Great-Grandma Who Protested at Supreme Court Alleges 'Inhumane' Treatment at D.C. Jail
Rolande Baker, a 71-year-old great-grandmother from Arizona, was one of three women who were arrested for protesting for abortion rights inside the Supreme Court on Nov. 2 during a hearing for an unrelated case that was open to the public. Baker and the two other women, Nikki Enfield and Emily Paterson, are now speaking out about the inhumane treatment they say they faced during their 30-hour stay at a D.C. jail, where they claim their cells were littered with blood and feces, temperatures lingered around 90 degrees, and they were denied water and legal representation. Baker, who has a mobility disability, told Jezebel her cane was taken away and said she was shackled before her arraignment.
Baker, who has a history of practicing civil disobedience, said she was compelled to travel from Arizona to D.C. to protest at the court by her frustration with lacking media coverage of abortion rights ahead of the midterm elections. “It was all about ‘inflation,” which made me so angry, knowing it’s all just price-gouging, when people needed to realize how important this election was for abortion,” Baker said.
The issue was also personal to Baker. At 19, she had a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion that required her to travel from Indiana to New York, where abortion was legal, with the help of her boyfriend. “I was fortunate, I had three things going for me—I had a boyfriend, who had enough money, who supported and drove me, and I was a white woman,” she told me in a phone interview. “There were so many more barriers for women of color.” Baker says the doctor who provided the abortion told her they saw abortion patients from all over the country and needed help connecting out-of-state patients with transportation. In offering to help give them rides, she found her calling as an abortion rights organizer.
After Roe was decided in 1973, Baker says she regrets growing complicit: “I sat on my laurels somewhat, I got married, I had children.” The fall of Roe in June nearly 50 years later has thrust her back in the fray.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/great-grandma-protested-supreme-court-204000357.html