'Keep Your Laws Off Our Bodies': East End Reproductive Rights Rally

EAST END, NY — Carrying signs that read "Keep Your Laws Off Our Uterus," "Bans Off Our Bodies," "Together We Fight For All," "My Choice," and "This Is Not About Babies, This Is About Controlling Women," hundreds turned out in front of Suffolk County Supreme Court in Riverhead Wednesday for a Rally for Reproductive Rights.

After a controversial Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last week, leaving individual states to make decisions regarding women's reproductive rights, outraged East End residents gathered to let their voices be heard.

Speakers included Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, Southampton Town Councilmen John Bouvier, Southold Democratic Committee Chair Kathryn Casey Quigley and many others.

First to speak were women, telling their own stories of choices, sometimes painful, and sharing their fears for the future.

One woman, Emily, an East End mom, spent years as a political strategist. Now, she has three small children. "I feel like the world is burning and I don't know how to protect my kids," she said. "My girls are 2 and 4; I don't know what their future looks like," she said, her voice filled with tears.

Of her children she said: "I chose to have them. I cannot imagine if I had been faced with this situation and I had not been ready. Not having any choice over what happened to my family economically, not having any choice over what happened to my body. So I'm here to stand up for abortion."

She and others agreed change would come in the voting booth.

Long-time activist Sandra Benedetto also spoke. The Supreme Court's decision, she said, "is a direct attack against our right to control our own bodies. They value a fertilized egg over our children."

She added: "Women will die. People will die. Making abortion illegal will not stop abortions. It only stops safe abortions. It only stops medically regulated clinics and opens the door for untrained individuals to take advantage of all who face the desperation of an unwanted pregnancy."

She led the crowd in a chant, "We will not go back! We cannot go back!"

But, Benedetto said, throughout history there have always been those who champion freedom. "We are part of the revolution and evolution of the human species," she said.

Rich Schaffer, chair of the Suffolk County Democratic Committee, also spoke, as did Skylar Johnson, running for New York State Senate.

"This is an emergency," Kathryn Casey-Quigley, chair of the Southold Town Democratic Committee said. "Our democracy is on the line. They are coming for us — for power, greed, and control — and we cannot let this happen. This is a dark moment in our nation's history and we need to rise to it and be the light."

Former Riverhead Town Councilwoman Catherine Kent also spoke. "We will not go back in time. This is the breaking point. The time is now to shout from the rooftops in a united voice: 'Keep your laws off our bodies.'"

In the voting booth, she urged the crowd to remember a song: "Roe, Roe, Roe your vote."

Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, Fleming, a Democrat who is running for the 1st Congressional District seat held by Republican Lee Zeldin — Zeldin won the GOP nomination to run for governor Tuesday — said the Supreme Court's decision stripped away the fundamental right of women to make their own decisions about their health care, their economic futures, their destinies. "That's what they want to take away, now," she said.

She also spoke the opinion of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that she said is "a very frightening opinion that includes a promise to go after even more fundamental rights —"contraception, LGBTQ marriage, the right to privacy to love whom you love. They're coming after it all," she said. "It is up to us to reclaim American patriotism. We are committed to ensuring everyone has full access to the American dream. We won't give up the fight."