Tag Archives: Reproductive rights

Solano Dems host fiery pro-choice rally to protest Supreme Court decision

[BenIndy Editor:  Benicia poets were present in spirit: the Fairfield crowd heard Benicia Poet Laureate Mary Susan Gast’s “Uncertain Inalienable Rights” and Roger Straw’s “The Nation I Used to Love.”  – R.S.]

Ana Petero speaks during a rally against the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade court ruling at the Government Center in Fairfield, Friday, June 24, 2022. (Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic)

Fairfield Daily Republic, by Matt Miller, June 25, 2022

FAIRFIELD — Solano Democrats held a fiery and emotional rally Friday before a few dozen sign-waving supporters, showing anger and disgust over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“Thank you for showing up spur of the moment,” said Chairwoman Marjorie Olson of the Solano County Democratic Central Committee. “We need to see what we can do for women’s health because this is a decision subject to further victimization.”

Barbara Gaea of Vallejo said it is even a matter of suicide prevention.

“How many suicides can be linked back to pregnancy tests?” Gaea asked. “I’m so mad about this, my brain wants to explode.”

Demonstrators hold signs during a rally against the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling at the Government Center in Fairfield, Fri., 6/24/22. (Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic)

Gaea turned around and looked at the American flag in front of the Government Center and said it should be at half-staff for “all the women that have died and all the women that will die” from government intrusion into individual abortion decisions.

Supervisor Monica Brown told the crowd she was donating $500 to the National Abortion Federation to help those who need abortion care and help with travel expenses. Brown also announced a $500 contribution to Planned Parenthood and emphasized the organization provides many more services than abortions.

Brown said change is needed and the biggest way to do that is through the November election.

“They have reversed half a century of reproductive freedom,” Brown said of the Supreme Court’s decision. “I’m tired of this country taking five steps back. The only way to get it back is to vote. Every state should have equal access to what we have here in California.”

Fairfield-Suisun School Board Trustee Ana Petero said, “Women need to stick together as one.”

Ana Petero holds a sign with a pair of coat hangers during a rally against the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling, at the Government Center in Fairfield, Friday, June 24, 2022. (Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic)

Ana Petero holds a sign with a pair of coat hangers during a rally against the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling, at the Government Center in Fairfield, Fri., 6/24/22. (Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic)

Petero talked about her own personal struggles at a young age. She reiterated the ruling is an attack on all women.

N’dea Johnson, who is running for Fairfield City Council in District 1, said it is important to respect everyone’s choice.

“Whether it’s a sister, a cousin, a person you know that can bare children, (they) deserve the right to terminate their pregnancy if they choose,” Johnson said. “It’s important to respect everyone’s choice. This is just the beginning of what they are going to do to us.”

“We need to keep our government with the government and our bodies with our bodies,” Tara Beasley-Stansbury said. “We have the right to make our own decisions.”

Lerecia Evans wondered how this decision could be made in the middle of an infant formula crisis and during a teacher shortage.

“No one deserves the right to tell you what you should do,” Evans said. “How can you regulate such a personal thing? We’re still being told what to do and that abortion can be done easily. Men don’t understand what it’s like to have a uterus.”

Benicia Poet Laureate Mary Susan Gast: Uncertain Inalienable Rights

My poem draws from the vision and promise of our nation’s Declaration of Independence in contrast with the vision and threat presented by proposed total bans on abortion. – Mary Susan Gast

UNCERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS

Inalienable rights
Endowed by our Creator
Inalienable rights
Inalienable—can’t be gotten rid of
Absolute
Sacrosanct
Unassailable
Life
Liberty
Pursuit of happiness.

Except, of course,
If you have likewise been endowed
With a functioning uterus.

In which case, your inalienable rights
Are up for alienation
Trumped and superseded
Any time
Any old time
Any young time
Egg and sperm meet
Within you.

If you should conceive,
Whatever the circumstances,
Nothing
Nothing in your life,
Neither loss of job,
Nor loss of mental health,
Neither exhaustion,
Nor damage to physical health
Nor neglect of children already born,
Neither commitments to vocation
Nor aging parents
Nor anything else in all creation,
Can keep you from becoming a birth mother—
Or die trying.

The sectarian parochial conviction
That a fertilized egg is a full human being,
That dogma,
Has powered up its wardrobe,
Dapper in judicial robes, and senatorial togas
Along with its usual ensemble of religious vestments
To propagate and promulgate itself most forcefully
As the law of the land
Mowing down
Devastating
Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness
For those who are unhealthily, unwillingly, or unjoyously
Pregnant.
Bodies conscripted
For servitude.

Enforced birth, coerced procreation
Demeans, mocks, belittles, dismisses
The generous, arduous, courageous, dangerous, heroic
Labor of love
Entered into
By those who freely give of themselves
To give birth.

We hold these truths to be self-evident.

Inalienable rights
Endowed by our Creator
Inalienable rights
Can’t be gotten rid of
Absolute
Sacrosanct
Unassailable
[Say it with me, everyone]

Life
Liberty
Pursuit of happiness.


Mary Susan Gast
©2022
“Bans Off Our Bodies”
Benicia CA


 * Interesting note: ‘Inalienable’ or ‘Unalienable’?

The Nation I Used to Love

By Roger Straw, June 24, 2022

The nation I used to love
Has gone mad.
I’m living in a deadly spin,
A near-divorce state,
A whirlpool of Trumpian loathing
And marching orders of Supremes
That would take us back to the glory days
Of patriarchal authority
And martial powers
Of guns and guns and guns…
And babies blooming unchecked
In every womb.

The nation I used to love
Is broken.
And my love is lost for now.
Divorce impossible,
I’m trapped in a promise
Of decades of division,
Litigation that has an arc
That bends not toward justice
But is crushed or nearly so
Under the weight of Justices
Of right –
Of right and fight and loathsome might.

 

The nation I used to love
Is a memory
Held dear
Kept safe
For a century perhaps
A future for now unknown
And yet to come?
Yet to come.

 

Benicia Rally in support of Roe v. Wade – photos, video

Benicia residents gather in large numbers, hear powerful speeches, lift great signs, march to Benicia State Capitol

Benicia Rally in support of Roe v. Wade at Benicia State Capitol, May 14, 2022 | Photo with permission, more photos by Larnie Fox.

Benicia Independent, by Roger Straw, May 15, 2022

When we heard about the Supreme Court’s draft opinion that would gut women’s right to choose, we knew that a fierce opposition would erupt all over the nation.

Benicia Rally – BANS OFF MY BODY, May 14, 2022. Photo by Larnie Fox

Few dared to hope that Nikki’s email calling for a protest would blossom 250-strong on the Benicia Green and march up First Street, showing incisive and demanding signs, chanting and posing for a historic photo at the old State Capitol.

Benicia Protest March – BANS OFF MY BODY, May 14, 2022. Photo by Larnie Fox

But that’s how it was on Saturday at the Bans Off My Body rally right here in our small town, our beloved Benicia.

Inspired and organized by Benicia artist Nikki Basch Davis and Benicia resident Cathy Bennett (who brilliantly MC’d the event), the lineup of speakers was impressive:

    • Former Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson
    • California Assembly Member Lori Wilson
    • Candidate for Solano County  District Attorney Sharon Henry (currently Chief Deputy District Attorney)
    • Benicia Mayor Steve Young
    • Benicia City Councilmember Christina Strawbridge
    • Maggie Kolk, Benicia-Solano Community Activist
    • Ana Petero, Fairfield-Solano Unified School District Governing Board, professor at Solano Community College, member on the Solano Commission for Women and Girls
    • Dana Dean, Benicia attorney, Trustee on the Solano County Board of Education
    • Terry Scott, Director, Benicia Community Foundation, Chair of Benicia Arts and Culture Commission
    • Mary Susan Gast, Benicia Poet Laureate
    • Carol Patterson, President, League of Women Voters of Solano County
    • Kari Birdseye, Chair of Benicia Planning Commission and Candidate for Benicia City Council

Benicia videographer Constance Beutel filmed the event, and put together a 5-minute video of Highlight Clips:

Dr. Beutel also published a 52-minute version with near full-length coverage of the speakers’ remarks:

In my politically diverse extended family, and among friends and neighbors I know across the spectrum, it is and will remain a woman’s right to choose whether and when to start or expand a family, whether and when to conceive, carry, and give birth.  Men of good will support this right.

A government that by legal fiat imposes forced maternity interferes with a woman’s freedom, and in so doing, interferes with all of our freedoms.  We stand ready to support freedom of choice no matter the dictates of a supposedly “supreme” council of judges.

Roger Straw
Benicia Independent