By Nicole Maharaj
May 10, 2004

The national Mall was witness to the March for Women's Lives April 25, which drew the largest crowd since the 1995 Million Man March.

Approximately 800,000 people attended the March for Women's Lives. People came to Washington from near and far to take part in the march. East Capitol Street and the Robert F. Kennedy Stadium parking lot were full of the many buses that brought participants to the march. Signs in the buses announced origins in big cities and small towns from all over the Northeast and Great Lakes regions. Among the attendees were entertainers, politicians and icons of the Feminist Movement. Some groups were multi-generational - mothers, grandmothers, and daughters. There were also husbands, sons, brothers and boyfriends. Some of them participated in the last major march for reproductive rights in 1992. A police official who flew over the crowd in a helicopter said that the "entire Mall was covered with people."

The organizers of the march chose to focus on improvement of women's access to reproductive education and health care worldwide rather than on the polarizing issue of abortion. But the dominant theme of the day was reproductive rights.

The march was a cooperative effort of the Feminist Majority, NARAL Pro-Choice America, The ACLU, the Black Women's Health Imperative, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Now and Planned Parenthood Federation of America to launch a cooperative effort against the erosion of reproductive rights. NAACP leader Julian Bond, who was also in attendance, noted that while his organization supports the pro-choice movement it has never actively participated in any pro-choice events.

There were also groups of antiabortion activists along the fringes of the march route. They traded accusations and insults with the marchers, but there was no physical violence.