Pittsfield — On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade decision that ruled the U.S. Constitution gave the right for women to choose to have an abortion. Forty-nine years later on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overruled its previous Roe v. Wade decision via its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision and gave individual states the power to regulate abortion rights.
In response to this ruling, several states, including Massachusetts, passed abortion rights protections for both patients and providers. Other states, however, have proceeded to pass laws that significantly regulate and limit abortion access.
Fifty years after the Court handed down its Roe v. Wade decision, on Sunday, January 22 at Park Square, the Berkshire Democratic Brigades organized an event to commemorate the Supreme Court’s original decision. Residents at the event also protested the court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson decision that has scaled back protections on abortion rights.
More than 80 residents attended the event, many of them holding signs advocating “reproductive freedom,” “my body, my choice,” and “our bodies, our decisions.” One of the residents who attended the event was Marietta Rapetti Cawse from Pittsfield. “I want people to know how important choice is and how important it is to respect one another,” Cawse said. “I do not want to see the Supreme Court turn the clock back. It’s dangerous to hear what the people who support [the Dobbs v. Jackson decision] want for women: no birth control, no medication, and not helping one another. This is dangerous.”
“It’s very important to me because the same people who say that they want freedom want to find ways to take freedom away from women,” Pittsfield resident Lois Prew said. “I’m an older woman, and my boyfriend is older than me. If I accidentally get pregnant, the odds of our child having autism or down syndrome increases exponentially.”
Pittsfield resident Virginia O’Leary said that she was very active in the abortion rights debate in 1973 when the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court. “Fifty years later, here I am again trying to make it clear that reproductive rights are indeed a right,” O’Leary said. “And so I am back again to make it clear that we won’t stop until those rights are preserved. This is about choice. I would never want to insist that people who don’t see the world as I do be mandated to choose to have children against their will. I absolutely insist that people be free to choose according to their values and beliefs and I think that that’s what America stands for. That’s certainly what democracy stands for.”
“While some people think that Massachusetts is a safe state when it comes to abortion rights, you can’t be too careful,” Berkshire Democratic Brigades Chairman Michael Wise said. “We are all fully aware that the Democratic party is in full control of the government in this state. However, we cannot be complacent about that.”
Berkshire County NAACP President Dennis Powell, who attended and spoke at the event, said that the January 22 event was all about the mobilization of democracy. “We really have to start using our voices to push back as hard against elected representatives who have limited our reproductive rights,” Powell said. “The reason for the diminishing of reproductive rights is because we keep voting the wrong people into office, including habitual liars who get voted into congress and as presidents. We need to be vigilant in who we’re voting in to represent us because they will roll back everything that democracy stands for.”
Representatives of several activist groups attended the January 22 event, including Greylock Together co-founder Jessica Dils. “Being 53 years old and it’s terrible having a constitutional right taken away, assaulted, and disregarded,” Dils said. “This is so much more than just reproductive health care. This is about our justice, collective human rights, dignity, and freedom. If we start degrading the most basic forms of human dignity, what’s next? We know that people who are assaulting reproductive rights are also assaulting all the other rights, including LGBTQ+ individuals, racial justice, and immigration rights. It’s all in the same group of people who have and want to maintain power and control over others, and that’s just not what democracy is about. And as much as we claim to have that democracy, it’s something that we can’t take for granted.”
