 You know what? Made for myself, one another. Had scheduled an abortion at the Women's Health Center on North Ave some years ago. And we got there, and it was locked down by protesters. No fucking way are you going to keep anyone from taking care of their bodies and their families until the day I die. For me, I'm out of state. I'm from Syracuse, New York. I came here today because I'm up here at my family camp on vacation, and I didn't want to miss anything. Normally, I march in Syracuse, but today I'm here. I'm going to, this is really hot. So I wanted to tell a little story real quick because my grandfather was the town doctor in a little tiny town up North New Canada in Franklin, if anybody knows where that is. And my mother was a nurse who came out of Burlington University of Vermont. And the one thing they taught me was, people matter. And they took care of everybody, bedside. They didn't believe in not taking the time. And they cared for women. My mother went on to do an awful lot with one of the hospitals in Syracuse that works with babies that are born. My mother went on to work with the O'Daddle and take care of newborn babies. But she also firmly believed in the right to choose and worked hard with that and worked with Planned Parenthood and stuff in the city of Syracuse. And she taught us as children that everybody has their own rights and their own choices. And I believe that. And I taught it to my children. And although I've never had to use that service, I believe in it so strongly. And I have two granddaughters, and I am scared shitless with what they have to grow up in right now. They are one and five. And I don't know what they're going to face in the future. So it's important because we're all here. It's important we're standing up for each other. And it's important I'm seeing the kids here saying that we have to look out for each other and we have to stand up for each other. And sometimes hold in somebody's hand and just being encouraging is all it takes. We just got to keep fighting this little fight and that little fight and all of them everywhere just add up and they're so important. And that's all. We specialize in trauma, anxiety and stress resilience as much as possible. And that means using things like cold water and drinking ice water when we're having panic attacks. And when you start to feel your information anymore, we take a walk or we go to standing anytime soon. In fact, it feels sometimes like even though we've been doing it for decades, it is just starting. So please take care of yourselves and focus on those building blocks. There's things like sleep and drinking water and being kind to each other and hugging each other. Stay alive and rooted because if we are not resilient, we cannot do this. That is my plea to everyone today. Thank you so much. Literally bright into it right here. Like this thing is a toy, a literal toy. Openings for others. You see through the legislation of abortion rights. Putting the reproductive many attacks on the fundamental rights that we all to Supreme Court was able to have of us. This is the work that we need to come together and continue pushing. I wanted to say that I haven't talked about yet. Just earlier this year, I had a miscarry. Mental rights to control our own body when these are the hardest decisions that we can make. Grances that we can have. And that we're dealing with that 50 years ago. I was led me to start action committee to support more information for some illegal. And for me, she was given a piece of paper with a name and an address. And she showed up and she had to have an abortion done. But a police officer, she didn't even know. Something where you have that surviving are gonna be. For screaming it like it is, care, which is exactly how I just got this microphone in my hand. Welcome it for yourself. I'm gonna pass it along to Matthew. What was that? Thank you Congressman for being here. I would say it's great to be out here with all of you, but it's really not. I wish we could all be at home, but here we are. So let's make the most of it. I am a 17 year old cisgender male. For those of you that have 17 year old boys in your lives at one point where you know that we don't know a lot of stuff. We're not, you know, I know three things. Number one, I'm not a medical provider for someone who has a use. Because of these two things, it is none of my gosh darn business. The little teenage boy that I am know this. It is so disgraceful that we have officials in this country that think that it is. We've got people like Mitch McConnell. It's not Mitch's business. It's not Kevin McCarthy's business. It's not the business of our friends on the Supreme Court. Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Lido, and my personal favorite, Budweiser. I mean, Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Coney Barrett, how could I forget? Thank you, Megan. Thank you for that. So, a lot of power reigned against this movement. People that wanna control the destinies of people with uteruses. But this is a testament. The march is going on all around the country today. Our testament to the fact that we are not gonna let that happen. The words of the old civil rights him, we shall not be moved. Black and white together, gay and straight together, cis and trans together, young and old together, we shall not be moved. Like a tree that's planted over troubled waters, we shall not be moved. Thank you very much. I'm gonna say that when I got up today and the news came out, the first thing I did was completely ruin my pledge to quit smoking. The second thing I did was make this sure. I made a network on Twitter and said, if you're in a state that isn't as friendly as Vermont, how do we help? And so there's a lot of us trying to figure out how to organize. I said, I have a couch. And somebody else said, I have airline miles. So there was a story that came on NPR this morning when the news first broke about a clinic in Texas where they literally had women in the waiting room and they had to shut the clinic down. These women have scheduled appointments and they are not able to get the healthcare that they need. So those of us in this wonderful state that are codifying this in the law that are going to codify it under a constitution come November for people to help people with uteruses in other states who need healthcare. We're figuring it out. But that's something we can all do individually. If you have airline miles to share, if you can pitch in on somebody's road trip to a safe state, please do it. I thought of her 10 different things and I have no idea what's going to come out of my mouth. I have a uterus and when I was very little, I swore off sex. I was like, eh, sounds, I just swore that I was going to wait until it was somebody that I really trust or someone that I really love, someone that I really care about. That doesn't mean that that's going to happen. Safe when I'm having sex. I don't have that fear of, oh God, what if the condom breaks or what if my birth control doesn't work? Nothing's 100% accurate. But that doesn't mean that some person on the street who doesn't have a uterus is going to think about that when they come up to me. So even though I feel like I'm safe, I'm not. And even though I surround myself with really great people of all genders and sexualities, there are people that I know that I don't trust and make me very nervous. There is one cis male in my school that has threatened my trans male friend many times and has made my entire friend group feel incredibly unsafe. And I also found out that he raped one of my classmates, the school year, and luckily I didn't have any classes with him at that time. But that doesn't mean in the fall, perfect nails, and they are really chipped because I have been very anxious today. So 16 and we can't vote. So please vote for us. Thank you. Thank you. Your community and help works also rain R-A-I-N-N as well as exhale, which is a support line for those who have gotten abortions, are seeking abortions, and family and friends of those who have gotten abortions. I'm gonna pass it along to Katie. I am president of AFSCME 1674, a local union here in Burlington, here in Speak as a labor leader because let's make no mistake. The Supreme Court's attack on a person's right to control their own body is an attack on workers' rights. Just as we reject the notion of the worker devoid of agency as a tool of capital, we also reject the subjugation of anybody with the uterus by the elitist patriarchy. We must not now nor ever take even one step back from our hard-earned rights without total resistance. In a country where parental leave is a luxury, not a guarantee, where the cost of medical care, especially for labor and delivery can leave families in crippling debt and where there is no universal subsidized childcare, abortion restriction is a working-class issue. It's an emergency. And any attack on bodily autonomy is an affront to the very idea that we live in a society which values personal liberty and the collective rights of all classes above that of the ruling few. Workers of every gender and as a labor movement, we must demonstrate in the streets, in the factories, in the halls of our government, and in our homes, so that women and trans comrades can retrieve true equity and agency in this society we call the United States. We might feel safe in our little state of Vermont, but we must demand that the Vermont General Assembly enshrine the right to an abortion in our state's constitution. To Beth, who is wearing an absolutely fantastic t-shirt that I'll just give a little plug here for the shirt, Tabitha Moore has these shirt-naising shirts out there. Go get them because we need them. Hi everyone, I'm Beth Regal. I am the Director of Advocacy at HopeWorks. We are here for each and every one of you. Anyone who is fearful of sexual violence, anyone who has experienced sexual violence, the story that I just heard a couple of people in front of me, we're here, okay? Please call. We have a 24-7 hotline. Now I'm gonna go off of the plug and I'm gonna talk about some personal experiences because God damn it, I'm angry. Now I'm 51, going for menopause. My uterus is kind of off duty these days, but I'm still mad. Let me tell you, that was an experience. Today, it brought a lot of triggers back for me. I have friends that are still there in Ohio. I have friends that are still there in Indiana. I have classmates that live in Texas, Florida. Staff, what are we going to do? And part of me is like, thank God, I'm in Vermont, but they're not. And I said the same thing that I've heard already. I have a place, I have airline tickets. If anyone needs a vacation, we're close to UVM. And UVM is still continuing to be there for the healthcare for all of us. When I was living in Tennessee in 1997, I was pregnant. I lost the baby when it was beginning of my second trimester. I wanted that baby more than anything. And it died in uterus, which means that the heartbeat stopped and it wasn't delivering on its own. I had to have what is called a planned abortion, a DNC in order to expel the infant from my body. Today, that is going to be illegal in so many places. Today, nobody, Indiana is already starting. I received the taxes I was heading here. They're already starting, the same as we heard from Texas. Individuals are being shut down from being the healthcare they need. We need to stop this. We cannot be complacent anymore. I've had plan B twice. Why? I have a neuromuscular disease. I was told if I had another baby, I will die. I should have that fucking right to stay alive. Transportation into town, I heard somebody say, no judgment, no judgment on the bus. I really should go to that today. But thank God I'm in Vermont. And I'm just really, I'm glad that I'm here in Vermont and I should go to that, but I'm not going to today. And I wanted to say, and we all need to say, complacency, complacency got us here. We need to vote. So please go and vote. I'm gonna keep plugging this and it might get annoying, but you know what, too bad. The reproductive liberty amendment will be on the November ballot. Please vote yes. We need to show them how it's done. I'm gonna speak. So I'm the city councilor here in Burlington. A state representative seem to be a retired state representative. And I'm also the co-founder of something called Vermont Access to Reproductive Freedom. The guys couldn't afford it to access abortion services here in Vermont. Want to shout out a huge thanks to the folks who are keeping that work and that organization going. It's incredibly important. The abortion fund movement is an incredibly important part of the infrastructure that we already need and are gonna need more than ever moving forward. So please learn about that work, get involved, donate, volunteer. When we first founded Vermont Access to Reproductive Freedom, there were like three of us and we worked out of my living room. And so I handled the hotline for like a whole bunch of years, which meant that I talked to so many people as they were accessing abortion, struggling, not just accessing abortions, but struggling to access abortions. Because even when abortion is legal, it's too often not accessible. And people trusted me with their stories. And those stories were so individual, so thoughtful, so unique. And you don't have to have like good story to be worthy of an abortion. So honored that people trusted me with their stories. And you know, so many of the people we served were already parents and were making this choice so that they could care most effectively for the children they had. Just so many reasons that people made this choice. I've had an abortion, I have my story. I know so many of you have your own story or have loved ones who have stories. And I feel pretty defeated today. I'm not gonna lie, I feel really sad. But I can't stop thinking about those stories. And so we can't stop fighting, we can't stop working together to turn this around and to fight for our collective rights. And I'll just end by saying emphasis on collective rights because what I learned from those stories is about intersection, about how many other things people were struggling with. I mean, so many people who were struggling to access abortions that I talked to, it was not even the primary crisis in their life. People were experiencing sexual violence, intimate partner violence, deep poverty, inability to access other needed healthcare. The list goes on and on and on. And we are in a moment in this country when we are seeing a kind of doubling down on systematic oppression against women, against LGBTQ plus people, against trans and non-binary people, against black and indigenous people of color, against people with disabilities. And the work that we need to do to move forward from this moment, I think I'll just end by saying it has to be the work of collective liberation. It's not a movement worth fighting for. And I'll just end there, but keep fighting, you know, find the love in the work and keep going. Great job, I'm gonna welcome our next speaker, Carly, and their awesome necklace that I can't get over because it's fantastic. Like a lot of the younger people here, I have been lucky enough to grow up somewhere where my right to reproductive freedom and healthcare has always been guaranteed. I've never worried about it. So when I was 15 years old and I was assaulted, I didn't have to worry about whether or not I was gonna get pregnant or whether or not I would be forced to keep it. I knew that I had the choices that I should be allowed to have and that I was in charge of my own body. But what we're really here fighting for is the girls across the country who don't have the same rights that we have here, birth control, or not had access to healthcare or a gynecologist they could trust. So what I want to say is that it's really important that we show up, like all of you have, not for ourselves, but for the people who don't have as many supporters and don't have as many people rallying around them. And Lucy Stone said at a women's convention that disappointment is the lot of women in religion and marriage and in education. And that is her life goal to deepen this disappointment until no woman will take it any longer. And so I think that's really an important message. We can't just keep ignoring what's happening or pretending everything is fine because we look around and we see a Planned Parenthood around the corner because you travel across the country and it's not fine. So keep acting and keep showing up and vote. Vote to pass prop five. And so Vermont can be an example for the rest of the country and the leader. And since I've noticed that this crowd has grown, which I greatly appreciate, the solidarity feels amazing and is much needed today. The grounds here, which is owned by the Unitarian Universalist Church that I'm standing on, have, they have been so generous to let us be here today. Please be respectful of this space. Please clean up after yourself and please do not litter. I'm gonna pass along to Kaya. Share something that I wrote this morning when I found everything out. It's a little bit of a different vibe, I guess, than what's been going on, but I'm not sure it anyway. Reasons behind Gen Z's apathy toward the United States of America. Born during the height of 9-11 and years immediately following that, we came into the world during a time of chaos. Then the recession of 2008 happened and many of us watched our parents or friends' parents lose jobs and suffer financial crisis. Finally, time for us to go to school and we have to practice lockdowns because school shootings are a normalcy. The government hasn't done anything to protect us. Growing up, we watch our country become more polarized and our government fall into a state of debilitating feedback loops, preventing any sort of progress in any direction. Meanwhile, the world is literally on the scientists in the name of profit and greed while we suffer the consequences. Marginalized communities continue to be targeted by law enforcement without any government protection, police brutality, people of the LGBT community are being told that they're pedophiles and corrupting children, their rights to certain types of health care are being taken away. There's a literal insurrection attempt to overthrow the government, the mishandling of coronavirus, the hundreds of thousands of deaths that could have been prevented by stopping the spread of misinformation and reproductive rights are hanging by a fucking thread. Roe v. Raid is overturned. So I'm numb to it all. We need to continue fighting. We have to continue fighting. And I believe in a budget that's going to be us. We are going to make that change because we have seen that it does not work. So we need to keep that we're screaming, everything is changing, even though we're tired. We need to keep on going. We need to stop complacency. We need to open everybody else's eyes and show them, hey, this shit is happening. You need to. Because humans need to human. The bathrooms in the church are accessible. If you go to the side door, please be respectful. There are people working in there. So please try to treat. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. What one of the Supreme Court Justices said after overturning this decision, but Supreme Court Thomas is interested in overturning more of our rights. This is just the beginning of what they're hoping to do. They're also hoping to, at least this one, is hoping to get rid of contraceptives and same-sex relationships and marriage. And that is unacceptable. How did we get here? We need to show them that this is not okay. When we didn't get a choice to vote in Roe v. Wade getting overturned, but we can vote on our local level and we can donate to causes that are going to help for each other. And we need to take, we need to not take our state as a place of refuge for granted. We need to utilize it to be helping people coming in from other states who need that help. Thank you all. Thank you for showing up. The refuge that is the state, it's never a guarantee you have to fight for it. Show up this November and vote for the Reproductive Liberty Amendment. If I'm annoying you, I'm doing my job right. Using shirts on that I think y'all should clap for. Rights than I did when I was her age. If it wasn't for the abortion I had of the baby, I lost before him. Neither of us would be alive if it was for that. Look at that child, I mean. Trisha, did I get that right? Trisha, and I am a religious person. I am a person of faith who absolutely defends and fights for reproductive justice. A nation that meets here, the Unitarian Universalist Society. There are many Unitarian Universalist congregations around the country who also support a woman's right to freedom and choice. There are many other congregations of other flavors that also care about and fight for reproductive freedom. I'm not here to defend religion today, but I do wanna talk about faith because while we have all kinds of different understandings of what we might call God, many of us share a faith in humanity. We share a faith in women. We share love and justice and mercy. And that's what moves us to do things like show up today. So I came up here because I wanted to invite you to just turn for a second and look at the beauty and the wonder of these people, of all of you. Because whoever it was that talked about collective liberation, that is the only way. That is the only way through to love and justice. Is everyone together? I'm admittedly familiar with Middlebury's planned parenthood. When I was 13, I was diagnosed with endometriosis and let me tell you, I have never loved my busted uterus more than I do today. It is unlikely that I will ever be able to carry a pregnancy determine that is okay with me. I have also been to Middlebury's planned parenthood many, many times to purchase plan B and pregnancy tests for friends who were too religious and too scared to go purchase those themselves. I have driven friends to get abortions because they didn't feel comfortable asking their parents. I got a call this May from my mom who still lives in Middlebury and she said, Middlebury's planned parenthood is closing. They don't have enough money to stay open. So as much as I would like to tell you to have hope, I am here to tell you to be scared. As safe as we feel in Veran, if you do not continue to donate, if you do not continue to fight, we are in danger of losing the freedom that we have here. People in Middlebury now have to drive at least an hour to access that care and that is just awful. It's awful that that clinic could not stay open. And so I'm telling you now, it's time to listen to our elders. It is time to turn to people of color, to career activists who have been doing this work for so, so long who know how to do this professionally. It is time to get angry and I'm not cantoning violence because legally I don't think that I can do that. However, I am saying if your reaction to this is violence, that is understandable. This Supreme Court ruling is a violation of our bodies. It is a violation of our rights and of our freedoms of being American. Get angry. Pass it along to, and you know what? Honestly, if I forget your name, I'm so freaking sorry, I'm Catherine. Catherine, we're passing along to Catherine. Like she said, my name is Catherine, I'm 16. Oh God, I'm nervous. You got it. I stuck up here, don't worry. Um, like I said, I'm 16 and I have been lucky enough that growing up, my body has been my business. I haven't been violated in any way and my body has been mine and I'm lucky for that. But because I'm now 16, I have begun to realize that not everybody seems to agree that my body's not my business, that my body is my business. Not everybody agrees that my body's my business. Can't talk. It's the older I've gotten that there have been more and more threats to my bodily autonomy as a woman, especially as a queer woman. I'm lucky enough to know that because I'm a queer woman, I probably won't need to worry about a consensual encounter leading to an unplanned pregnancy, but that's given it's consensual. I realized growing up, it won't always be consensual. There are chances that the man following me on the street is going to actually do something that the man who's following me before he realizes that I'm with my dad and I'm not alone will do something to me when he catches up. It's grown into a fear and I realize now that it needs to be a fear. I started work today at 10 o'clock, which is when it was announced. So I haven't really had a lot of time to process this emotionally because I've been working all day at a retail store. But I found out about this event happening over social media and I thought there's not gonna be a lot of people there. There's maybe gonna be 10 because it was so short notice. It was today that this event was planned. So showing up and seeing everybody here, it was a bit of a shock, a positive shock. And I remembered while I was here, this isn't the only event that's happening right now. There are others in other towns where other people are congregating to do exactly what we're doing here. As alone as I may feel in this situation, I'm not, I realized. I'm with everybody here and everybody in all those other towns who are doing the exact same thing that we are. I've got every transgender woman, every transgender man, I've got the support of the men who are here, the cis men who are here to support the women in their lives. We're not alone in this and that means a lot. It's not an issue of religion or of politics or of anything else. It's a matter of bodily autonomy at its most basic level. It should be our choice, obviously. Basically all I have to say. So anyway, yeah, don't be afraid to get out there and talk about it, I guess, to be here, but we are and we've got literally everyone on our side. So get loud. We do something about it. We got a good line of people showing up here to speak and I love it because this is about the community and we wanna hear from you. So I'm gonna welcome up Harley and their exciting crocs shoes because I love that color. And yes, I do compliment people on what they wear because I take notice of that all the time. Express my gratitude for this community and everyone showing up today. I am a queer woman and an early educator in the state of Vermont. It's conception about what this ruling is about. They say that this ruling is about children. If this ruling was about children, I wouldn't be buying bulk cheerios from Costco to feed my kids to children. If this were about children losing my train, I'm so angry. People that they care for children, they don't, they don't care for children at all. And the next step is targeting queer people. And then after that it's people of color and we need to step up. I still have faith that we can change things. Here who have showed up to fight for something that is wrong to be changed. Just, you know, take care of yourself but also check in on the women of us to come together. They are trying to drive us apart so we're with each other. This is gonna be a long road. Now I'm gonna welcome up Megan. Goodness, they're tripping over the words, it's real. Thank Hannah. She's good with names and good with words by the way and I like her t-shirt too. My name is Megan Emery and I am a professor at UVM. I'm also a city counselor in South Wellington. I have no power over the law unfortunately. But what I can say is that it's Katie who is president of the local union that got me up here that wanted to speak. And why is that? It's because she really focused me. I have been feeling more and more angry about Justice Coney Barrett. And why? Because she's a privileged woman who because of her privilege and education, she took her power and did not pay it forward. She had all those women behind her who made sure that she had all the opportunities and privileges that she was born with. Just like I was, I was born in 1969. I'm turning 53 this summer. And it's my turn to pay it forward because this generation is not gonna have the rights that my generation had and that is wrong. I'll be perfectly honest, I've never had an abortion. Although some would say that the morning after pill is an abortion, so if that's the technicality I have had an abortion. I have to say that I was able to give the morning after pill after a condom with a consensual partner broke because I was in France. It was before it became available in the United States. And I got to experience what a liberated country does for its women, which is provide. So I wanna say that I relied on contraception and that's what they might go after as well. I took the pill, I had an IUD three times and now I have the magic menopause, right? Nothing can hurt me now. So, why am I here because of UVM? Last year we had to explain the asterisk. Why am I here? It's because I have teenage and young 20-year-olds in my office explaining to me what happened to them and their friends and how unfair it is that they are faced with a system that is forcing them to face the accuser and then now we're faced with laws that will not only force victims to face the accuser but not allow them to get the help in the privacy that they deserved. I just broke the privacy that I have held for 30 years. There you are. What to do? Yes, mobilize and be smart and run for office. Why did I run for office? And this is another story. It's because my son, who now is 21 and Matthew, you're awesome, he knows Matthew. He was in a home care situation where the husband was found to be guilty of molesting one of the little girls in this home care situation, all right? And I said, I'm going on to city council. We need to do something for our young people and our children. So, Carly, I'm with you. Yes, those early childhood educators, you are the foundation. So, go, go to the state legislature. Go to Washington DC and Montpelier, but also think about what you can do. Can you run for office? Can you be an educator? Can you empower young women and men to do what's right for all of you? And I love the notion of collective liberation as well. So, Celine, I've always admired you. I just want to thank everybody who's spoken. It takes bravery, but this is the time for it. We are courageous. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much. I'm going to pass it along to Kate. Stress Friar, so forgive me. I'm here with two messages for you tonight. One is, obviously get angry, we'll get to that. But the second one is to remind you that abortion isn't just about choice. Sometimes, like for people like me, it's about losing in pregnancy and protecting yourself and your family so that you can continue to be a mom. My glorious son is here tonight, and I'm here because I'm here to speak to you because I was saved by an abortion when I lost a pregnancy. But my son is here with a mom because of that. So thank you, healthcare workers. He sends. Even if it's don't give reproductive freedom, get to the places where they can get them. But also, run. All for people to run for office. For my anarchist comrades out there that translates to infiltrate the system. I want to make sure they don't hurt. Eva Frazier, I am a recent high school graduate from CBO High School. I'm 18 years old. March, I participated in this scholarship program called the U.S. Senate Youth Scholarship Program. And it brings together two politically engaged students from each state, D.C., and the Department of Defense Education Activity. And I'm sharing this with you because for the first time, I made a lot of friends who live outside of Vermont and outside of New England. And today, when the decision on dogs was released, I had the unique core of watching some of my now closest friends who are all political junkies, dissect the wording and legal ramifications of this case ruling, but also understanding the horrific reality that of the 104 delegates that served with me, 65 could one day become pregnant. And now approximately half of us have lost this right. And as much grief as I felt at approximately 1020 when I checked my phone, I know that my friends in states where they have now lost their constitutional rights to their bodies have felt so much more. So I just want to say that it is incredibly important that we in Vermont vote to protect our rights to abortion, but also use our privilege of being in a state that prioritizes human rights to support those who are not that lucky. And my parents always say, oh Eva, you're on your phone too much, you're on social media too much, social media is destroying your generation. And yes, I think that is true in part, but social media has a really unique opportunity here. This weekend, I planned to regroup with the activists I've been looking to get to know and plan to coordinate online efforts to raise mutual aid and to work with mutual aid groups that are already working to connect people from one state to another where abortion is now illegal. And I urge you to join me in this. Celeste, I got, Celeste, sorry about that. Thank you, future Supreme Court Justice Eva. She's a good friend of mine, going to Harvard actually, 15 years old. I am a recent graduate of Rice Memorial High School. Yeah, yeah, an immigrant, my mom came to this country from Cuba with her two sisters and her mom, my grandmother, and she fought to come here and she fought for the freedom to be here. And my Abu right now I know is turning in her grave because this is not what we want and this is not what we deserve. And the fact that I woke up today and I received a text from my cousin asking me, have you seen the news? And I knew exactly what he meant. It's not something that an 18 year old should experience and it's not something that any of us should experience. The fact that our rights are being taken away is heartbreaking and the fact that I'm going to a school in the South where I know my rights are no longer going to be given to me, breaks my heart, but I'm not done and I will not be silenced. Going to and we will march and we will demand the rights that we deserve. Thank you, Catholics out there who are in support of reproductive rights. And I carry so much of what I learned into my work and in my passion and the compassion that I show for so many people. So just know that because you're Catholic does not mean that you can't be in for a choice. Catholics for choice is an amazing organization. Look them up. I'm going to pass it along to Evan. To be speaking to all of you today, I want to talk about how the things that we're talking about have been rolled illegal and in the states where they are illegal, you need to take precautions when you're at protests like these. If you take your phone, then that phone is tracking your location and anybody who has access to your phone can know where you were and they could know that you were at a protest. Also, if you have any period tracking apps in states where abortion is illegal, people can steal information off of those period tracking apps and use it as evidence that you may want an abortion. And I would encourage you to delete those apps and keep yourselves safe. Our videos from these protests onto social media, first off, blur out any faces in those photos and videos, especially if you are in a state where abortion is legal. And if you upload a photo, make sure to take a screenshot of it. When you take a photo, it records the information of where you took the photo, on what phone you took it, and what time you took it. And if you take a screenshot, it erases that metadata. So make sure to upload that screenshot and make sure to keep yourselves safe as we fight for the rights of everybody. I'm gonna welcome up Susan. Hello, I'm Susan, and I so appreciate such wonderful voices from young people who are here today. And I know what I wanna say is what he said, what she said, what she said, because it's been wonderful. I'm not young, I'm old. Like Tricia, I'm religious, I wear this outfit because I'm professionally religious, and I'm retired, and now I'm a lesbian mother from a vegan, organic hemp farmer. And my son is 15. But what I wanna say in my religious place is this, just a few things. Everyone here is created absolutely worthy. Number one, everyone here has moral agency and competency. And number three, no state can rise anywhere near the moral competency of every single woman as she faces her health decisions around her very reproductive life. Absolutely. I'm 20 years old when the Supreme Court granted me the right to have that absolute agency over my own body. And today I talk to my 21-year-old daughter, who doesn't. So I wanna say, like he says, like she says, like she said, fight, donate, vote would have to make this difference for everyone. Some change. I've seen more white men up here than I have black women. And the medical field is unmatched. And it's nice to hear, oh, let's listen to people of color, let's listen to this. But I just want you guys to actually start doing it. Thank you. Friends are she, her. And every time I get up on a stage on a protact, I hope I don't have to do it again. Each time I just feel slightly more disappointed by the inaction of government to help keep us safe. I always hear the sentiment vote, which I very much believe in, but also I believe in the fact that voting isn't enough. I don't feed myself. I donate to mutual aid programs because there's so much people more that need it than I do. I may seem apathetic, and it's not that I'm not disappointed or I'm not angry or upset. I'm just not surprised anymore. Each time this happens, I get less and less surprised at what's happening. It's just, they don't seem to care. We have a majority in the House and the Senate and a president of the Democrats. They had time to codify this, but they didn't. As much as we hear, as much as we hear, don't stay complacent. The people that we look to protect us have stayed complacent. They don't seem to want to change that. It makes me angry. We vote to put them in power, and then what? Yeah, that's all we get. All they want is power, and they don't care what they have to do to get it. And that is so fucking sad. Welcome to Jasmine. I'm Jasmine. My mom spoke about a lost count ago. And yeah, first off, corroborate her story of the whole, well, I wouldn't be here if she didn't have access to an abortion 24, 25 years ago. So, and last time I checked, Tennessee is probably one of those states that will ban it. So, yeah, there's that. Also, I'm standing here as a trans person. The one day I'll come without a uterus, give it three days, probably we'll take that back. Cause, well, look at Texas, look at Florida, look at, yeah. So, and it's just like, graduate from UVM, so many protests, so many protests, cause it's just, what am I doing? Like, why is nothing happening? Like, I don't know, and I corroborate everyone else, my age's story, I'm 21, so everyone else, my age is a younger story of just the apathy of being a young person in this country. Like, yeah, like, first thing I saw when I saw the news was just like, okay, I'm not surprised, disappointed, but, yeah, like, why am I not surprised about this? Why is, it's just annoying. Just look around, look at all of us. We're all people here. No one person here is less than another. So, just look at all of us, and lastly, I'll reiterate, got a condo, got airline tickets, like, just, we should all like, for anyone in a state, for anyone who needs a vacation to Vermont for whatever reason, like, and also for my family, for my friends who are in states that aren't as progressive as Vermont, just how do we comfort people knowing their reality sucks? And lastly, complacency. We cannot be complacent, not everyone in Germany was a Nazi, so we cannot enable it any longer. We should vote, just run if we can, and, that's it. I'm gonna say the annoying thing. Vote for the Reproductive Liberty Amendment on November 8th. I want to drain my words tonight, folks. I'm gonna pass it along to M.K. Hi, everybody. My name is M.K. I recently moved back from New Hampshire about a week ago. Great timing, I gotta say. Not gonna lie, we'll ever, so bear with me. The first thing that I thought of when I saw that the Supreme Court overturned Vote Over Wade is, oh my God, it's part of our judgment. My friends in New Hampshire, what are they gonna do? Because New Hampshire is, they might or already have passed a law saying you cannot get into abortion if you're about 15 weeks. And I was just so scared for them. I know being in Vermont, I am protected. But we need to help them. And I said, guys, please come to Vermont. And this is just a great place. I am so glad to be back. And I just love it here. Yeah. My body, my choice. Now it's our day then. I'm the Northern Vermont organizer for Planned Parenthood, Vermont Action Fund. That's my colleague, Eileen, who's from the Reproductive Liberty Amendment. I shared this earlier, but some of you may be new. And I think it's important to share stories. Shout out to those that did. And shout out to those that just feel like they can't do that right now. Much respect to you as well. I'm queer. I'm non-binary. I've had two abortions. My first one, being a medication abortion in my early 20s, I consider one of my best decisions in my life. My second one, being a second trimester abortion due to a non-viable pregnancy. Every pregnancy is unique. And I will not generalize anybody because I know it puts them at harm's way. I just want to remind you all to, I might cry, extremely difficult and long road. It's not going to be easy at all. In the Reproductive Liberty Amendment, though, we need to pass this spectacularly and show them how it's done. It is the basement. It is not even close to the ceiling. We really are going to kind of be starting over. But we have opportunity here. And the only way that we can do this and really harness this opportunity is to do it together. So I ask you all to really embrace one another, to commit to yourself and to each other. And honestly, please, please, please find peace and good in your night. This was an extremely difficult day. And it's going to keep coming in waves. And you're going to experience a lot. Seek your support systems, seek your resources, and stay together. Have a wonderful night, folks. Thank you for coming out.