For one anti-abortion group, women's march was 'brutal'

While hundreds of thousands of marchers felt like they were getting their message out during the Washington D.C. Women’s March Saturday, not everyone enjoyed the experience.

“It was a brutal day,” Kristina Hernandez, director of communications for the anti-abortion organization Students for Life, told USA TODAY after the march.

Hernandez said that the group of around 50 people she was marching with were harassed because of the signs they were carrying which said “Abortion betrays women.”

“I did not feel safe at all,” Hernandez continued. She added that the unexpectedly large turnout for the march made it “so overwhelming.”

“One of our girls was spit at, someone tore my sign in multiple pieces, we had people just yell at us but the main response was people just said ‘my body my choice’ when they walked past us,” said Reagan Barklage, the Western regional director for the group.

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But Barklage said there were some anti-abortion supporters who came up and thanked them for being there.

Before the march Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life,  told USA TODAY the group was there "showing them that pre-born women’s rights are human rights.”

Hawkins said the group had tried to cosponsor the event but were told they could not after Planned Parenthood got involved.

A representative for the Women’s March could not be reached to confirm this account, but the march did support abortion rights in its policy document.

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In a post on Students for Life’s website earlier this month, regional director Michele Hendrickson said that even though the march had a pro-abortion message people who were against it still belonged.

“Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry do not own Women’s Rights. Call it feminism, call it commonsense, call it whatever you want. The idea that women are equal human beings is not new, it’s not owned by one group, and abortion advocates are the least consistent with this principle,” Hendrickson wrote.