Abortion rights organizations on Grounds sponsored a benefit concert and a film showing this week to mark Reproductive Rights Week, which will culminate Sunday in a trip to Washington, D.C. Students there will participate in the first major abortion rights event in over a decade.
The March for Women's Lives "is the first gathering of this size and magnitude in 12 years," Voices of Planned Parenthood President Lindsay Prevette said.
Hundreds of thousands of abortion rights organizations around the country plan to attend the march, said Aimee Perron, American Civil Liberties Union legislative assistant. Celebrities such as Christina Aguilera, Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Aniston will speak.
"A lot of people are coming from places we would not normally expect," Perron said. "There is a lot of energy, and people are fired up."
The ACLU seeks to raise awareness of potential legislation that could thwart the abortion rights movement, she said.
"People do not see it as such a crisis," Perron said. "This is a movement to keep the government out of our bedrooms."
Reproductive Rights Week at the University is intended to bolster support for women's health, women's rights and emergency contraceptives, Prevette said.
Charlottesville Pro-Choice Alliance and CvilleIndyMedia.com presented a viewing of the film "Cider House Rules." A benefit concert also was held at the Gravity Lounge, and students created banners and signs yesterday to take to the march.
Prevette said there has been a large turnout of young people from the Charlottesville community at each event.
"The purpose of this week is to assert our rights as women," Campus for Choice President Melanie Dispenza said. Sunday's march will demonstrate to the government some women's dissatisfaction with potential anti-abortion legislation, Dispenza added.
"We want to publicize that choice is under attack," Dispenza said. "People do not realize that. We hope to give Capitol Hill the idea that it is not okay to take away our personal rights."
Abortion rights organizations also seek to address women's health and contraceptives, Prevette said.
"Anti-abortion groups have been making small gains and slowly chipping away" at pro-life movements, Prevette said. "We want to show we are not a silent majority but a vocal one."
First Right also tabled this week, First Right Vice President Christine Elliott said.
"Our main message was 'Abortion is a symptom, not a solution,'" Elliott said. "Abortion is a sign to us that our society has failed to meet the needs of women and to support them in challenging pregnancy situations."
Elliott said the anger of those who plan to participate in the march is misplaced.
"Certainly none of us are threatening a woman's ultimate right to decide whether or not she will engage in reproductive activities," Elliott said. "If she makes such a choice, however, and that choice results in the creation of a new human life, we do not believe that any so-called reproductive rights trump the human rights of her unborn offspring."
Abortion rights groups have not been as vocal as anti-abortion groups, so the march will demonstrate the large number of abortion rights supporters, Perron said.
"The squeaky wheel gets the oil," Perrson said. "We need to be the squeaky wheel."
Prevette said the march also will create the opportunity to foster a more devoted abortion rights following. March participants will be able to register to vote, further bolstering the abortion rights base, Prevette said.
"We want all the people who support pro-choice but have not taken an active role to keep being involved," Prevette said.
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