Little Rock abortion rights protest draws 500

A previous version of this story misspelled Anika Whitfield's name. It has been corrected. 

With her blood-red cloak and her white bonnet, Kathryn Loyd Wilson drew a marked resemblance to the women depicted in Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale." 

But she was not at a costume party. Loyd Wilson was at a protest filled with 500 demonstrators who were reacting to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade Friday in Little Rock at the State Capitol.. 

For Loyd Wilson, the parallels between Atwood's dystopian world and the ruling were uncanny. 

"I think just the fact that this is quickly becoming our reality when men and women can't choose to be parents when they want to," Loyd Wilson said. 

Jackie Riddling, Julie McDonald and Katie Rhodes came together upon hearing the ruling and immediately knew they had to organize a protest today. That is how the protest at the Little Rock Capitol today formed. 

Riddling said with two daughters and a son at home, she had to do something. 

"For so long, I sat around and just waited," Riddling said. 

But for the past few years, Riddling has been anything but idle. She helped organize the Bans Off Our Bodies protest in May and has remained active in the pro-choice movement. 

Now, Riddling calls others to action. Throughout the protest, speakers demanded that the crowd vote and upend the legislators who made the trigger law that made abortion illegal in Arkansas today. 

State Sen. Joyce Elliott said that the protesters would have to put in the work to defend abortion rights.  

"I come to you today to say that we cannot afford to be silent anymore," said Anika Whitfield with the Poor People's Campaign. 

Whitfield also called on the crowd to raise money for women to leave the state to get abortions. She also said that the state would need to raise money to bail out doctors. If a doctor performs abortions in the state, the punishment is a felony and an up to $100,000 fine and up to 10 years prison time. 

Karen Ricketts encouraged people to donate specifically to the Arkansas Coalition for Reproductive Justice which is the only abortion fund in the state.

Emily Wales, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, had heartening words for the protesters. 

"Today we mourn, and tomorrow we wake up and we fight and we provide care," Wales said. 

Planned Parenthood was established in the 1930s. 

"We are not going anywhere. If you need help or education or support, come to us. Our doors are open, and we are here, and if that means getting patients out of this state to get the health care they deserve. That's what we're going to do," Wales said. 

Saige Anderson worked at Planned Parenthood today escorting women into the clinic amid pro-life protesters' shouts. The shouts soon turned to taunting when they discovered that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

"There were a lot of tears," Anderson said. "It felt terrible." 

Anderson said the clinic had to turn away a lot of women, some of who had traveled from out of state. 

That is why she said she was at the pro-choice demonstration today. It was for much the same reason that Loyd Wilson and many others attended the rally. They see a future that reminds them more of dystopian fiction than their own reality. 

In Fayetteville, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Jones spoke at a rally. 

Alex Gladden is a University of Arkansas graduate. She previously reported for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and The Jonesboro Sun before joining the Times Record. She can be contacted at agladden@swtimes.com.