Why I marched with 200,000 women
Friday night I stopped at my local Walgreens to pick up a prescription. It led to this discussion with the pharmacist: Pharmacist: Would you like me to fill all of your meds? Me: No. I'm okay, why? Pharm: You take seven different pills. Fill them in case you lose your insurance.
That's where we're heading in this country? The pharmacist is worried about people not being able to get medicine? Maybe she is right. By the time I got home, our new President had signed an executive order starting the rollback of the Affordable Care Act. If she's worried, imagine how more than 20 million people who are covered through those plans are feeling.
But it's far from just insurance. On the train to this mornings March, the talk turned to abortion rights. In a car filled with women who are 60plus years old, they remember what it was like before Roe v Wade. They remember what it was like when women who needed to have an abortion had to leave their state and in some cases leave the country to get one....with no guarantee it would be safe. Coat hangers from that era are not an urban legend. It was a desperate time and it called for desperate measures.
Are we heading back to that? Be scared because no one knows.
There were many people at the march from the LGBTQ community. Protesting and marching with their spouses is something that they couldn't do eight years ago. They're worried that the many gains they've made recently could be gone.
Are we heading back to that? Be scared because no one knows.
This country is divided like we haven't seen in decades. While half the country is happy about the election and the direction they think we're heading, the rest of us are worried. We're worried that the new administration is going to take away everything we believe in, leave us behind and at the same time make money for himself, his family and his cronies.
That's why we were out there today. That's why the crowds were more than double the size expected in Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington and more than twenty cities throughout the country. That's why there were many men at a women's march because we wanted to let them know that we are all in this together.
To be honest, I wanted to see more. The large crowds are good. Comradery is good. No violence and no one getting hurt is good, too. I want to see a little more anger and more urgency. Maybe it's time to go back to the protests of the Civil Rights and Vietnam War era.
Two hundred fifty thousand people in a park on a Saturday is a good start. More important is what we do tomorrow.
Here's the piece I wrote yesterday about sending a letter to our new leader.
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