As priests in clerics and marchers in suits paraded down Commonwealth Avenue on Saturday afternoon, counter protesters in clown wigs and red noses trailed close behind, blaring slide whistles and playing “Pop Goes the Weasel” and “The Imperial March” from “Star Wars.”
The fourth annual National Men’s March to Abolish Abortion and Rally for Personhood began at the Planned Parenthood on Comm. Ave., passed through Boston University’s campus and ended at the Parkman Bandstand in the Boston Common.
Counter protester Ish Kabibble, who preferred to use his clown name for personal safety, said satire helps “reduce the fear and anticipatory compliance that people have in the face of totalitarianism and fascism.”
“This is an opportunity to experience a kind of resistance in a joyful way during these times when so many of my rights and the rights of people whom I love are being assaulted,” Kabibble said.
Demonstrators recited the Hail Mary prayer and played music on bagpipes. Along with anti-abortion flags, marchers held up signs reading “Lead on Life” and “Parenthood Now.”
A police escort surrounded the Men’s March as demonstrators made their way through the streets. No arrests were made, according to the Boston Globe.
“We’re marching to have men get off the sideline,” said John Hinterlong, one of the Men’s March organizers. “It’s written on every man’s heart by God to be the leader, protector and provider of the most innocent and defenseless, and we want to encourage men to stand up for the most innocent and defenseless, the unborn child in the womb.”
The abortion debate has long centered around the question of when life begins. Hinterlong, an anti-abortion advocate, said he hopes the Supreme Court will “say definitively” that a person’s right to life begins at conception.
“There’s absolutely no other place that you can claim that it starts,” he said. “Any other place that you would try to say that life would start past conception, the miracle of life has already happened.”
Hinterlong said he wants to bring light to the trauma felt by men through abortion, which he added is “no worse” than a woman’s.
“Women experience very severe trauma through abortion, also but men in a different way, because it prevents them from being the real man that they need to be and that God wants them to be,” he said.
Several counter protesters, however, voiced disagreement with religion’s role in anti-abortion arguments.
“I recognize that [the demonstrators] have beliefs and a system that they believe in, but it’s not a one size fits all when it comes to religion and health care,” said Michael Berryman, a 31-year-old media liaison for a counter protest. “While I recognize that they might have a religious kerfuffle with that, it’s not really up to them to make those determinations for other people.”
Bishop Joseph Strickland, who was removed from his position by the Vatican in 2023 after criticizing Pope Francis’ reforms, traveled from Texas to participate in the march.
Strickland said many bishops do not treat abortion as a “preeminent issue,” which he said should be a priority because “people are sacred.”
“It’s really not a Catholic issue. It’s not just a religious issue. It’s a humanity issue,” Strickland said.
The abortion debate has left the public divided.
Since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, a landmark case that established a constitutional right to abortion, support for abortion access in the United States has increased, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2019, about 31% of people in states that later imposed bans said abortion should be easier to access. By 2023, after those bans went into effect, that number had risen to 46%.
Counter protester Maggie Dennis said she came to the rally to “remind everyone that there’s another side.”
“People aren’t alone in what they believe in,” she added. “We’re all in this fight together for women’s rights.”
Dennis, who works at Four Women Health Services, an abortion clinic in Attleboro, Massachusetts, said many believe Massachusetts exists in a “pink bubble” after abortion rights were added to the state constitution.
“But if the federal law changes, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “The bubble’s already popped.”
To challenge what she views as outdated beliefs, Dennis said she dressed as a clown to show that anti-abortion arguments are “archaic” and a “joke.”
“It’s more effective than standing and screaming,” Dennis said. “Why not have clowns show up to turn it into the circus that it is?”
