About 40 people gathered in Coeur d’Alene on Saturday morning for the Kootenai County Women’s March, walking a route through North Idaho College’s campus and along Sherman Avenue to mark the fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The march drew participants carrying signs focused on abortion access and women’s medical decision-making, with some motorists honking and waving in support as the group passed.
March Route and Attendance
The group set out from the North Idaho College campus, proceeding to the corner of Sixth and Sherman before doubling back — a familiar route for Coeur d’Alene demonstrations. Roughly 40 women and men took part, a turnout organizers described as continuing momentum from earlier years. The anniversary timing was deliberate: the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in late June 2022, which returned abortion policy to individual states and effectively ended federal abortion protections that had stood for nearly five decades.
Idaho currently enforces a near-total abortion ban, with narrow exceptions, making the state one of the most restrictive in the country on the issue. Supporters of the march say that legal environment is precisely why public demonstrations matter.
Organizer Has Led Coeur d’Alene Marches Since 2020
Laura Tenneson, who served as the keynote speaker at Saturday’s event, has been organizing women’s marches in Coeur d’Alene since 2020. Over the past year, Tenneson has also been collecting signatures to place the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act on the November ballot in Idaho. She gathered enough signatures to qualify the measure for that ballot, a significant hurdle in Idaho’s citizen initiative process.
“We want to see reproductive freedom for women in Idaho and in the whole country as well,” Tenneson said at the event.
If placed on the November ballot, the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act would ask Idaho voters to weigh in directly on abortion access — a process that bypasses the Republican-supermajority Idaho Legislature, which has shown little appetite for loosening the state’s current restrictions. Citizen-initiated ballot measures have become an increasingly used tool by groups seeking policy changes that face obstacles in the statehouse in Boise.
Longtime Participants Reflect on Six Years of Marching
Megan Kunz has attended Kootenai County Women’s March events since the series began in 2020 and was again present Saturday. She said the issue extends beyond women alone and that men have a role in the conversation as well. “I think it’s important for men and women to support women’s bodily autonomy and their right to choose,” Kunz said.
Jennifer Reiter was among the other participants who joined the march Saturday morning. The mix of longtime attendees and first-time marchers reflected what organizers said is a sustained interest in the issue within North Idaho, a region that leans heavily conservative in its elected representation but where community voices on abortion policy have continued to organize publicly year after year.
What Comes Next
The immediate focus for abortion-rights advocates in Idaho now shifts to the November ballot. With signatures already collected to qualify the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act, the effort will move into a campaign phase, requiring funding, voter outreach, and messaging to persuade a majority of Idaho voters to support the measure.
Previous Kootenai County Women’s March events have drawn participation from statewide organizations, including representatives from Idahoans United for Women and Families. Those groups are expected to play a role in any formal ballot campaign ahead of November.
For those interested in broader community and advocacy efforts across North Idaho, the Coeur d’Alene-rooted Wassmuth Center for Human Rights recently marked three decades of work in Idaho, and the Innovia Foundation distributed more than $1.3 million to 125 organizations across North Idaho and Eastern Washington this year — reflecting the range of civic organizations active in the Kootenai County region.
The Kootenai County Women’s March has become an annual fixture on the Coeur d’Alene community calendar since 2020, with organizers indicating they intend to continue holding events regardless of electoral outcomes.