Brooke Eliazar-Macke (left), 32, and Regan Garner (right), 41, both members of the National Women's Liberation, hold signs at the Rally and Speak Out against Rick Scott's Policies event in downtown Gainesville on Friday on the corner of University Avenue and Main Street. The Speak Out event organized by the National Women's Liberation gives women a political opportunity to share their personal experiences.
On the corner of University Avenue and Main Street, protesters gathered Friday to bring attention to Florida House Bill 1411, which they said restricts women’s access to reproductive services by redirecting funding meant for Planned Parenthood to other clinics.
The rally featured local reproductive rights and services groups. It was followed by a benefit event at the Wooly, which hosted a silent auction and a dance party.
The protest gained momentum from a viral video of activist Cara Jennings yelling at Gov. Rick Scott in a downtown Gainesville Starbucks in April, Jennings said.
Jennings said she did not know her encounter with Scott was taped. The resulting video was viewed across the world and covered by more than 800 news outlets, she said.
Jennings said the video did not show the calm questions she asked, which were repeatedly deflected by Scott.
“Let’s be clear, the guy is scary, and he’s part of a state legislature that’s even scarier,” she said. “He wields power so brutally.”
Jennings and a number of local and regional groups organized the rally to bring attention to the community and raise money for the organizations experiencing cuts to their funding from the governor’s restrictive new laws, she said.
The money raised by the event went to the Southern Birth Justice Network, which supplies reproductive services to women of color in the South, and to the local women’s clinic Bread and Roses.
Cara Jennings, the 39-year-old known for her viral Starbucks encounter with Gov. Rick Scott, stands on the corner of Main Street and University Avenue during the Rally and Speak Out against Rick Scott's Policies event. She says she would like to "continue the momentum, in regards to reproductive choice issues.”
Kendra Vincent, the chairwoman of the Gainesville chapter of National Women’s Liberation, led the protest outside and asked participants to speak about their experiences trying to get birth control, abortions or basic reproductive health care.
Vincent said she used the rally to introduce a media campaign that brings attention to how the State Legislature redirects women to clinics for reproductive services that don’t actually provide those services.
Vincent said she asked women to call those offices and ask for services traditionally offered by clinics such as Planned Parenthood and then share their experiences on social media with #NotMyClinic.
The offices listed for Alachua County are Azalea Dental and Palms Medical Group, neither of which provide birth control, pap smears or abortions, she said.
“Abortion rights were not given to us,” she said. “We worked long and hard for them. We need complete and total access.”
Protesters stand on the corner of Main Street and University Avenue in support of the Rally and Speak Out against Rick Scott's Policies event organized by the National Women's Liberation local chapter on Friday.
Speaker Emily Calvin talked about accessing reproductive health care as a student. Calvin said she went on and off student insurance during her time as a law school student, and because she never had a primary doctor and often couldn’t afford to visit private clinics, she went to Planned Parenthood.
She said at Planned Parenthood, her questions were answered accurately and kindly, which didn’t happen at her university’s women’s clinic.
“Everyone was patient and kind and caring,” she said. “I was practically showered in birth control.”
In a surprise street performance, Van Tran, 27, advocates for women's reproductive rights at the Rally and Speak Out against Rick Scott's Policies event. The white paper symbolizes women’s labored speech and words that are oppressed by society.
At the rally, four women participated in a performance art piece, dressing in white and wearing blindfolds while walking into the four intersections at University Avenue and Main Street. They did not speak, and right before the rally moved inside, the four performers removed more than 30 feet of white ribbon from their mouths.
Lorna Bouret, Van Tran, Veronica Robleto and Mary Doyle choreographed the outside performance and an inside dance routine. They said the act was meant to show the way women are meant to be seen as pure in society, and the ribbon was meant to show how women lose their voice in society.
The performers said their dance inside the Wooly contrasted their quieter performance, showing women’s empowerment by dancing to “Bad Girls” by M.I.A.
“We experimented with the idea of putting our bodies in the line of danger, which is what women do all the time,” Doyle said.
