On May 3, 2022, in the evening after POLITICO reported on the leaked Supreme Court initial draft opinion which would vote to strike down Roe v. Wade, written by Justice Samuel Alito, the country erupted in protests. In Beacon, a rally was quickly organized and staged at Pohill Park, the common meeting place for such expressions at the intersection of Main Street and Wolcott Avenue / 9D. The video for that is in this article below.

This article also contains coverage of another abortion-rights protest that took place in October 2021 in Memorial Park as a local extension to the Women’s March on October 2, 2021 in response to Texas’ ban on abortion after 6 weeks, which kicked off with a speech from this blogger, followed by a march down Fishkill Avenue. Scroll down and you’ll see and read it.

And finally, there is a never-before-published video protest march in the summer of 2021 against a known letter writer and longtime Beaconite and past Dutchess County legislator, Richard (Dick) Murphy, who targets homes with rainbow flags on them with hand-written or typed anti-LGBTQ messages, as well as anti-abortion letters, which sometimes contain graphic images. Children often live at the homes to which he mails or drops off these letters to.

October 2021 Speech On The Right To Abortion

On October 2, 2021, I said words out loud for the first time about abortion. A reader of A Little Beacon Blog, Karen Finnegan, asked me to speak at a rally she had organized the night before in response to the national Women’s March for Abortion Justice, and I said yes. I spent the next day writing and writing notes. Pages of sentences. Too long. In last ditch efforts to edit, a friend pulled me back from several emotional ledges. I thank them for that.

Below is the 2 minute speech that I condensed 20 minutes before the delivering it while sitting and hiding behind a pillar of the Memorial Park Pavilion near the porta-potty. After delivering the speech, I switched back into reporter mode to cover the protest march in video for A Little Beacon Blog. That video is below.

I want to thank Karen aka the Beacon Hood Chicken aka Chickens With Attitude for organizing this opportunity for us in the Beacon and Hudson Valley regions to participate nation-wide in defending the right to our bodies and to access safe and effective abortions.

I would like to give space an acknowledgement to those marching, rolling, watching and listening who made the choice to have an abortion, and to honor you during these times.

To give you context, I am a mother of three children who I had through my own pregnancies.

Abortion is one of the biggest boundaries a person can put up for themselves to protect their lives.

We sacrifice pieces of our bodies with each pregnancy.

We sacrifice pieces of our lives with each child born.

Yes, there are rewards from having children, but it is not all cotton candy and glitter.

Every single egg in our bodies does not need to be fertilized.

And if it is unintentionally, the world does not get to come down on us to force us to garden.

To explain the WHY of why the choice is ours of when we get to fulfill responsibility for a child born is demoralizing.

A condom breaks.

Someone takes a condom off.

Ovulation cycles get forgotten about. "Oh - I missed the signs this month."

Missing the ovulation signs this month does not mean that our lives need to change. It means now is not the time if that is what we know to be true for our lives now.

A woman skips a pill. Her life can change.

A man takes a pill, he can change the life of a woman forever while he walks away.

Yes there are laws to bring responsibility.

Financial Foundation is not there. Don't be fooled.

The Child Tax Credit is already being discussed being taken away for higher income earners.

The Child Tax Credit advance is not free money. It is an advance. That freelance workers are going to need to be aware of and possibly pay back, because it is used to offset how much we owe at tax time. Usually the Child Tax Credit is offset against a freelance or gig worker's 1099 work that did not have taxes taken out.

Right now, the Child Tax Credit is an illusion of help.

There is no one helping us financially to have children.

People who have abortions need to know we support them. Their mental health is key, and their physical health during and after a procedure is paramount.

Thank goodness our cycles give us some birth control, in that we can't get pregnant every day of the week. There are the number of hours a month that we can get pregnant.

Thank goodness these people trying to make this into something that can be taken from us - at least they can't take our eggs for the half life that each offers. But we control them in the garden.

Keep educating ourselves and our children with sex education, so that we at least know how everything works, what is inside of our bodies, and what is best for our bodies and our lives.

Thank you for showing up today, and thank you for listening.

After the rally, three women arrived from different parts of the Hudson Valley. They were protestors during the original battle for Roe v Wade, and were summoning their strength from that time to fight this time. Take a listen to what they had to say.

Last spring of 2021, the anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion letter writer, Richard (Dick) Murphy, pinned a 3-foot doll into the yard of Donna Minkowitz. She threw the doll away after the Beacon Police said they had no use for it when she reported Dick to them as a complaint. His letter-writing campaign had gone too far. Enough neighbors were upset about it, that Donna organized a silent protest march through their neighborhood, ending up at his house. He did come out onto the front porch to get his mail, and seemed tickled that the protest was occurring, as he is a forever fan of free speech.