Who Are We If Someone Takes Our Rights from Us?

This March. What is it about? What is it for?

To me this March cannot be mislabeled as just an anti-Trump protest. This march is far more than that oversimplified conjecture.

The purpose of this March is to be a voice for women, support women, and stand up for the rights of women.

I am a woman.

I am a woman who has hugged 12- and 14-year-old pregnant victims of sex trafficking knowing they have nowhere to turn — they are both orphans and soon-to-be mothers all in the same breath, longing for love and mothering themselves.

I am a woman who worked in corporate America for 15 years and experienced success as well as sacrifice, simultaneous with childbirth and child rearing. I have felt the pull of heartstrings while leaving home and children for work, day after day, facing a 38-mile commute in the dark knowing that when I returned home it would again be dark, and the next day would be just the same.

I am a woman who has experienced unexpected and undesired single parenthood after the death of a husband, stretched for time and energy and wondering how single mothers with less support, less education, and less resources make it in this world.

I am a woman who has worked for the rate of minimum wage as both an educated young graduate and again as a 43-year-old reentering the workforce after massive life change, wondering once more how single mothers with no additional resources ever make ends meet when life throws them to their knees after divorce, displacement, or other misfortune. Life is full of twists and turns for all of us. Educated. Uneducated. People of all color, race, background and socio-economic status. It can be complicated. People struggle at times. And, generally, people do the best they can with the hands they are dealt.

Women have a unique responsibility in this world as the child-bearers. Women are more often displaced and left to raise children alone and to make ends meet as single parents. Women need the right to care for themselves, their families, and their bodies.

Who are we if someone else denies us this right or takes it from us? Without human rights, what are we?

I believe that all of us must stand together in unified support of women, especially those who are single mothers, victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence, women desiring to prevent unwanted pregnancy and properly care for their health, single and married women in the workforce deserving to be paid fairly for the work they do, and others.

This March represents far more than a polarized country debating over whether it supports one single man in office.

This March represents far more than a pro life/pro choice debate.

This March represents connectedness and concern for humanity - kindness, respect, protection, safety, parity, and equality for all.

This March is both necessary and good.