Abortion rights rallies take aim at Evansville Right to Life dinner

EVANSVILLE — No one grows up hoping to have an abortion.

“Nobody says, ‘I can’t wait to grow up, get pregnant and have an abortion. I’m looking forward to my first abortion, can’t wait to do it,” Nina Bambina said to a group gathered at the Evansville riverfront Thursday. “It is not something women relish. It’s not something that women enjoy.”

Bambina was one of about 20 individuals gathered as a part of a rally for reproductive rights at the Four Freedoms Monument. Some of the group had joined from another rally, happening directly outside the annual Right to Life of Southwest Indiana banquet at Old National Events Plaza where a sold out crowd of more than 2,000 people listened to former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow speak against abortion.

The group on the riverfront stood and listened as Bambina told the story of her own experience with her first pregnancy.

She said when she had gotten pregnant, it was a “very wanted baby.” But at six weeks she had a lot of pain that led to a doctor’s visit. Six more weeks later at her 12-week appointment she was informed the pregnancy had been twins, but one of the babies had died.

The one living was still giving blood to the dead fetus, and Bambina was told to come back at 16 weeks to hear from her doctor on the odds of the living baby being born with a disorder like cerebral palsy.

A week before that mark, Bambina lost the second baby. She told the group she didn’t have to make a decision, but if she’d had, it would have been the hardest decisions of she and her husband’s life.

And, it should have been theirs to make.

“It was our lives, our family,” she said.

Bambina then told the story of having someone tell her if she had ever seen a 14-week-old baby she wouldn’t be “so cavalier” about abortion.

“I do know what a 14-week-old baby looks like because when I lost that baby, I lost that baby at home, in my toilet and I held it in my hands,” she said. “I will tell you when I had my son, a full baby that could live on its own, what I held in one hand was not the same thing.”

Bambina said at the point of her miscarriage, what she was carrying could not live without her body. It was a part of her.

“On it’s own it was not its own anything,” she said. “So until the point where a baby can live on its own, it is part of a women’s body and a woman should be able to decide what happens to her body and why it’s happening to her body.”

A second speaker, Erik Hurt, the Democratic nominee for the 8th District congressional seat, said abortion bans only put people’s lives in danger.

“What’s happening a couple blocks down from here is not about life,” he said. “It is about control.”

Hurt said the when abortion is banned, it’s not stopped. Only safe abortion is banned.

“If it was about life we’d be tackling poverty, we’d be tackling starvation, we’d be tackling healthcare, we’d be expanding Medicare and making sure people are covered,” Hurt said. “We’d be making sure these kids are covered and they’re safe when they’re in schools – that they’re not worried about getting shot when they’re in school.”

Maybe there are some attending the Right to Life dinner who agree with those ideas. But Hurt said he guarantees that’s not how they’re voting.

“It’s not a pro-life thing,” he said. “It’s an anti-choice position.”

The rally had a focus on voting, with attendees encouraged to make sure they were registered, and to text 10 people after they left with a message on how important their vote is. The rally directly outside the RTLSWIN banquet was also a fundraiser for the Midwest Access Coalition, an organization which helps people traveling in the Midwest for abortions.

Hurt said people have to make sure to do everything they can to make sure abortion is a protected right.

“We can’t wait on this issue,” he said. “It has to be met with as much force as we can.”

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Locals rally for abortion rights during Evansville Right to Life event