A Face in the Crowd

Kirsten Suhr is Assistant Director of Online Strategies for NARAL Pro-Choice America

Living in Washington DC, you get used to seeing rallies and marches - there's always someone protesting something, somewhere. Occasionally the rallies are inconvenient and mess up your morning commute, but for the most part they become part of the background noise of living in a city driven by politics.

I've always been politically active, and have attended a number of marches and rallies, but since it's all around, all the time, it's never been a big deal to me. So when I heard about the March for Women's Lives, I thought, "I'm pro-choice. Why not?"

On the day of the March, my then-boyfriend and I walked the 10 blocks from my apartment to The Mall. I wasn't at all prepared for what I encountered. I'd never seen so many people in one place at one time before, and I don't know that I ever will again.

We saw clusters of people from all over the country holding signs from their local pro-choice groups, people who must have been planning to come to the march for weeks and spent hours getting there. There were marchers of every imaginable description. I saw grandmothers who remembered the terrifying years before Roe v. Wade, pregnant women with "My choice" written across their bare bellies, and women in homemade tee-shirts that told the world that they had an abortion. There were moms, dads, teenagers, college students, gay couples, straight couples, and people of every race, ethnicity, and religion.

When I so casually decided to attend the March, I didn't expect to be moved by the experience. It was overwhelming to see so many people out there, unified behind a cause that they felt so passionately about... it was incredibly powerful to be a part of something so big.

I started working for NARAL Pro-Choice America last year, in the online communications department. Every week we have thousands of visitors to our website, and send out hundreds of thousands of emails. It's easy to get wrapped up in the data and the day to day tasks, and forget about who these numbers represent. But then I think back to The March, and I'm reminded of what this job is really about. It's about all of you - everyone who marched, and everyone who wished they could but weren't able to - and about doing everything I can for something bigger and more important than myself.