Springfield Party for Socialism and Liberation organizes Memorial Day abortion rights rally

Buoyed by their abortion rights rally that drew more than 500 people, the Springfield Party for Socialism and Liberation is planning to march from City Hall on Memorial Day.

"It's to keep on the pressure," PSL member Lucy Mayfield told the News-Leader. "If those in power don't know that people aren't happy, they won't really do anything to stop it."

After a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning the constitutional right to an abortion leaked earlier this month, PSL held a "Defend Roe! Emergency Rally" in Park Central Square. The protest drew more than 500 people who opposed efforts to restrict abortion across the country and in Missouri.

Asked about the strong response to their previous rally, Mayfield said it was evidence abortion supporters "were no longer taking Roe v. Wade for granted."

PSL's "March to Protect Abortion Rights" will take place on May 30 at 10:00 a.m. — starting at City Hall and marching past Cox-North Hospital to Washington Park, where there will be speeches and a rally.

"We chose that route because Cox-North is obviously a health care facility. Abortion is healthcare. People should be able to get an abortion at Cox in Springfield, but they can't do that now even now before Roe is overturned," Mayfield said.

The local branch of PSL is linked with a national Marxist political party, which on its website claims socialism can only be achieved through the “revolutionary overturn” of capitalism and the state.

And Springfield PSL does not shy away from those politics in their advocacy for abortion rights.

"We don't think reforms are enough because they get taken away," Mayfield told the News-Leader. "Roe v. Wade is a good example of that. We still want those reforms to be there because they help people in the immediate. But we want people to have those freedoms forever."

At their previous rally, PSL member Seth Goodwin said abortion rights were "not gifted from on high from the benevolent ruling class."

"Roe was a victory of the struggling masses, the women's movement, and marginalized populations who took to the streets."

He called for people to continue "to take the power back for ourselves." Cries for socialism garnered some of the loudest applause at the rally.

Ari Patton, another organizer of the Memorial Day march, told the News-Leader Democrats were as complicit in the overturning of abortion rights as the conservatives on the Supreme Court.

"We're mobilizing as a part of a nationwide effort to pressure our lawmakers to codify abortion as a legal right. This could have fairly easily been done in the Senate by passing the Women's Health Protection Act. But it was dead before it hit the Senate floor because it's clearly not a priority for the Democrats," Patton told the News-Leader.

"Democrats have had 50 years to codify abortion and they chose instead to threaten use of abortion rights as a bargaining chip to get conservative voters to reluctantly vote for them. Therefore, we're taking to the streets to put pressure on them but also to bring awareness that voting Democrat is not enough anymore. We need direct action to secure abortion rights."

But PSL Springfield does not believe their revolutionary aims will damage the broader fight for abortion rights in the relatively conservative Springfield. Their organizing efforts have helped less radical groups than themselves, Mayfield said — pointing to their members attending and volunteering at another abortion rights rally organized by Planned Parenthood.

More than anything, PSL's organizing around abortion is to provide "community" to those in southwest Missouri "who see their right to bodily autonomy being taken away," Mayfield added.

"Any rally is about bringing people together and letting people know that they're not alone. We live in a culture that is very individualistic and can be very isolating. So I think it's important for people to realize that even when you live in a mostly conservative dominated area, you're still not alone.