CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – On Saturday morning, several people gathered at the Downtown Commons to protest against the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade last Friday.
Krystal Haseltine told Clarksville Now she has never organized an event before, but once she saw that there weren’t any local protests happening in response to the rulings, she felt led to use her voice.
“When I first heard about (the Supreme Court decision), I was completely taken aback,” Haseltine said.
She said that after the shock settled in, she went through the stages of grief. She cried, she was angry, and then she decided to get to work.
Teaming up with Clarksville Indivisible, Haseltine and Julie Wellnitz got a response from over 400 people on their Facebook event page.
Several survivors of sexual abuse came forward sharing their personal stories and denouncing the Supreme Court for their decision. The concern for most was the speculation of what is to follow.
“The Supreme Court will not stop at Roe,” Joy Rice, the founder of Clarksville Indivisible, said. “Clarence Thomas spelt it out in writing for us all: They’re looking at contraception and they’re going after gay rights.”
“We cannot stop at just protests and being angry, as good as this outlet feels, we have to keep going,” Rice said.
Some of the other measures the group encouraged each other to do was to write to their elected officials and to vote in the August primary election.
“We had over 400 people respond to this event, with those numbers, those are higher than any one polling station’s (voter turnout) during the primaries,” Rice continued.
Haseltine told Clarksville Now that at the age of 25, after having her daughter, she had to have a hysterectomy due to infection and blood loss.
“But if I were to have gotten pregnant now and still had that problem, I have no choice and my daughter has no choice. I could die if I still had that problem going on right now, and there are women who have that same problem who are going to die,” Haseltine said.
“They don’t see us as women, they see us as breeders,” Wellnitz said. “They don’t care how we feed them, they don’t care how we clothe them, they just want them out.”
“We will not go back into the dark ages silently, we will not walk on the graves of our mothers and grandmothers who have fought for our rights in this country; we must stand up,” Wellnitz said.
There are more protests planned throughout the summer.