getting them active is a one-off thing. We had a huge march, so we’ll be seeing them in November. It’s not like pushing rocks down hills. Instead, the rock gains momentum as it goes down. In reality, you are pushing a rock upwards. Do you see what I’m referring to? You may reach a tipping point, where the momentum begins to drop, at which point you need to push it up again. So I think that for Women’s March, we intend to keep our foot on the gas and keep building that momentum in a way that constantly renews itself versus in a way that’s like, “Well, we did it for this year and now we’re done.”

Explain how Women’s March has evolved from that first event in Washington, D.C., to today’s march in Madison, Wis.?

This moment might seem less dramatic but it is actually more dangerous. Post a sitting president trying overturn electoral results, post, basically, a lame duck president conjuring up and encouraging a mob to march on Washington, setting it on fire, hunting the vice-president, and post, honestly, all the wins that the GOP has racked-up to help overturn election outcomes in states across the country, and obviously also post-Dobbs [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization]. The new era of American politics is being created by Roe versus Wade’s defeat. We have to adapt to this new normal. And that’s part of our march logic is that we’re not in D.C. for the first time. Our National March will be in Wisconsin. Other notable marches will be held, but the fight lies in the states. To influence D.C. policymakers, the D.C. march is necessary. We must then move the D.C. March to states where we can fight and win when D.C. policymakers have reached their limits.

The theme for this year’s National Women’s March is #BiggerThanRoe. What inspired you to choose this theme?

We really thought about where we were right now. We also sat with most of the post-election polling. This included exit polling as well as then. Data for Progress, they’re a really great deep dive into the issues that voters cared about. It’s true, young women and women in particular have voted in record numbers. They also included abortion and reproductive liberty on their list. They expressed concern about the economy and inflation. So, we were thinking, Roe has never been able to guarantee reproductive liberty. Because it did not address disparities or consider the systemic burden of racism and poverty, it has never guaranteed that all people will be able to access the health care and abortion care they need. It was never enough. We thought that Roe was more important than reproductive freedom, but we also believe that women’s lives go beyond what happens to their reproductive rights. Our lives include work, family, hobbies, work, and health. Many of these things, such as whether or not we have a stable job and whether we have access to adequate healthcare, indirectly influence the decisions we make about how we want to have children. Because our lives are more important than Roe, our reproductive liberty is even greater. So we need to think big. We will not settle for less than what is rightfully ours.

During this month’s abortion debates, several House members shared their deeply personal stories of abortion, including Rep. Frederica S. Wilson, D-Fla., who said she “almost died” during a pregnancy that ended in stillbirth during the 1960s. These stories are important.

Sexism, per se, is the reason women have to expose their most heartbreaking moments for judgement and credibility building. If there were an issue on which men campaigned and protested for 50 years, if the Women’s March were a “Men’s March” and the first year 5 million men took to the streets and the second year 2 million, and a solid half a million every year after that for six straight years, legislators would be swinging into action and saying, “Shit, we have to do something about this. Our country is in crisis!”

Then I’d add that it is important for women to tell their stories, as they are responsible for narrating their own lives. Women should be the ones narrating our own movements. Women have a long history, that goes back a millennium, of telling stories, families’ stories, to make sure that we as a people understand where we come from. And when we’re telling stories of Roe versus Wade, my generation of women were told, “Abortion is legal. It has not always been legal, but it is now. And this will always be there for you.” And this is why I say that we’re in a new era of American politics, post-Dobbs, because it used to be that when law was settled, law was settled. There was no reason to believe that Supreme Court cases would ever be reopened and constitutionally-protected rights would be removed. Because if this is possible, what other rights are feasible? This will affect everyone. Whether you’re a woman or whether you’re queer or whether you are a person of color, whether you just wanna vote — any of those things — you will be impacted by the things that the Supreme Court thinks is not settled law. This is why I believe it’s so important for us all to tell our stories and share our grief as a moment to gain insight. It is impossible to plan for the future if one doesn’t know their path.

From where you stand, what does the future look like for Women’s March?

I believe in people’s power. I believe that women have the ability to lead. It is the only thing that can save our country. A future where women are empowered to create the future we want, and in which they lead it, will be a future that is both for us and for others. I believe no one should be left behind. In the short-term, I believe we need to consider how we can create conditions within our movements so that everyone makes a contribution. That contribution is greater than its parts. It’s more than the obstacles and challenges. You always achieve what you set out to do.

For more information about the events taking place in your area, visit the interactive map on the Women’s March website.