On Wednesday we had us a demonstration here in Louisville, Kentucky.
After the leak of that abortion of a legal opinion from the Supreme Court on Monday evening we had to take to the streets.
A little before 1700 EST people started to gather outside Metro Hall in downtown for a rally organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Hundreds turned out, holding signs up to traffic and chanting until the rally got started.
A PA system was set up on the steps of Metro Hall and from there activists led chants and addressed the crowd.
In addition to the fired up crowd, four guys showed up to counterprotest. Unfortunately I know all four well, they're all chronic harassers at EMW Women's Surgical Center. Several of my escort buddies also showed up and cordoned them off to deescalate things and keep them from provoking anything.
They'd brought their loudspeakers that they use to harass patients at EMW but the PA system completely drowned them out. With the cordon in place the crowd ignored them and they were largely a nonissue.
Several people addressed the gathered crowd but one in particular struck me. Summer Dickerson spoke of how she was a victim of human trafficking and about how she had an abortion to prevent her trafficker from selling and trafficking her child as well. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to have to make a decision like that. Even more unfathomable to me is how total fucking strangers think they have any say in a decision like that.
After the speechifying there was nothing to be done but take to the streets. The march formed up in the intersection where I got my first taste of tear gas back in 2020 and to get there we walked through Injustice Square Park, the epicenter of those protests.
Somehow it still feels like much the same fight.
Damn sure was a lot of the same people from those protests. There definitely was a sense of 'just like old times' as we marched through downtown blocking traffic and disrupting all the tourists pre-Kentucky Derby festivities.
The Derby hat crowd couldn't do anything but stare as they were treated to chants of "Fuck the patriarchy!"
The Kentucky Derby is tomorrow and downtown is full of people here for that but they got a little bit more than they bargained for.
After disrupting their dinner and drinks we made our way back to where we'd started and dispersed for the evening. Don't know what comes next but there was a promise of 'militant direct action' so it should be interesting.
In the meantime, if you or someone you know needs an abortion but don't have access to one for one reason or another, do as my friend's sign suggests and check out Plan C.