Talk:March for Women's Lives

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Contents 1 Counter-Protests 2 Indecent exposure for topless protesters? 3 Counter Protesters and Exposure 4 Deliberate scheduling for IMF meeting 5 WikiProject class rating

[edit] Counter-Protests

Several claims made concerning the "counter-protests" along Pennsylvania Avenue have been edited or removed, on the grounds that they were unsourced, ungrounded, or factually incorrect.

Unless there is a source that can be provided for the claim that there were "thousands" of counter-protesters, the claim should not be made; even Randall Terry claims only that "over a thousand" showed up. Other sources claim that there were more like 300. (Inflating what by all accounts is less than 2,000 participants to "thousands" is a standard trick of lazy press release writing; but a NPOV article should not engage in such tricks.)

The counter-protesters were not mainly dressed in black. The largest single contingent were Terry's "Operation Witness", who were wearing blue-and-yellow t-shirts.

The marchers were not "met by" the counter-protesters in any sense beyond them being within sight and shouting distance of each other. Counter-protesters were behind police barricades and those who crossed them were arrested.

I also note that every external source link I followed on this page led to pro-life websites. I have added some newsmedia sources and some reports from pro-choice writers and participants in the march in order to try to restore something vaguely resembling NPOV.

Radgeek 07:58, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Indecent exposure for topless protesters?

There were also several topless protesters, though there was no record of any indecent exposure arrests.[5]

As someone who has seen a lot of DC and has had DC see a lot of me, I don't really agree with the assessment that being topless in the District is indecent exposure. I don't recall the exact law, but I do believe that it's only a crime in DC if it is overtly sexual or if it is intentionally done in the presence of minors. I feel we should confirm that being topless is a crime (in a Puritan nation like the US, you never know) in DC before we have a wikipedia article point out that there weren't any arrests for it. Bugg42 23:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Counter Protesters and Exposure

Not much to add but I was all over this event all day and working for a major participant. Personally I saw less then 40 counter protesters and later a picture of one topless marcher who was painted any way. Why is it that most of the articles I read in Wikipedia sound like they were written by people that hate what they're writing about? It's almost like this tool is being used to rewrite history. I hope that either standards are modified or this is NEVER used as a legitimate source of information (no offense). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dividebyzero (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Deliberate scheduling for IMF meeting

I object to the last paragraph stating that the March was "deliberately" planned to coincide with the IMF/World Bank meeings. There is no source quoted and I believe that this is not factual. The March was planned for over a year, maybe a year and a half. I hope that section can be either removed or fact-checked. Also, I was there marching with my teenage daughter and I do not remember thousands of "anarchists" dressed in black and covering their faces. I only observed one woman topless. The corrections that I made to this article were to include three celebrity names and add that some of the pro-life protestors were "waving grotesque signs and screaming abuse". This is true. These people were mostly men with photos of unborn fetuses on signs who, with their children, were screaming abuse at us from the sidewalks. I was fearful for my daughter's safety. Donnielou 01:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

First off, the passage about deliberately planning this march to coincide with the WB/IMF meeting needs a citation or it needs to go.

Secondly, I found lots of photos of anarchists in a black bloc configuration on DC Indymedia and other places at that march. I wasn't at the event, but would have been in the black bloc with them had I been able to go. I've noticed that at a lot of the really big events (and this counts as one of those), whether or not you see anarchists is really hit and miss, especially if the bloc does its own thing, as has happened in other black blocs that I've been in. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:27, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

If a citation can be found for the statement that a large number of anarchists that were visibly participating in the March for Women's Lives on April 25, 2007, it should be added. No? Donnielou 23 July 2007

Agreed. SchuminWeb (Talk) 10:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 15:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)