The People’s Rally attracted hundreds to Arizona's Capitol on Saturday in support of abortion care access and reproductive freedom. Similar events were held in Washington, D.C., and cities across the U.S. ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Loren Piretra said she was trying to help organize the People’s March in Los Angeles amid fire evacuations. Unable to access her home in California, she chose to show her support in neighboring Arizona.
"We don’t know what’s going to happen in the early days of the new administration, but we know it’s not probably going to be good, and that we’re going to have to get to work," Piretra said.
Trump has said that abortion access should be left up to the states.
Sarah Hinz of Phoenix said the rally was also about people embracing bipartisanship.
"I feel like our politics have become really divisive, and I would like to see it go back to, say even 20 years ago, where there wasn’t such a line between Democrat and Republican," Hinz said.
Randy Noland, who’s lived in Arizona since 2016, said he wanted to attend to support his wife and teenage daughters. Hoping to see a female president in his lifetime, Noland said having Kamala Harris serve as vice president helped bring him confidence.
“It’ll get me choked up when Harris was VP. I wanted my daughters to see that," Noland said.
The largest demonstration drew thousands of people to D.C. The movement was a rebrand of the 2017 Women’s March, which brought hundreds of thousands of marchers to the nation’s Capitol and other cities as Trump began his first term in office.
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