LYNN — At the Concerned Citizens of Lynn’s Unity Vigil for Our Voices event Wednesday night, state and local officials spoke about the overturn of Roe v. Wade on the lawn of Red Rock Park, expressing grave concern about the ruling and its effects.
Host speaker Michelle Richardson lit a sage smudge stick on the lawn overlooking the beach, while officials such as Mayor Jared Nicholson, Sen. Brendan Crighton, and Congressman Seth Moulton made their way through the crowd, shaking hands and taking photos.
Concerned Citizens of Lynn’s Executive Director Lisa Pressman said she started planning the vigil last Friday, when news of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was first released to the public.
“I actually decided Friday night after everything went down with the Supreme Court system, and additional information came out that now they want to look into same sex marriage, contraception. I decided it would be a good decision, as concerned citizens, to just do a candlelight vigil,” Pressman said.
Pressman said she was concerned that the rights of women in Massachusetts are no longer federally protected.
“Unless we keep the right politicians, and get new ones in office, just like what happened with Roe v. Wade, it can happen to us. They can reverse laws, so it’s important that people get out there and vote,” she said.
Nicholson, who was one of the first speakers, said that he chose to participate in the event to “show his support for those who feel like their rights have been taken away.”
“Although we live in a state that, gratefully, provides abortion access, there’s a threat targeting that right that is in need of being checked,” Nicholson said. “At times like this, we can all feel so frustrated and powerless to see a group in Washington D.C so disconnected from us, make these decisions.”
Before Richardson brought Moulton to the mic, she said that the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade slipped into a moment of chaos when the public was distracted.
“We’re living in a time right now, where we’re not meant to be at peace. All these shootings, all these things that are going on in the world, it’s so that we have no time to think or feel or process. What does that create? Absolute chaos, so then they slip in the reversal of Roe v. Wade,” Richardson said. “God knows what’s next, and that’s why this moment is so important. If we unite across barriers, across distances, if we unite, there is nothing they can slip past us.”
Moulton began his speech by thanking members of the audience who fought for abortion rights in the 70s. He then said that the public’s fight for their rights is only just beginning, and that the Supreme Court will not stop at reversing abortion rights.
“This may be a twilight vigil, but it is the dawn of this battle, because as Clarence Thomas made clear, this is only the first stop on their road to take rights away from Americans,” he said. “That’s what’s coming next.”
Moulton also compared the Supreme Court’s decision to a moment he experienced when he was leaving the war in Iraq.
“Regardless of what you thought about the war, if you thought we should stay or go, the hardest thing was when young Iraqis came up to us and said ‘please don’t leave because we don’t want to go back, we don’t want to go back to a world without freedom,’” Moulton said. “The Supreme Court has taken us backwards.”
Salem Mayor Kimberley Driscoll followed Moulton with a speech in which she encouraged the crowd to channel their emotions following the Supreme Court’s decision into positive action to avoid returning to a pre-Roe v. Wade world.
“Here’s my take: we need to figure out how to channel this rage. The unfair, the hurt, into action, because we’re not going back to 1973 – not on abortion rights, not on marriage equality, not on access to contraceptives,” she said. “We still rely on a male-dominated group of legislators across this country who don’t know us, who don’t know our values, who don’t respect us, to make our decisions for us.”
Richardson announced Crighton as “a man who’s not just doing this for the clout” before she handed him the mic. Crighton said that just because Massachusetts still protects abortion rights, that does not mean the public should turn a blind eye to states that have had their rights stripped from them.
“It’s not about us. While we still have protections in Massachusetts, let’s all remember that women’s reproductive health and rights to make their own decisions shouldn’t stop or begin at our state borders,” Crighton said.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
