By Stephen Appezzato
RED BANK – Impassioned chants rang down West Front Street as residents, local politicians and candidates for state government gathered in Riverside Gardens Park for a Rally for Reproductive Freedom Saturday, June 24.
In 1973, in the landmark decision Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that criminalized abortion, creating a legal standard that protected a woman’s right to the medical procedure. Last year, the Supreme Court essentially overturned that decades-old ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, allowing states to impose laws that have curtailed and, in some cases, outright banned a woman’s right to an abortion.
“In the last 365 days, we have seen individuals come from across the country to New Jersey to receive their health care services,” said Jackie Cornell, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey, to the crowd at the event. “You’re applauding – and that’s great – because we’re happy to welcome people with open arms to provide care no matter what they need and when they need it. However, it’s incredibly disheartening that people cannot get health care in their own home state.”
Cornell pointed out that 20 states “and counting” across the country have either outlawed or heavily restricted access to abortion in the past year.
Luanne Peterpaul, a former county prosecutor and municipal court judge who is running for state assembly for District 11 in the upcoming November election, echoed Cornell, discussing the “rollback and the repercussions of the Supreme Court’s decision.”
“Listen, real lives are being harmed due to the extreme positions that state legislators across this country are taking,” she said, mentioning the representatives in other states who are actively trying to pass laws that would “criminally punish women for making tough decisions to have an abortion.”
Peterpaul warned of the health and lives of women being risked by these legislative moves, and the representatives “right here in this district that refuse to stand up strong and say, ‘We are going to protect a woman’s freedom to choose.’ ”
“Do you see our opponents waging a rally in support of women’s rights?” she asked the crowd.
While New Jersey’s Freedom of Reproductive Choice Act, which codifies a constitutional right to manage one’s reproductive health for New Jerseyans, was passed in January 2022, speakers and supporters at the Riverside Garden rally expressed the urgency to continue opposing the Supreme Court’s decision.
Margie Donlon, a physician and the deputy mayor of Ocean Township who is running alongside Peterpaul, also spoke, discussing firsthand accounts of how “bad policy hurts patients” she has seen throughout her tenure as a doctor. “Women across the country are dealing with the fallout of laws being enacted without regard to fact or science,” she said. “The government does not belong between a doctor and their patients,” she added, a statement met by cheers from the crowd.
The Democrat candidates for state assembly from District 11 were joined by Red Bank council member Kate Triggiano and council members-elect Kristina Bonatakis, Laura Jannone, Nancy Facey-Blackwood and Ben Forest, who won seats under the Red Bank’s Ready slate in the borough’s recent May 9 municipal election. Paul Eschelbach, a candidate for state assembly in District 13, and Lucille Lo Sapio, a candidate for state Senate from District 13, also attended the rally.
Across the nation, countless citizens gathered on the day to express both opposition to and support for the supreme court’s 2022 Dobbs decision.
In Trenton, a Rally for Life was held June 24 as hundreds in support of the Dobbs decision gathered to commemorate the day and attend a Mass for Life. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, who represents New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District – which includes 19 Monmouth County municipalities – spoke at that event, hailing the Dobbs decision as “the beginning of the end of the culture of death.”
The article originally appeared in the June 29 – July 5, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
