Molly Ivins: Who decides?

[Dudley_DUright]

A grand time was had by feminists from all over the nation Sunday, out exercising our right to peaceably assemble and to petition our government for redress of grievances. While we still can.

The women who organized the march came up with a scheme to count our numbers and announced that there were more than a million of us there and it was the largest demonstration in the history of the nation. ABC had us down to "tens of thousands." Other networks admitted to "several hundred thousands." I didn't see FOX News, but I assume we were down a few thousand on that channel, and almost all the news outlets gave either some or equal time to the few hundred anti-choice groups that turned out. The National Park Service has quit trying to guess the numbers on big marches, so it was up for grabs.

As a longtime reporter on protest marches, I guarantee the best way to estimate a crowd is to count all the feet in it and divide by two. Actually, there are a couple of traditional methods -- you can use an aerial photo, divide it into small squares, count all the people in one square and then multiply that by the total number of squares. Or you can station yourself at a given intersection, count the people who pass by in one minute, and then multiply that by the number of minutes the whole march takes to pass. No one has ever claimed either method is precise. I can only report that women filled the Washington Mall on Sunday and put on a whale of a show.

<snip>

The signs ranged from feisty to funny to touching. "My daughter marched for your rights in Iraq; I am here today to march for her rights." "Keep your rosaries out of our ovaries." "George W. Bush believes in abstinence -- Lucky Laura." And, of course, the omnipresent, "Who decides?"

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http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16831

[hippiegranny]

1. this one is ivins at her best

i love molly. i was laughing at her mocking of the network's misunderestimations of the numbers of people at the march. i mean geez, just look at the pictures! tens of thousands, my ass!

[Wickerman]

2. great stuff

"I've watched mothers do it well with far fewer advantages than I had, and I've watched mothers completely crumble under the burden. And I still think the question is, "Who decides?"

[Miss Authoritiva]

3. I am puzzled by this too:

"Sadly, many older feminist say they are bewildered by the attitudes of a substantial minority of younger women, women born after Roe v. Wade in 1973, who are either opposed to abortion or who do not consider it an issue."

The only way I can work it out is that Americans are hardwired to think as consumers. If a "product" is generally available at a more or less reasonable "price," then we don't complain. Abortion, as a consumer item, is more or less generally available and at a more or less reasonable price. The post-Roe v. Wade generation has never known otherwise.