At least 100 supporters of a woman’s right to choose attended the “Majority Over MAGA” Reproductive Freedom Rally hosted by Indivisible Bucks County on Friday.
The gathering was held outside the office of Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents Pennsylvania’s First District.
The event was organized to highlight Fitzpatrick’s anti-choice voting record that fails to support reproductive health care, as well as to commemorate the second anniversary of the right-wing Supreme Court majority’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, legal precedent which had previously granted women the right to have an abortion regardless of where they resided in the United States.
Speakers included Democratic Congressional candidate Ashley Ehasz, Bucks County Clerk of Courts Eileen Hartnett Albillar, and Julia Cao, a local Planned Parenthood storyteller.
“Brian Fitzpatrick has already shown his true anti-choice colors,” Ehasz said. “He’s voted for a national abortion ban, against the Women’s Health Protection Act, twice, and to prevent military women from funding to travel to receive abortion care. That’s a heck of a way to repay the service of my sisters-in-arms.”
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“People, constituents from throughout our district, came out to support freedom. The group was diverse, like our district, old and young, men and women, Black and white,” said Renée Donahey, a Bucks County voter and advocate for democracy. “We were all there to protest this attack on our freedom.”
“My 100-year-old mother lived through the Nazi occupation of France. When the former president said some very degrading things about women, she became very upset,” Donahey added. “I told her to ignore him … she said ‘This is how it starts, first attack women, then attack the news, then change the courts.’”
The event served to remind voters of the critical importance of electing officials committed to safeguarding women’s reproductive health care in Bucks County and throughout Pennsylvania in the upcoming November election.
“We are facing threats to reproductive rights from all angles. Our own congressman wants to ban abortion, and voted against the Women’s Health Protection Act, while extremists in our Pennsylvania legislature are also working tirelessly to restrict abortion services,” said Albillar. “There is no rational justification to deny healthcare to women and girls. Sexual health care and reproductive health care are essential human rights.”
