Pro-choice protesters hold demonstration in Ogden
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- Lexus London, left, and Liandra Dematteo, right, march at a pro-choice rally in Ogden on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
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- Priscilla Martinez speaks at a pro-choice rally held at Ogden Municipal Building on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
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- Jaccari Kelley speaks at a pro-choice rally held at the Ogden Municipal Building on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
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- A protestor carries a sign that reads “Keep Abortion Legal” at a pro-choice rally held at Ogden Municipal Building on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
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- Kay Hoogland speaks at a pro-choice rally held at Ogden Municipal Building on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
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- Raquel Juarez speaks at a pro-choice rally held at Ogden Municipal Building on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
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- A child holds a sign at a pro-choice rally held at Ogden Municipal Building on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
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- People listen to to speakers at a pro-choice rally held at the Ogden Municipal Building on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
OGDEN — With protests for reproductive rights across the country, including in Salt Lake City, on Saturday, dozens gathered in front of the Ogden Municipal Building for a rally of their own. The protests, associated with the Women’s March, were focused on anti-abortion legislation enacted in Texas and Mississippi that significantly restricts access to the procedure.
While Roe v. Wade was decided almost 50 years ago, it has been challenged frequently with a host of laws across the country. Still, a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court has some worried about future challenges to the decision being successful and rolling back the ability to receive an abortion.
“I’m of an age where I was a beneficiary of Roe v. Wade, and these young people don’t know what it’s like to not have that legal option. I’m fighting again, after 40 years, to make sure the young women and their partners have that right,” said Angela Urrea, one of the event’s organizers.
The fears were held across the generational divide. Attendees ranged from children and teenagers to those who lived through and remember the country before Roe.
For Liandra Dematteo, one of the youngest organizers at 19 years old, the issue is close to her heart.
“I was in foster care as a child so I know the struggles of going through foster care and I know the abuse from foster care. I know all that and, honestly, I wouldn’t wish foster care on anybody,” Dematteo said. “If a woman decides to have an abortion, that’s her right. Regardless if I would have one or not, it doesn’t mean I should stop them.”
Throughout the morning, passersby would honk their car horns in support of the crowd. Others also voiced their disagreement with the protesters’ messages. Most attendees bought their own signs with messages ranging from tame — “Really?! Again?! Not on my watch!” — to inflammatory — “If I wanted the government in my uterus I’d f— a Senator.”
The crowd marched down 25th Street, chanting and holding their signs past the farmer’s market crowd.
Each of the guest speakers shared their own perspectives with the crowd. Priscilla Martinez, a community advocate and alumna of Northwestern University, took to the podium with a direct message.
“We’ve had enough. Enough on limiting the ability to make decisions about our lives. Enough on stripping away our basic rights of individual choices,” the Ogden City Council candidate said.
Martinez claimed that, particularly for women of color, there has been inadequate care for too long and stressed the importance of making sure all women have the right to choose.
Donning a red shirt that read “Black Lives Matter” when she took the stage was local activist Jacarri Kelley. Kelley started her career in health care working at the Utah Women’s Clinic, one of a few in the state that offered abortion services. She worked there for five years.
“Women have abortions not because they want to; we have abortions because we have to. It’s the toughest decision we as women have to make,” she said.
Kelley shared her own story of having to get a medical abortion due to an ectopic pregnancy. She shared her personal experience to draw a direct line to the six-week abortion ban in Texas.
“If I was in Texas and had an ectopic pregnancy, I would have died because they wouldn’t touch me with a 10-foot pole,” Kelley said. “They could care less if we were alive at the end of the day. Because if they did, housing wouldn’t be an issue right now, foster care wouldn’t be an issue and our health care system definitely wouldn’t be an issue.”
The youngest speaker to step up was Raquel Juarez, an Ogden native and 2019 graduate of Ben Lomond High School. Juarez, wearing an outfit modeled after Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” used the book as a launching point for her speech and sharing her experiences as the youngest person to take the microphone.
Providing the legal angle to the event was Ogden High School alum, attorney and former corporate leader Kay Hoogland. Hoogland, who was also editor of the Virginia Law Review and a former partner at Seyfarth Shaw, said she believes it is unlikely a full repeal of Roe happens, even with the conservative majority at the Supreme Court.
“I have a prediction to make legally and I hope it comes true. The court rarely takes back fundamental rights it has recognized. It has recognized a woman’s fundamental right to choose to have an abortion,” she said.
In spite of her optimism, she advocated for continued vigilance to legals goings on and persistence in sharing their message. As for the future, Urrea hopes the protest is a restart for Indivisible Ogden and leads to more regular protests in the area.
Also at the rally were tables set up by Students United for Reproductive Freedom and the League of Women Voters. No matter the language used or the different messages, all attendees shared the same philosophy, a message reinforced on circular signs provided by the organizers — “Keep Abortion Legal.”