Protest held downtown to demand women’s rights

A group of protesters gathers at Hill-Wheatley Plaza Sunday evening to protest for abortion rights. - Photo by James Leigh of The Sentinel-Record
A group of protesters gathers at Hill-Wheatley Plaza Sunday evening to protest for abortion rights. - Photo by James Leigh of The Sentinel-Record

A number of people gathered at Hill-Wheatley Plaza Sunday night to protest the recent Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, drawing support and derision from passersby.

Heather Farewell decided on June 24, the date the Supreme Court decision was released, to make her thoughts known on the decision.

"It started the first day that it was overturned," she said. "I said, 'You know what, I'm p----d, and I have every right to be. So I'm gonna go make out a sign, and I'm gonna stand on that corner by myself, and I don't care if anybody else joins me. I'm going to have my opinion heard.'"

After talking to a friend, Farewell created a group on Facebook to get like-minded people together to set up the protest.

"I made a group there, invited everybody I knew," she said. "They invited everybody that they knew. We got a whole bunch of, like, big-name people involved. You know, we've got voter registration people out here, who are part of, like, the official Democratic Party in Arkansas. So it was mostly ... people inviting other people."

Farewell arrived at the plaza around 6 p.m. with the protest officially slated to run from 7-10:30 p.m., and while this was her first attempt to orchestrate a protest, over 60 people participated in the event.

"This is my first time ever orchestrating a protest," she said. "We're mainly focusing on the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but I've also got a few more signs talking about how the Supreme Court has overturned native sovereignty for their lands, you know, LGBTQIA+ stuff. So I like to focus on everything, but Roe v. Wade is like the main topic."

Michael Honey was one of the protesters at the event, using a bullhorn to help lead the group in chants.

"I'm really doing what the women want me to do, and what the women want is their rights," he said. "They just need someone to voice it louder for them. ... So once I got them going, you can see they loosened up. As more traffic came through, that kind of made them more confident."

Farewell said that the overall response was positive, but there were a few negative responses.

"We've actually had a really good response, as you can tell from there," she said as drivers honked in support of the protesters. "We did have just like one negative thing where one guy, like, stepped on his gas and, you know, smoked us out. But you know, that's $5 worth of gas. Who's the real loser? Obviously, you because you've got to pay for it."

Honey said that the decision by the Supreme Court was just a way to take rights away from women.

"This started in '73 -- Jan. 22 in '73 when it went through and everything -- and you're gonna wait through a woman's whole life, and then try to tell her she can't do something?" he said. "You can't tell her what to do now. ... It's just the government want to be able to take their rights. If they take the women's rights now, what do they want to take in five or 10 more years from women?

"You know, ... it wasn't just a woman by herself got pregnant. So if you're gonna take the rights on one side, you need to try to do something to the other side to kind of make a neutral thing. You know, because it's pretty much like a guy's just getting away with it."

Farewell said that her hope is to show others that there are people who oppose the decision here in the state.

"My hope here is definitely, you know, show people here who are, like, really worried about it, that, yeah, you do have support here," she said. "You know, we're in the Bible Belt, super conservative area, but there are people out here who want to fight for the things that we've lost."

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