ASHLAND, KY (WOWK) — On a day when we celebrate our freedoms, hundreds of people rallied together against the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The protester’s goal is to get people to take further action.
“We want people to understand that all of this is in vain if you don’t vote. So, if you’re not registered, we are here to help you get registered. We don’t care how you register, what party you choose, but, if you want a voice, you have to vote,” said rally attendee Barbara Delaney.
“As a survivor of rape in college, I feel that if I hadn’t of had the opportunity and if I had been forced to carry my perpetrator’s child, I never would’ve been able to do the things that I ended up doing, which was going to law school,” says Kennedy Womack, one of the attendees.
On May 2, a Supreme Court draft was published by Politico. It said that the Supreme Court was considering overturning the 1973 landmark decision, Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade established a person’s constitutional right to an abortion.
The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on June 24, effectively banning the procedure in many states that had so-called, “trigger laws.” Kentucky was one of those states but abortion is temporarily legal after a Kentucky court blocked the ban.
Organizers say this march is the first woman’s march in Ashland, and all of the organizers are teenagers.
They say it all started with a group chat.
“In that group chat, we had a lot of people who are now protesters and volunteers here. But, three of us rose out of that group chat and we started planning. I contacted the City Commissioner and from there, it just blew up,” said Jane Delaney, an organizer.
The teenage organizers say the process was difficult, but the number of people who came out was shocking.
“I didn’t think we’d have over 100 people come. So, to see that over 1,000 people responded and we have about 500 people here right now, it was overwhelming, but also incredibly heartwarming,” Delaney says.
They say there are no signs of any of this slowing down.
“We’re definitely not going to stop. We’re already talking about planning another protest down here in a couple weeks. We only took one week to plan this thing and we have about 500 to 600 people here,” says Mackenzie Warren, an organizer of the march.