Leaders of the half-million abortion rights advocates who marched on the nation's capital hope the show of force will help turn the tide in the battle that they admit has been turning against them.
"It's easy to be daunted by the odds, but we can win," Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, said Sunday as hundreds of thousands marched on the capital in support of keeping abortion legal.The U.S. Park Police estimated the size of the crowd at 500,000, while NOW said it counted 750,000.
The daylong protest that began in front of the White House and ended in front of the Capitol drew people from across the country and brought in politicians and celebrities who wanted to lend their names to the cause.
Two who were able to lend their names but not their voices were Democratic presidential candidates Jerry Brown and Bill Clinton. They were not allowed to speak from the stage.
A NOW spokeswoman, who refused to be identified by name, said a decision had been made to let no presidential candidates address the rally. She said NOW did not want the event turned into a platform for presidential politics.
But it was all anybody talked about.
"We are tired of begging for our rights from men in power," Ireland said to the cheering crowd. "We are going to take power."
Speaker after speaker talked of throwing people out of office who don't support abortion rights, and President Bush was singled out for criticism because of his opposition to abortion.