By Morgan Hawes
Medill Reports

Last month, hundreds of demonstrators marched down the streets of downtown Chicago as part of a nationwide effort to celebrate International Women’s Day. Protesters held up signs and chanted phrases with reference to reproductive health, immigration justice and women’s rights. 

Narration: On International Women’s Day, hundreds of protesters are gathering at Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago. Women across the country have made it their mission to fight for gender equality, recognize trailblazers and empower the future generations.  

Protester: I always celebrate International Women’s Day. It’s a beautiful day, and it’s a great way to do it.  

Protester: We’re just here so women have the rights that they deserve, and immigrants and everyone.  

Narration: And these women say, the fight is far from over.  

Ann Cibulskis: There’s a lot of attitudes these days that have shocked me. I really don’t understand how I can hear people saying things about access to contraceptives, access to abortion care, access to childcare, to postpartum care —that this is something that you still have to fight for.  

Demi Palecek: It is unacceptable, and we have to hold our elected officials to the fire. I’m over sexual harassment, I am queer, I’m a woman, I’m Mexican, and I was just scared.  

Narration: Demi Palecek, who’s running for Illinois state representative, organized the Chicago Women’s March this year. Each year, the Women’s March tackles a variety of issues, ranging from political representation to equal pay.  

Women’s March speaker: Women are not asking for special treatment, we are demanding equal citizenship.  

Narration: But in Chicago, the main focus is on immigration justice, reproductive rights and how the two connect.   

Palecek: I think that just women are always the forefront of fighting for and resisting, and that’s what we have to do against ICE right now as well, just fight for each other because no one else is going to come save us. 

Tamika Middleton: Everyday women, be it farm workers, be it the domestic workers, have been the lifeblood of the movements to push back against ICE and to push back against the tragedy that happens in immigration enforcement.  

Narration: Tamika Middleton has been a social justice organizer for over 20 years, specializing in reproductive health, and this isn’t the first time Tamika has dealt with ICE detention centers practicing reproductive injustice.  

Middleton: I’m in Georgia where a few years ago, there was the big scandal around the immigration detention center down in South Georgia, where they were sterilizing women inside of the facility. 

Narration: According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, women in ICE detention centers have reported inhumane and dangerous treatment, regarding reproductive care.  

Middleton: And now we consistently hear tell of sexual violence inside of these facilities as well, so there’s so many places we cannot talk about immigration and immigration enforcement without talking about gender justice.  

Narration: But in Chicago, many women’s rights activists and organizations help to provide women’s reproductive health care.  

Judith Kossy: I mean, reproductive rights is health care in our mind, and it’s being challenged, you know, at every level in the federal government. And so it’s something that we really have to fight.  

Narration: Judith Kossy, vice chair of Chicago Women Take Action, has spent the last 10 years fighting for reproductive rights.  

Narration: And in that time, she’s helped many get access to care, like abortions, even helping them across state lines.  

Kossy: Illinois has more out-of-state people coming to get abortions than any other state because of our location in the Midwest, which is near a lot of states that don’t allow it. 

Narration: Yet some Illinois politicians are actively pushing back. Illinois state Sen. Neil Anderson proposed the Abolish Abortion Illinois Act in February, which seeks to classify abortion as homicide. This shocks women, like Judith, who see it as a basic right.   

Kossy: In terms of abortion, it’s women’s health, you know, you don’t have to have an abortion, but it’s your decision. It’s not murder, it’s women’s health.   

Narration: But still, these women and protesters say opposition like that is what makes speaking up even more important.  

Kossy: The role of things like Women’s March gives you validation when you see so many other people marching for rights. And it communicates to people who are not at the march that this is important.  

Protester: We need to show up in public as often and as loudly and as frequently as we can.  

Cibulskis: It’s maddening but it’s also inspiring that, OK, we can keep doing this, we can keep moving forward, and we can make these changes.  

Protester: We’ll keep fighting until we can get back to the country that we should be.   

Narration: In Chicago, Morgan Hawes, Medill Reports.  

Morgan Hawes is a broadcast specialization graduate student at Medill.