Between 150 and 200 Boston University students will head to Washington, D.C., next weekend to join forces with the National Organization for Women in protesting President George Bush’s policies regarding abortion rights.
Organized by BU Unite, a coalition of social justice groups, the students will join over 10,000 protesters from NOW, the event’s national coordinator.
At noon next Sunday, the protesters will march to the Capitol steps where they will hold a rally with several speakers. According to College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Amanda Roberts, the head organizer of the trip, the march is a part of a four-year plan being organized by NOW to focus on abortion rights during the Bush administration.
“Bush has the power to reverse Roe v. Wade, and no one really knows what he’ll do,” Roberts said. “This will let him know that people are watching and will get very angry if he does reverse it.”
“Right now, the Supreme Court has a 6-3 majority in favor of abortion rights,” she added. “However, two of the justices for abortion rights are going to retire during the next four years, so Bush will have the opportunity to appoint justices who are anti-abortion.”
Unite is concerned by Bush’s initial anti-abortion acts at the start of his term, according to member Simon Laing.
“The big thing is his reinstating of the gag rule for U.S.-sponsored health care centers abroad,” said Laing, a CAS senior. “Funding for clinics is cut even if doctors just counsel about abortion and don’t perform it. He’s also appointed many cabinet members who are against abortion rights. … There’s still anger that Bush was elected without the popular vote,” he said. “We’re channeling this indignation into positive action. Bush can’t stamp out women’s rights; he can’t just outlaw them.”
“The campus here is not very active in general, but this issue surprised me,” Roberts said. “There has been a lot of response — people are very committed.”
Organization for BU involvement in the protest began five weeks ago, when NOW President Patricia Ireland spoke with several Unite members after the documentary play “The Vagina Monologues” was performed at BU.
“She told us about the importance of getting organized and told us about the protest plans, so we began to recruit people to come with us,” Roberts said. “Although most of the BU protesters are women, we do have about 30 men.”
“We had to stop advertising for the trip because we got so many responses,” Laing said.
The group has received $1,000 apiece from both the Student Union Executive Board and Senate, as well as more than $600 from the CAS Forum, of which Laing is the outgoing president, reducing protester transportation costs to $20.
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