Siobhan Moore
Siobhan Moore
Another abortion protest
According to Robyn Harbison and Jasper Nordin October 12, 2022, on October 7, over 40 students and community members gathered at Morrill Hall at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to demand that the university administration take action to expand abortion access on campus. The crowd marched down Washington Avenue before arriving at Moos Tower, where the University of Minnesota medical school is located.
The action was organized by the Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota, who have been organizing around women and reproductive rights on the University of Minnesota campus, as well as the Twin Cities area more generally, since the overturn of Roe v. Wade earlier this year.
SDS presented several demands, including a newly updated reproductive health training module for incoming freshman, a well-funded center for reproductive health resources and an abortion clinic on every University of Minnesota campus, and for the university to cease business with states that ban abortion.
Sophomore Olivia Sepich, an SDS member, presented the demands and was the first to speak in front of Morrill Hall. She reminded attendants, “The most important thing we have is each other and the communities that we build.” Other speakers in the first half of the protest included Aarushi Sen representing Students for Climate Justice and Olivia Crull representing the new-formed Minnesota Abortion Action Coalition.
As the crowd chanted and marched down Washington Avenue to the attention of onlookers at the nearby Green Line stop, protesters gathered in front of Moos Tower to listen to the final speakers. Some people stopped their commute down the street to listen to representatives of different organizations, like Cherrene Horazuk of AFSCME 3800, the clerical workers’ union at UMN, and Siobhan Moore of SDS and Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
Sorcha Lona, another SDS member, closed out the protest by stressing the importance of more abortion clinics, and that restrictions to this access are a “shameful violation of bodily autonomy.” [1]
International Human Rights Day
Andrew Josefchak December 14, 2021 Minneapolis, MN - Despite a 12-inch snowfall, more than 60 people marched in recognition of International Human Rights Day in Midtown Minneapolis, shutting down a major business thoroughfare on December 11.
The Anti-War Committee united with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee , the Council for American-Islamic Relations – MN , the Climate Justice Committee , Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar, Women Against Military Madness, and the Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota to put on the event.
After speaking about how the human rights of Black Americans are regularly violated by the racist, violent, police thugs, Loretta VanPelt of the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar led the crowd in chanting Wright’s name.
Siobhan Moore of SDS insisted that the U.S. doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it criticizes other nations for their “human rights violations.”
Erin Stene of the AWC drew attention to how Israel, the largest single recipient of U.S. financial aid, an important military ally of the U.S. in the Middle East, and itself a supposed champion of human rights, has recently criminalized six Palestinian civil society groups by designating them as terrorist organizations.
Jaylani Hussein noted that the tornadoes that ripped through a Kentucky factory that same morning, killing at least 70 people, were a direct result of the U.S. war economy – and this environmental devastation overwhelmingly affects people of color.[2]