May 2022 Abortion Rights Rally
I saw a few advertisements for the 14 May day of action in support of abortion rights. In the wake of the leaked Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade, I thought the rallies might be large and decided to go to the one in DC. Here is what I saw.
The rally took place between the Washington Monument and Constitution Avenue. I came after it had been going on for an hour or so. I hung out near the back of the rally.
One of the speakers talked about the multiple challenges that black women in particular face. In fact about half the abortions in the US are done on white women, half on women of color. I noticed that the rally looked pretty white for Washington DC or even the DC metro area.
Afterwards I tried to estimate the size of the crowd. It looked to be mostly confined to the area between the walkways in the upper right of this Google Maps view image. I estimate this to be about 600 x 400 feet, or 240,000 square feet. If each person took up 10-20 square feet, that comes to 12,000-24,000 people.
A lot of people were carrying great signs. I liked this one linking the issue to the bigger picture.
We marched to the Supreme Court. It was hard to tell how far the group stretched in front of me. Here is the view from inside the crowd as we passed the Capitol.
Maybe around 1/4 or 1/6 of the crowd was behind me. When we reached the street between the Capitol and the Supreme Court, my energy started to flag. I had been switching between wearing a mask and not wearing one – putting it on when it felt more crowded, taking it off when I started feeling a little faint – the day was warm and had become very humid. Here I stitch together a few photos of the rear of the march that I took before heading off to Metro.
