Women’s Marches Respond to Barrett’s Nomination
BY DONNA ACETO
In the fi nal days of a presidential election
campaign Americans have looked forward
to since January 20, 2017, Women’s
Marches, fi rst held on the day after Donald
Trump inauguration, were staged again
this past weekend in cities across the US.
On Saturday, October 17, roughly 2,500
women and their allies gathered in Washington
for a march that traveled past both the White
House and the Supreme Court as Republicans
in the US Senate were rushing to confi rm a
sixth conservative judge in the wake of Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in September.
An Antonin Scalia-style “originalist” conservative,
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who Trump
appointed to the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit
Court of Appeals several years ago, has
not only voiced opposition to LGBTQ rights but
is widely viewed as someone who could likely
be the decisive vote in either overturning or
severely curbing reproductive freedom in place
DONNA ACETO
The GOP scramble to confi rm a Supreme Court justice days ahead
of a presidential election — after refusing to consider an appointment
by President Barack Obama 10 months before the 2016
election — was a theme of the march.
DONNA ACETO
Women also pointed to the racism of the president and his policies.
DONNA ACETOT
Marchers pointed to the Republicans’ habitual intrusion into the
personal health decisions made by women.
DONNA ACETO
ACTIVISM
A message that brings the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to
mind.
DONNA ACETO
Handmaids emphasize the threat to reproductive freedom from a
Justice Amy Coney Barrett and a second Trump term.
DONNA ACETO
New Yorker Dana Harary-Cotton posts her opposition to Barrett
on the fence that now closes off Lafayette Park outside the White
House.
DONNA ACETO
The specifi c threat posed by Amy Coney Barrett was highlighted.
DONNA ACETO
The Trump White House, until January 2017 the People’s House, is
now a fenced-off fortress.
GayCityNews.com | October 22 - November 4, 2020 23
/GayCityNews.com
