Tampa, FL – On March 4, Tampa community members gathered to celebrate International Women’s Day. The protest was hosted by the Tampa District of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. The protesters demanded for reproductive rights and an end to attacks on women.

“It is not the lawmakers, not the pro-life activists, nor the church who will be enforcing these [abortion ban] laws, but it will be the police,” stated Ozzie Frost from the Tampa Bay Community Action Committee (TBCAC). This has proven itself to be true as members of the Tampa Bay chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) just over a year ago were forcibly removed by the police from the state capitol for speaking out against an abortion ban that was being proposed at the time.

If the police have no hesitation in suppressing people speaking out against abortion, then they will have even less problems attacking women who try to get an abortion themselves.

Taylor Cook from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) stated, “Women are seen as dispensable for the ruling class’s needs, but a system which views women this way is unsustainable and must be defeated.”

International Women’s Day is a historic day celebrating women’s resistance to gender based oppression, that originated in a 1908 strike by New York garment workers. To honor this and other struggles women have faced, communist revolutionary Clara Zetkin proposed the idea of an International Women’s Day at the International Socialist Women’s Conference in 1910 and was met with unanimous approval.

At a time in which women’s and reproductive rights are under attack across the United States, the intent behind Zetkin’s proposal for International Women’s Day must not be forgotten and we must continue her legacy by combating attacks on women. The Tampa community will continue to defend reproductive rights and fight for women’s rights and liberation.

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