‘We will not go back’: More than 200 rally for abortion rights in Rockford

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Cathy Herdeman said she recently asked her daughter, who is in her 30s, if she had ever heard the term “botched abortion.”

She had not.

That’s evidence to Herdeman that access to safe and legal abortion services all but eliminated the need for that term.

“It has been nearly 50 years since this was a commonly used term or a commonly lived experience,” she said Saturday at an abortion rights rally in downtown. “Those who oppose us say they value a human life. We do, too. We value women’s lives.”

Herdeman was among a little more than 200 people, mostly but not exclusively women, who rallied Saturday at the Rockford Women’s Suffrage Plaza for abortion rights. The rally, dubbed Bans Off Our Bodies, was held in conjunction with others across the country in response to a leaked draft that shows the U.S. Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade.

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“We know that no one individual, organization or campaign can guarantee reproductive choice on their own,” County Board member Angela Fellars said. “We can only do that if we bind together and we unite together.”

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Fellars told the crowd that access to safe, legal abortion saved her life and allowed her to “go on to have three healthy children that I choose to have at a time that was good for me.”

“When I made that choice I never imagined, it never crossed my mind, that I would be raising my daughter at a time when she would have less rights over her body than her grandmother,” Fellars said.

Democratic Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara said he is proudly pro-choice. He said he trusts women to make their own decisions about their health.

“Myself, my administration, my family and this City Council will continue to strive to be allies in our actions, in our policies and in our endorsements,” he said. “Let’s make no mistake: Women are under attack, and we can no longer let — in the city of Rockford, in our region, or in our country — the very vocal few take the voice of all of us.”

Abortion rights supporters displayed signs with slogans such as “I will not go quietly back into the 1950s,” “abortion is a human right,” “stop the war on women,” “her body, her choice,” “the rise of women does not mean the fall of men,” and “stop the crusade against Roe v. Wade.”

There was a brief but tense exchange between people at the rally and a group of four anti-abortion protesters — three men and one woman — who arrived at the rally with a megaphone and large signs displaying unborn fetuses. They said the pictures showed a child aborted in the third trimester of pregnancy.

Abortion rights activists chanted “we will not go back” at the anti-abortion group, with a few people shouting in their face. The group eventually opted to largely ignore the anti-abortion protesters and continue with their rally. Two police officers later stood between the two groups in an effort to prevent any conflict. Counterprotesters continued speaking through the megaphone as the rally continued.

When the rally resumed, Herdeman, who is part part of the group Catholics for Choice and Winnebago County Citizens for Choice, said anti-choice Catholics can be loud but are a minority in the Church. She said some may be personally against abortion, but support the right for women to choose.

“Christ never spoke directly about abortion, but I believe he would have had compassion for the woman involved,” she said.

She said women must have access to family planning, contraception and abortion care.

“When abortion becomes illegal there will be no regulation of abortion providers, no need to have any medical training, sterile equipment or knowledge of anatomy,” Herdeman said. “When abortion becomes illegal we risk a return to the times when large city hospitals — such as Cook County hospital in Chicago — maintained 40-bed septic wards for women suffering as a result of botched abortions.”

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas