Following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, thousands flooded the streets of Seattle to protest the ruling, which stripped people of the right to safe abortion care.
When the decision first leaked in May, two rallies told a story of the disconnect between elected Democrats and socialists. That morning, Democrats such as Gov. Jay Inslee and Rep. Pramila Jayapal urged pink-pussy-hat attendees to take their anger to the ballot box. Later that day, socialist organizers reminded Seattleites that voting for Democrats hadn’t solidified reproductive justice for the last 50 years.
In the weeks between the leak and the decision, the Democrats prepared press releases and legislation to fund abortion care locally. The socialist feminists prepared several rallies around town, attracting thousands and setting a more radical tone for Seattle’s movement to expand abortion access.
At Friday’s rally outside of the Federal Building on 2nd Ave, which at times spanned three intersections, the speakers delivered messages that sounded nothing like a Democrat’s fundraising email. Advocates quoted Vladimir Lenin at least twice. Basically every group that sent a speaker had the word “socialist” in its title.
“When [the Democrats] don’t listen – and they won’t listen – we will fuck shit up,” one speaker made the crowd promise.
Speakers from Radical Women, countless other local socialist groups, and various labor groups expressed frustration with the Democrats, who failed to codify Roe v. Wade into law at any point during the last 50 years. Further, Democrats compromised with Republicans by continuing to include the Hyde Amendment, an annual appropriations rider in spending bills that bans federal funding of abortion in most cases. Despite campaigning on a pro-choice platform, “Democrats failed women and people with uteruses,” several speakers said.
Spoke with LWV. I asked what we could vote for right now. The woman on the right said in WA we need to continue to elect pro-choice politicians, but that’s just one tool in our tool belt. pic.twitter.com/DmUcemLBM0
— hannah krieg (@hannahkrieg) June 25, 2022
Even the most votingest attendees cautioned against seeing the ballot box as the only battlefield for reproductive justice. A sign from the League of Women Voters stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd that seemed much more radical. “Vote! It counts,” the sign read. I asked League of Women Voters Washington President Lunell Haught, who stood beside the sign, if she thought that messaging would resonate with people who are disillusioned by Democratic inaction.
“We are all disillusioned. So we can either do nothing, or we can do something,” Haught said. “I was around before Roe, so I know what we're looking at. And the point is, you need to march, to write. You need to vote. We need to use all the tools we have to make this right.”
Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who spoke at the event, said that ordinary people won the right to abortion by inspiring fear in the ruling class. In order to do that again, she and other organizers called for mass mobilization, increased participation in labor unions, and civil disobedience.
That evening, the organizers tried their hand at some of that civil disobedience. The protesters sat in the street for 49 minutes, one minute for every year of Roe v. Wade. The demonstration stopped traffic in the area, but it’ll take more to “inspire fear in the ruling class,” so the struggle continues.
still sittin’ pic.twitter.com/dzPt565tWV
— hannah krieg (@hannahkrieg) June 25, 2022
Speakers had moved past the conversation of whether or not to vote, but in addressing the issue locally, the lefties stumbled upon a classic lefty disagreement: whether to engage in mutual aid or whether to demand funding and protection from local government.
Local leaders have already announced plans to invest in abortion access. King County Executive Dow Constantine said he will fund $500,000 in emergency money to King County Public Health and ask the County Council to allocate $500,000 to the Northwest Abortion Access Fund. Mayor Bruce Harrell said his office is “seeking to invest” $250,000 in the local abortion fund. It is unclear if that money will be a separate allocation from what the City Council already proposed for the coming supplemental budget.
Additionally, Sawant said she will bring forth legislation to make Seattle a “Sanctuary City” and also a People’s Budget amendment to make access to abortion free for Seattle residents and anyone seeking sanctuary from anti-abortion laws.
However, with a distrust in the system that brought women and people with uteruses to this desperate position, some want to turn to other ordinary people for help. Many signs at the protest read: “I will aid and abet abortion,” a slogan recently adopted by the Shout Your Abortion crew.
Sawant, whose “Sanctuary City” legislation would make it safer to help others aid and abet, commended mutual aid efforts such as opening up homes for abortion refugees and crowdfunding procedures, but she said the money should come from the government and not from working people.
In marrying those two ideas, Margo Heights, an organizer with the Seattle chapter of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, said that the ruling calls for mutual aid as a bandaid and also for a mass movement to win lasting changes.
Her words echo those of Emily Janakiram, a writer and member of NYC for Abortion Rights, who said in an op-ed for Truthout, that resistance of abortion bans includes individuals stepping up.
“...Each one of us must be prepared to aid and abet abortion, whether that’s being trained in administering a self-managed abortion, buying and donating abortion pills, driving someone across state lines to receive an abortion, participating in clinic defense, or donating to an abortion fund,” Janakiram wrote. “But we cannot lose sight of the ultimate goal: a mass movement to establish free abortion on demand as an inalienable right.”