Supreme Court decision on abortion sparks protests in Grand Rapids

GRAND RAPIDS — Friday's decision from the U.S. Supreme Court ending the constitutional right to an abortion sparked protests in Grand Rapids, drawing people from all over West Michigan.

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For many women at the protests, the decision hit close to home as they thought about their own families.

"I have a 24-year-old daughter," said Jan Gwasdacus, a Grand Rapids resident. "I terminated a pregnancy. She has the right to make that choice in the time and season that works for her."

The highly-anticipated 6-3 decision upheld a 2018 law from Mississippi, banning nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. Five of the six conservative justices, with the exception of Chief Justice John Roberts, also agreed to overturn the 1973 decision in case Roe v. Wade, which declared the constitutional right to an abortion.

With that protection gone, states are free to enact laws more narrowly restricting or banning abortions.

Michigan, for example, has a dormant 1931 law criminalizing abortion, excepting when a mother's life is in danger. The law is currently barred from taking effect under a judge's injunction. Meanwhile, a separate legal challenge from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration is under consideration.

Holland resident Erin Wall, carried a sign that read: "Abortion saves lives. I'm proof." Wall said she had an abortion as an 18-year-old college student. Her birth control medication, originally prescribed to control teenage acne, wasn't the correct dosage to prevent pregnancy, she discovered too late.

"My mental health was not good at the time, and if I didn't have access to an abortion clinic, I would have done anything," Wall said. "I probably would have killed myself trying, to be quite honest."

Wall said an unplanned pregnancy can derail a woman's education or career, and said she expects the restriction of abortion rights to cause women, in their desperation, to harm themselves.

Barbara Howard, an activist with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which coordinated Friday's march in downtown Grand Rapids, objected to what she described as a "puritanical" culture around sex in Christian communities.

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Howard, who graduated high school around the time of the Roe v. Wade decision, said she grew up Catholic but never bought into Catholic teachings about sex, birth control and abortion.

"Being anti-abortion is just another way to say, 'Women shouldn't have sex, and if you have sex you should be punished by having a baby.' There's a certain amount of vindictiveness to it," Howard said.

"It's all on women. Why isn't there some responsibility for the man? Why does she have to carry the baby?"

The march began at Monument Circle and stopped several times, including at the Kent County Courthouse, where activists booed Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker for not pledging to look the other way if Michigan's abortion ban were to take effect.

In anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling, seven other county prosecutors vowed not to prosecute abortions under Michigan's abortion ban. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, too, said she wouldn't enforce the law.

Gwasdacus and many others at Friday's rally were canvassing for signatures for a petition drive to amend Michigan's Constitution to guarantee a general "right to reproductive freedom," a cause that Gwasdacus said had become more urgent for her following the decision.

"It's not just about abortion. It's everything. A all the way to Z," Gwasdacus said, listing birth control, infertility treatments and miscarriage management as items that would be protected if the ballot initiative is successful. "It's nobody's business but mine or yours."

Another abortion-rights protest is scheduled at 6:45 p.m. Monday, June 27, at Unity Bridge and Centennial Park in Holland.

— Contact reporter Carolyn Muyskens at cmuyskens@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter at @cjmuyskens.