A crowd of hundreds called for abortion and LGBTQ+ rights in downtown Chicago on Sunday night, kicking off a week of protests before the Democratic National Convention kicks off on Monday.
After rallying at Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive along the Chicago River, with Trump Tower in the background as the blazing sun set behind the Marina City Towers, protesters marched south to the Grant Park monument to Union Army Gen. John Logan, which demonstrators scaled in an iconic moment during the DNC protests in August 1968.
After an acoustic chant from the crowd — “My body, my body/My choice, my choice,” punctuated by a flute and ukulele — host and activist Scout Bratt took the microphone to say, “Palestinian liberation is reproductive justice,” a nod to the common thread that ran through the speeches and chants throughout the evening.
“We reject any political compromise on bodily autonomy,” added Bratt, a spokesperson for Jewish Voice for Peace and a member of the social justice group Avodah. “Today, we come together on the eve of the Democratic National Convention to make sure they don’t even start … without knowing our demands.”
The rally and march came a week after the Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws coalition, backed by more than 30 local and national organizations, won a permit for a route on Michigan Avenue after a lengthy legal battle with the city. The lawsuit continues in federal court with representation from the American Civil Liberties Union over the city’s perimeter security ordinance.
Other groups have also struggled to obtain permits in what they called a slow and controversial approval process; several have sued the city.
Sunday’s rally aimed to demand that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November, she commit to passing sweeping legislation to provide access to abortion and health care for transgender and LGBTQ+ people, as well as ending U.S. aid to Israel and calling for a ceasefire.
They hope that national legislation will include no pregnancy bans or limits on the viability of abortion and a guaranteed minimum income so that children can be raised “in a healthy and nurturing environment.” And as transgender people continue to be targeted by the far right – something the coalition sees as an attack on the bodily autonomy of all LGBTQ+ people – they also demand that equal employment and housing rights be enshrined in law.
The protesters marched toward southern Michigan, waving Pride and Palestinian flags, and were surrounded by Chicago police officers on bicycles. Curious passersby on the busy street held up their phones to take photos and videos, and tourists at the Bean in Millennium Park craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the growing group.
The coalition includes pro-Palestinian groups that emphasize the interconnectedness of human rights struggles in Gaza and the country; for example, the women-led anti-war grassroots organization CODEPINK has said that discussions about reproductive justice within the Democratic Party must take into account Israel’s war in Gaza.
“Reproductive genocide, my comrades and friends, is the eradication and destruction of vital and life-supporting resources, like food, like water, like medicine, like healthcare,” said Leena Odeh, Chicago organizer and community leader of the Palestinian Feminist Collective.
According to UN reports, miscarriages have increased by 300% in the region, and shortages of medical supplies mean women are giving birth without painkillers and babies are dying without incubators. The region’s largest fertility clinic was destroyed by Israeli forces, newborns are malnourished and have no access to clean water, and 690,000 women and girls have no access to menstrual hygiene products.
Protesters also decried the state of abortion access in the United States and in Illinois, which is considered a safe haven in the Midwest after the 2022 Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade.
“Before the Dobbs decision, there were not enough abortion clinics in Chicago and Illinois to meet local needs, and there has been no significant expansion of abortion care since then,” said Elena Gormley, a social worker and co-chair of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America. “Local abortion funding is stretched too thin because of out-of-state demand… If this is happening in a ‘safe blue state,’ what’s happening everywhere else? What’s happening in Missouri, Mississippi, Indiana? We deserve better.”
At one point during the march, three women approached the protesters from the side, wearing T-shirts and holding signs from the progressive anti-abortion movement. They called abortion a form of violence and oppression and engaged in some verbal exchanges with the protesters.
There was a more tense, but short-lived, verbal confrontation between protesters and police along the route, but protest marshals and members of the National Lawyers Guild Chicago used their bicycles to create additional barriers and defuse the moment.
The speakers repeatedly reminded Harris that she must earn their vote. They also repeatedly criticized Democratic leaders for what they see as a disconnect between promises and policies implemented in the United States and abroad.
“We are at a critical moment of recognition and awareness of all the ways in which the Democratic Party and its brutal policies are violently suppressing working class organizations and liberation movements. Harris’s main line of candidacy is vote for them or confront fascism, when in fact the two parties are two sides of the same coin,” said Sultana Hossain, Amazon labor activist and co-host of NYC Labor for Palestine.
Nadine Naber, a professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-founder of Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity, said: “We are here to fight for our bodies and our hearts. And I believe that any movement that is driven by radical, collective love is like fire.”
The moonlit evening ended under the watchful eye of General Logan as the band sang another tune, this time with banjo and maracas.
Editor’s note: Previous versions of this article included an error in a quote from Sultana Hossain, an Amazon labor activist and co-host of NYC Labor for Palestine. She said, “We are at a critical moment of recognition and awareness of all the ways in which the Democratic Party and its brutal policies are violently repressing working class organizations and liberation movements.”
adperez@chicagotribune.com
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