{"id":40565,"date":"2022-05-15T01:25:03","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T07:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/protesters-gather-at-buckley-park-for-march-supporting-abortion-rights\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:56:20","slug":"protesters-gather-at-buckley-park-for-march-supporting-abortion-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/protesters-gather-at-buckley-park-for-march-supporting-abortion-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesters gather at Buckley Park for march supporting abortion rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"More
More than 100 protesters marched down Main Avenue on Saturday to advocate for women\u2019s rights over their own bodily autonomy. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

More than 100 people gathered at Buckley Park on Saturday afternoon for a rally and a women\u2019s march in support of abortion rights. The march was organized by 11th grader Leo Stritikus, 17, and several of his classmates.<\/p>\n

Protesters rallied in Buckley Park before they marched down Main Avenue and then on East Second Avenue past the courthouse. Many carried signs with phrases such as \u201cMind your own uterus,\u201d \u201cPublic cervix announcement: Hands off\u201d and \u201cWomen\u2019s rights are human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stritikus, his classmates and several other speakers, including Rep. Barbara McLachlan, advocated for women\u2019s control over their own bodies and for solidarity with transgender women and the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n

\"Leo
Leo Stritikus organized the women\u2019s march from Buckley Park to La Plata County Courthouse and back on Saturday so that it would coincide with nationwide marches scheduled on the same date. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cEven though I don\u2019t have a uterus, abortion rights affect everyone,\u201d Stritikus said. \u201cIt\u2019s so crucial that (in) our country, the land of the free, that people have the freedom to control their own bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rally and march were in response to a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion that was leaked to the public in early May. The opinion rejected the notion that abortion was constitutionally protected and suggested that states should choose for themselves whether to protect abortion or to criminalize or limit it through law.<\/p>\n

Lisa Self, rally attendee, said she is \u201cenraged\u201d that her rights could possibly be taken away. She said women have the right to choose whether to go through with a pregnancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just not right,\u201d she said, referring to the Supreme Court\u2019s leaked opinion.<\/p>\n

Her husband, Steve Self, said the \u201castounding lack of respect for women and the feminine in our society\u201d is what brought him and his wife to Buckley Park on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"More
More than 100 protesters marched down Main Avenue on Saturday to advocate for women\u2019s rights over their own bodily autonomy. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s stunning and it\u2019s time to stand up and show that they don\u2019t get to do that (restrict access to abortions),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Melanie Dunn, another protester, said she grew up in the 1970s and knows people who died trying to get an abortion when they couldn\u2019t get one legally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a woman\u2019s right to choose what she wants to do with her body and her life,\u201d Dunn said.<\/p>\n

She said it is \u201csimply indefensible\u201d that the Supreme Court, the majority of which consists of men, can decide what women can do with their own bodies.<\/p>\n

Mimi Fountain said laws and proposed laws against abortion are supported mostly by men. She said in cases of rape, one can\u2019t blame a mother for not loving a child they were forced to have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, a mamma is a human and they may not love that baby,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t blame them.\u201d<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durango high schoolers organize rally to match nationwide movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2612,133,28,3805,2822,1025,107,22],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-abortion","tag-courts","tag-headlines","tag-human-rights","tag-justice-and-rights","tag-law-and-justice","tag-laws","tag-us-supreme-court"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84689,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40565\/revisions\/84689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40565"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}