Over One Million March For Abortion Rights

Organizers of the March for Women's Lives said they had drawn 1.15 million people, which would make it the largest abortion rights gathering in history.

"This has been the largest march for reproductive rights, the largest march for women's rights and the largest march of any kind in this country," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women.

Police would not issue an official estimate, but some veteran commanders said the crowd was at least the biggest since the 1995 Million Man March, which independent researchers put at 870,000 people. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey would say only that he thought the march had met and perhaps exceeded its organizers' expectations. Their march permit was for as many as 750,000.

Celebrities, from entertainers to politicians to activists, lent their shine to the event. Actors Cybill Shepherd and Whoopi Goldberg attended, as did singers Ani DiFranco and Moby. Feminist icons Patricia Ireland and Gloria Steinem were there, and so were former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Billionaire Ted Turner was there. So was NAACP Chairman Julian Bond.

"If all we do is march today," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) told the crowd, "that will not change the direction this country is headed under this administration."

Several blocks away, on Pennsylvania Avenue, Jay Rhodes of Alexandria held a sign equating abortion with the Holocaust. He shouted sarcastically, "Keep murder legal" when marchers challenged his views. "It's very hostile," said Rhodes, 52, who said he came on his own to join counter-protesters who lined part of the march route. "There's a lot of anger on both sides."