Birmingham protesters call for unity, action after Roe v. Wade abortion draft: ‘We’ve got to stand up’

As a young child, Lauren Crandall’s mother would take her to abortion clinics to yell at the women entering the facilities.

As a woman, the 32-year-old Birmingham resident finds herself on the other side of the abortion debate.

“I think it’s really important that women continue to have access to abortions because our future is never guaranteed, we don’t know where we’re going to be at, we need to have that access,” said Crandall.

She was among roughly 30 people who demonstrated Tuesday night outside the federal courthouse in downtown Birmingham to protest the leaked draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade if finalized.

The crowd chanted slogans like “My Body, My Choice” and “Not the Church, Not the State, Women Must Decide Their Fate.”

The daughter of a single mother, Crandall said she made an appointment for a permanent birth control procedure because she saw how difficult it was for her mother to raise her alone.

“What are women who are low-income are supposed to do?” if abortion is outlawed, Crandall said, adding that she would not be able to travel to another state if she needed an abortion and Alabama criminalized the procedure.

“They can’t take off work, they literally work until they are giving birth and then they are required to go back to work and just pop back like nothing happened. They don’t get to bond with their children. To take the ability for them to make that decision away from them makes no sense.”

Crandall said she used to live in rural areas, where she would accompany her mother to pro-life protests.

“I’d be 6 years old outside an abortion clinic yelling, ‘We love your baby,’ but we didn’t do anything to help them. We just screamed at them and harassed them,” said Crandall.

“And now being an adult and seeing the damage that that does to people, I could never do that.”

Mallie Steele was a graduate student 20 years ago when she became pregnant with her partner’s child.

Steele, who spoke at the protest, said she ultimately gave birth to a son, now 20, but said it “scares me to death” to think that her 15-year-old daughter may not be able to have the same choice she did.

“I had a choice, we had a discussion we talked about it and I made the decision” to keep the baby, the Chelsea resident said. “I do not want to go backwards.”

“I had the ability, I had the means to go to another state” for an abortion, if that was the choice she made, Steele said. “But there are many kids in Birmingham who do not have that access.”

Frank Theodore Langlois, a trans man, said he had a pregnancy scare after he was raped at 22 years old, when he was only earning $12,000 a year.

“But I knew that I would have a choice. In about a month, that’s not going to be the case,” he said.

“Every day, countless [rape] survivors are having to make the decision of whether or not they want to be stuck with the worst day of their life following them around for the rest of their life. No one should be forced to be a parent. No one should be forced to be pregnant, but especially not someone who just had the worst day of their life,” said Langlois.

“That should be a decision between two people: a woman and her higher power, if she believes in one, but no one else.”

State Rep. Neil Rafferty, D-Birmingham, said he attended the protest to support his constituents.

“What’s happening right now is absolutely terrifying. Not just for women, not just for the LGBTQ community — all of our diverse communities are under attack right now” from the draft opinion, Rafferty said.

“We’ve got to stand up and we’ve got to speak out. It’s time for us to get organized, stop with our infighting and start fighting back as one.”

Rafferty said that fight includes electing “pro-choice, pro-women candidates” in the November elections.

“The people that are going to be most impacted by this [draft opinion] are going to be low-socioeconomic communities and communities of color that already struggle enough with having access to OB/GYN care, let alone access to safe and effective abortions,” he said.

“We’re already in a healthcare crisis, this will just exacerbate the healthcare crisis.”

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