A belated post on the Walk for Choice and Planned Parenthood rally

I should get it out of the way that this is a media-heavy (photo and video) post, so if you're on a slow connection, consider thyself warned.



I know, I know. It's been almost a week. I suck. But last Saturday I attended both the Walk for Choice and the Planned Parenthood Rally for Women's Health.

In short, both were awesome.

I arrived at Foley Square, where the W4C was meeting, a few minutes late. I was worried they'd leave without me, but luckily they were running behind schedule. I met up with some people I follow on Tumblr, and enjoyed some of the signs.


(This one is my favorite, it says "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey. I'm 903 years old and I stand with Planned Parenthood. You got a problem with that?")







The walk went from Foley Square, up Broadway and around Washington Square Park and back. Most of the reception we got was positive, except the guy running the Cupcake Stop truck shouted something about how we should all stop having sex. Luckily, their cupcakes are overpriced and lousy, so never buying from them again won't be remotely difficult.



We arrived back at Foley Square a few minutes before the Planned Parenthood rally, so I pushed my way up to get the best view that I could. And in this crowd, there were even more amazing signs.










(It's hard to see but that says "More Weiner Less Boehner.")









The crowd was pretty raucous and enthusiastic.



There were a bunch of excellent speakers - Anthony Weiner, Chuck Schumer, Cecile Richards, Kathleen Turner and Kathleen Hanna - and musical guests, like The Mountain Goats.


Cecile Richards


Anthony Weiner


Kathleen Turner


Chuck Schumer


Kathleen Hanna


The Mountain Goats

Gloria Steinem was supposed to speak, but canceled because she was sick. Apparently Shelby Knox also spoke, but it must have been after I left. I can't find video of her, which is too bad because I hear it was an incredible speech.

The whole rally was fantastic and empowering. There were about 6000 people there.

My Flip camera battery died after I got that shot of the crowd, so I didn't get to record speeches like I had wanted to. But I found many of them on YouTube, so you can watch if you weren't there.















Of course, the question is, what's next? The rally was amazing, but the right wing is still chipping away at reproductive rights. The fight isn't over, I'm not an organizer, so I don't really know what to say here. Calling representatives is important, of course. Vote. Continue to rally. And so on.