Seattle rally protesting abortion pill ruling marches through downtown

Dozens of people marched through Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle on Saturday to protest a federal ruling limiting access to an abortion pill.

The commonly used abortion pill, mifepristone, is one of two drugs patients take in more than half of the abortions in the nation. A federal judge in Texas ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone earlier this month. That decision came at nearly the same time a Washington federal judge ordered U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug.

On Friday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued an order temporarily ensuring the pill will remain available while justices study the lower court rulings. It does not predict how the court will ultimately rule.

In anticipation of the Texas ruling, Gov. Jay Inslee announced his office bought a three-year supply of the medication.

“I’m sick of people deciding what we can and can’t do,” said Emily Cogan, 13, who attended the rally with her twin sister, Alison.

Despite their youth, the sisters are active in marches and protests in their community. Their first walkout followed the November shooting at Ingraham High School that left one student dead.

“Abortion needs to be a right in the state constitution,” Alison Cogan said.

The twins were two of about a hundred people who gathered at Cal Anderson Park Saturday afternoon, holding signs calling for abortion on demand and wearing green bandanas, an abortion-rights symbol that began in Argentina.

Thousands of protesters demonstrated across the country in response to the ruling. Some protesters voiced their anger at the steps of the nation’s high court; demonstrators in New York City stood behind a sign with a four-letter expletive directed at Texas; and Vice President Kamala Harris stopped at a rally in Los Angeles.

“We are the majority,” Gina Petry, an organizer with Puget Sound Mobilization for Reproductive Justice, said while addressing the crowd in Seattle. “They need to be afraid of us. … Not everybody understands that this case out of Texas has a nationwide implication.”

Nearly 60% of abortions in Washington in 2021 used mifepristone, according to court documents in a Washington lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. On Monday, lawmakers heard public testimony and information about the cost of Inslee’s plan to maintain the state supply of mifepristone.

On Saturday, organizers and rally-goers marched down Pine Street through Capitol Hill and into downtown Seattle, where they blocked an intersection at Fifth Avenue. Chants sounded out: “fascist judges make us ill, hands off the abortion pill” and “abortion pills are under attack, we won’t go back.”

The march was greeted with hollers and applause from passersby, and a couple shouts in anger before the protesters circled up Union Street to come to rest in Westlake Park.

Between the Department of Corrections and UW Medicine, which has purchased 10,000 doses, Washington has enough supply for four years, Inslee said last week.