Abortion rights advocates want to send delegates a message when they come to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention in August: They’re tired of what they say is “lip service” from the Democratic Party when it comes to reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and they’re demanding action.
“We are tired of politicians using our slogans as talking points and then failing to deliver,” said Linda Loew, co-founder of Chicago For Abortion Rights, during a news conference Tuesday at City Hall. “No delegate will arrive in, or leave, Chicago without hearing our voice and knowing that we are serious about fighting for our rights and winning them.”
CFAR, an abortion rights group, is part of a coalition that applied for a permit to hold a march Aug. 18, the day before the convention kicks off at Jane M. Byrne Plaza, previously known as Water Tower Park. The convention will take place Aug. 19-22.
In addition to CFAR, Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws: Coalition for Reproductive Justice and LGBTQ+ Liberation includes local abortion rights and LGBTQ+ advocate groups Stop-Trans Genocide, Chicago Abortion Fund, Reproductive Transparency Now and the Gay Liberation Network.
The Chicago Department of Transportation has 10 days to make a decision on the permit and notify the applicant. Permits are reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis, a CDOT spokesperson said, and are reviewed by multiple city departments. Approval of the permit depends on whether the event can be held safely.
CDOT hasn’t received any other applications for the time period when the convention is in town, the spokesperson said, but more applications are expected as convention dates approach.
The national convention, the city’s first since 1996, is expected to draw 5,000 to 7,000 delegates and alternates and attract up to 50,000 visitors to Chicago. Prime-time events will be held at the United Center, with daytime business conducted at McCormick Place.
At past national political conventions, official protest zones have been set up nearby, but security arrangements for this summer’s Democratic National Convention have not been publicly announced.
“The problem with the Democrats … is that they promise a lot and then deliver very little,” said Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network. “Democrats have used our issues to gain electoral advantage and then given us the bare minimum.”
Lisa Battisfore, founder of Reproductive Transparency Now, a Chicago-based group that works to advance reproductive justice, said elected officials in Illinois have failed abortion-rights advocates and those seeking abortions, citing Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s agreement to drop enforcement of Senate Bill 1909 last month, which aimed to deter deceptive practices by so-called crisis pregnancy centers.
Raoul’s decision followed a federal court ruling that the state could not enforce the law, which would have fined clinics up to $50,000 if they were found using “deception, fraud, false pretense, false promise or misrepresentation” to interfere with a person seeking access to an abortion or emergency contraception.
“Politicians failed us when it came to SB 1909, in the state of Illinois, a state that continuously shines a light as a leader in abortion policies,” Battisfore said. “They’re scared, and we need to put pressure on them to make them understand that they have to be in this with us, and maybe they need to be willing to give up their jobs.”
Kristi Keorkunian-Rivers, who uses she/they pronouns and is co-founder of Stop Trans Genocide, said abortion rights continue to be attacked since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, citing the agreement from the U.S. Supreme Court last month to review a lower court decision that would make mifepristone, the commonly used abortion pill, less accessible.
Abortion rights and LGBTQ+ advocates also expressed frustration with the Democratic Party’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. Tuesday’s news conference follows a rally by Muslim community leaders from across the country in Chicago Saturday urging voters to drop their support for President Joe Biden because of his administration’s refusal to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Keorkunian-Rivers said the Democratic Party will lose the support of trans, queer and abortion rights advocates if their demand for “solid, unwavering reproductive justice“ is not met. She added that legislators have also been silent about Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.
More than 21,900 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.
“The Democratic Party has largely been silent on the rights of trans and queer people, the genocide of Palestinians, the right to access adequate health care, and has done little to nothing about the rise of fascism that plagues our country today,” she said.
