Protesters opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination laid in the street at Portland Oregon’s courthouse spelling STOP HIM with their bodies, videos show. They also had a list of demands.
Women in Portland, Oregon, laid in the street Thursday morning in front of the federal courthouse, blocking traffic and protesting Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.
Taken together, the women’s bodies spelled “STOP HIM” from above, photos and videos show. They had signs affixed to their clothes that read “silenced by the U. S. Senate” and had red hand prints painted over their mouths. About 20 protestors were on the ground as three women used megaphones to broadcast the testimony of women who have accused Supreme Court nominees of sexual misconduct, the Oregonian reported.
“Women are laying their bodies down to stop Kavanaugh,” protester Lisa Frack said in a video posted to Facebook. “Women are reading the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Anita Hill so people understand that they need to listen — and when they listen, they need to value women’s bodies.”
Frack called the Portland protest a grassroots action.
The protest is one of many across the country this week as the Senate prepares to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination, which was thrown into uncertainty last month when Ford publicly accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while the two were in high school.
Ford’s accusations led to a tense, all-day Senate hearing in which Kavanaugh vehemently denied the allegation, and Ford recalled details of the alleged assault. After the hearing, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona called for a limited FBI investigation last week, the results of which senators reviewed Thursday morning.
“If he’s appointed, the message to women is that once again we don’t matter,” Frack said in the video she posted. “Our president is making fun of a sexual assault victim who came forward and shared her experience to save the rest of us — and what she gets is the same derision and disrespect we get every day in this country.”
KATU reports that the protesters in Portland had the following “list of their demands:”
The protest came as Republicans said Friday that the FBI report did not corroborate Ford’s sexual assault allegations, and Democrats called the report incomplete and rushed. On Thursday, women around the country boarded buses to travel to Washington and protest, Huffington Post reports.
A procedural vote on the nomination is expected Friday in the Senate, the Washington Post reports.
“We feel like our bodies are on the line so we’re putting our bodies on the line,” said organizer Andrea Paluso, according to the Oregonian. “A lot of us are moms, who are really worried about bringing up daughters and frankly sons.”
Traffic in downtown Portland started moving after the roughly 30-minute protest ended, Patch reports, though further protests are possible later in the day.
Both of the state’s senators, who are Democrats, plan to vote against Kavanaugh’s nomination.
