Abortion rights rally highlights importance of upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Activists tout movement’s recent electoral successes and urge supporters to vote in February primary

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With last year’s overturning of the federal right to an abortion, a gerrymandered, Republican-dominated Legislature refusing any effort to repeal or soften Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban, and the reality that Wisconsin women can no longer legally obtain an abortion in the state where they live, you might think the circumstances would crush the spirit of abortion rights activists. But that hasn’t happened for Kim Gasper, 61, one of the organizers of a relatively new group in Madison, MARRCH (Madison Abortion and  Reproductive Rights Coalition for Healthcare), or, it would appear, for the more than 2,000 people who turned out Sunday to march and rally in Madison in favor of abortion rights. 

The event was co-hosted by MARRCH and the Women’s March, the group that formed and organized the first Women’s March in January 2017 in Washington, D.C., after Donald Trump was elected president. The Women’s March decided to hold their annual rally in Madison in part to bring attention to the importance of the upcoming state Supreme Court race. 

“We have a chance to flip the conservative court to a liberal court and [the Women’s March] thought maybe holding the national march here would publicize that situation,” Gasper says in an interview. Among the cases the new court could consider is a challenge to Wisconsin’s abortion ban, which went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson in June 2022.

There are two conservative-leaning justices and two liberal-leaning judges in the race so there is concern, on both sides, that the Feb. 21 primary could decide the balance of the court in advance of the April 4 general election. 

The significance of the Supreme Court race was reinforced by all of the speakers who took the podium in the Capitol Rotunda, starting around 1 p.m. on Sunday. 

“We are here today to make sure that we are facing and moving in the right direction,” said Rachel Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March. “We want to be heading forward — towards a feminist future. Forward — to taking our rights back. Forward — to taking back Wisconsin. Forward!” 

She urged people to vote in Wisconsin’s February primary and April election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. “Nothing less than our whole democracy is on the line,” she said.

Before the rally, hundreds of abortion rights supporters gathered at the Library Mall where MARRCH volunteers circulated a petition demanding that Wisconsin courts, Gov. Evers and the Legislature overturn the 1849 law, remove medically unnecessary restrictions to abortion access, and use some of the state’s more than $6-billion surplus to cover travel and other expenses incurred by those forced to seek abortion care in other states. The petition is also live on Action Network. 

At around noon the crowd started marching toward the Capitol. Similar marches and rallies took place in cities around the country. A small group of anti-abortion activists protested at the start of the march and on the State Street corner of the state Capitol.

Gasper says the name of MARRCH is not a coincidence. She believes that the act of coming together in the streets creates awareness and support among those who participate. “We know people’s ideas change when they march, when they participate in a public event like this,” she says. “People arrive, they’re pro-choice but they might not have ever said, ‘free abortion on demand.’ But after you march you realize it has to be free because people have to be able to afford it. And it has to be ‘on demand,’ because if you are a teenager and you need parental consent [to get an abortion], you can’t get it.”

This concept informed the name of the rally, “Bigger than Roe.”

“We mean that,” says Gasper. “Roe denied a lot of people access.” Under Roe, she notes, abortion access was limited to those who could afford it (the Hyde Amendment prohibits abortion coverage for people enrolled in Medicaid and Medicare) and was restricted by state regulations like 24-hour waiting periods and parental consent laws. 

Kelsey Candelmo, 31, was waiting in front of the Capitol for the marchers with a sign that said, “Roe was the floor, not the ceiling.” Candelmo says she was “flabbergasted” when the Supreme Court overturned Roe. She said she was at the Capitol Sunday to reinforce that abortion is an “essential human right that should not be governmentally controlled and banned.”

Gasper says MARRCH meets weekly, if not more, and membership is diverse, including people of color, those who associate as LGBTQIA and trade activists. Almost all are younger than she is. “I feel great about it and so do the other people I am working with. Most are new organizers. I haven’t worked with any political group where folks put in so much blood, sweat and tears to make it happen.”

Two members of the group spoke at the rally and both were fiery speakers. Amadi Ozier started hers with a chant: “Free abortion on demand, can we do it?” “Yes, we can,” the crowd roared back. Hanan Jabril talked about working as a doula: “I see firsthand the complexities of pregnancy, none of which are accounted for in Wisconsin’s abortion ban.” 

Other speakers included T Clearwater of Mobilize Wisconsin and Repro Rights Wisconsin, who spoke about the struggles of Indigenous peoples; representatives from the labor movement — Jennifer Knox of Working Families Power and Pat Rae of SEIU Wisconsin; and Dr. Eliza Bennett, an abortion provider. 

Carmona, in an interview, says the Supreme Court race was not the only thing that drew the national Women’s March to Madison. The group, she says, has been doing work in the state for several years and has been particularly focused on building women’s political power in Milwaukee and Dane counties and the so-called WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington). “There have been over 175 marches in Wisconsin since our inception,” she says. “So it was a place where we felt we could make a strong intervention.”

Carmona says her group provides support and trains volunteers to take on leadership roles, and has also helped get out the vote in Wisconsin for the 2020 and 2022 elections. The group’s political action committee has also been active, including endorsing Mandela Barnes in his recent bid for U.S. Senate. 

Carmona says she does not see despair in the movement — quite the opposite. “I would say our base is defiant, not despondent,” she says. “That has been the case the whole time,” including when Trump was elected and when Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed as a justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. “Folks get active and stay active and they are exercising all of their political agency…. It keeps people sharp and focused.” 

And the movement has been successful, she adds. “In 2020, we delivered the presidency to Biden.” She reminded the rally crowd of these recent victories as well. “Our opposition doesn’t learn very quickly,” she said. “They should have learned what happens when you are out of step with your constituents. 

“The red wave that was supposed to happen in November ended up being an itty bitty little trickle. And right wing extremists paid the price in 2022. And we, here today, and in marches all across the country, movements all over the country, will make sure they pay the price again in 2024.”