More than 25 professional, social, political, health and women's organizations from all over Texas, both Democrats and Republicans, gathered Sunday in Washington, D.C., for the March for Women's Lives.
The march in support of women's reproductive freedoms attracted more than 1,000 organizations from all over the world, according to a Planned Parenthood press release.
To attend the march, the UT abortion-rights group Voices for Choice raised $5,000 from garage sales, bake sales and a banner bearing donors' names, said Katie Forde, American studies major and group member.
"The main reason that we, as students, want to march is that we've always had these rights, and we don't want them taken away," Forde said.
Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative public advocacy group, said the message of Texas groups' attending the march show a disregard for families by claiming to represent all Texans' values.
The "Don't Mess with Texas Women" coalition, a partnership of Texas organizations that formed to attend the march, held a pre-march rally that included speeches from political columnist Molly Ivins, former Texas governor Ann Richards and Roe v. Wade lawyer Sarah Weddington.
"I don't want women to ever experience a time when abortion is illegal, but that is the direction we're moving in," said Weddington, also a women's studies adjunct professor at the University.
American women ought to be afraid of White House
politicians' anti-abortion sentiment, Weddington said.
"If we are to save Roe v. Wade, it's going to take reinforcements ... from the younger generation who do not know what it was like before Roe v. Wade but who are determined never to know what it would be like," Weddington said.
The most impressive part of the march was the large number of young people who participated, said Danielle Tierney, Central Texas Planned Parenthood spokeswoman.
"I think that our speakers were the envy of many other states," Tierney said.
Adams, of the Texas Eagle Forum, said the coalition's use of the 'Texas Women' slogan was unwise and an abuse of a slogan that "has made the rest of the country look favorably on Texas."
The Texas coalition attended the march to send a message to the Bush administration and Congress that "We're standing up to protect our most fundamental freedoms, and we're saying no to their extremist agenda," Tierney said.
The legality of abortion should be determined at the state level, said Mark Levin, president of the American Freedom Center, a conservative public policy organization in Texas.
When Roe v. Wade was decided, there was an assumption abortion would become acceptable with time, but it's still as controversial as it was in the 1970s, said Levin, who says he opposes abortion.
"I really think it's important that people speak out on this on both sides," Levin said.
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