Washington - One generation marches because it remembers. Louise Kazarinoff, a 77-year-old Ann Arbor resident, marches in remembrance of her friends who performed illegal abortions on themselves with knitting needles.

"If you are our age, you have friends with those stories," said Marina Brown, Kazarinoff's friend and traveling companion.

Brown stood alongside an estimated crowd of more than 1 million people gathered at the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, sporting a big straw hat covered in buttons and stickers supporting pro-choice beliefs and denouncing President Bush.

"We never dreamed we'd be here fighting again," Brown said.

Brown worked as an advocate for the 1970 New York abortion law, which set the precedent for Roe v. Wade. The court case made abortions up to the second trimester legal in the United States.

"It isn't just the teenage kids who need abortions," Kazarinoff said. "Sometimes, it's the mothers of children who feel they can't adequately support another child."

Another generation marches so it doesn't have to find out what back-alley abortions are like.

"We don't ever want to know what it was like back then," MSU Women's Council Co-President Laura Sorensen said, interrupting the chant she called out while marching on the dusty path leading away from the Capitol: "My right, my choice, don't take away my voice."

The march, which is the largest of its kind, brought supporters from more than 1,000 organizations, all 50 states and more than 56 countries.

Supporters covered blocks and blocks of the capital, wearing sloganed clothing, yelling dozens of chants and arguing with their opposition. One group of people flanked blocks of the m arch in the belief that abortion is stealing the lives of a future generation.

Guarded by police in full riot gear, pro-life protesters yelled out to marchers, who yelled back, blew kisses, held up two-fingered peace signs and less friendly, one-fingered obscenities.

Some women stood quietly, hand-in-hand, holding signs that read, "I regret my abortion." Others mouthed silent prayers. One man, wearing a black T-shirt with "Abortion is Homicide" emblazoned across his chest, stood with his megaphone, yelling at the protesters.

The activists at the rally joined pro-life activists across the nation in standing up for their causes this week. On April 17 at MSU, Students for Life sponsored a second annual rally to consolidate supporters.

Molly Pappas, a political theory and constitutional democracy sophomore, said she found out about the group during her first week on campus and has been a member ever since.

"My friend in high school had an abortion, and her experiences made me pro-life," she said. "She's pro-life now, too."

More than 100 people attended the rally at Wells Hall, gathering to show support for the cause and listen to a band in one of the auditorium-style classrooms.

Advertising senior Jeff Burdick, who attended the rally, said though he is religious, his pro-life beliefs still would stand even if he weren't.

"I feel that fetuses are human beings," he said. "There's no reason they should be killed."

Burdick said he doesn't believe it's a woman's issue, because the fetus is an individual person.

"It's not their body; it's the child's body," he said. "Who should draw that line?"

In addition, pro-choice marches took place all over the country, including one at the East Lansing Planned Parenthood, 515 E. Grand River Ave.

Speakers for the Washington rally marveled at the diversity in the crowd. Women and men of all races, sexualities, religions and ages held signs in words and languages reflective of their differences.

For the first time in its 95-year history, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People co-sponsored a pro-choice march.

"This gathering marks a major turning point in our struggle," Northwestern University law Professor Dorothy Roberts said. "Women of all color are coming together with women and men. We march to keep Roe v. Wade legal, but that's the bare minimum of what women deserve and need in this country."

Dozens of speakers, celebrities, activists and performers took over the microphone, advocating equal rights, better health care, over-the-counter availability of emergency contraception, a Democratic president in 2004 and more.

When U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton stepped up, the crowd barely could contain its excitement.

"I am overwhelmed by this huge crowd," the New York Democrat said. "But if all we do is march today, that will not change the direction this country is headed. This must be the beginning, not the end."

She asked that the women in the crowd all register to vote and use their votes to elect Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in the upcoming presidential election.

"There were 50 million women in our country who were eligible to vote and did not vote in the 2000 election," she said. "Please, show up at the polls in November."

MSU health and humanities graduate student Nicole Springer became an inadvertent captain of one of 28 buses planned by MARAL Pro-Choice Michigan and Planned Parenthood Federation of Michigan.

When the bus came three hours late and more than 20 seats short, the organizational leaders gave up their seats, and Springer and her roommate took charge.

But when the 55 weary passengers stepped off after a night of waiting in the parking lot wrapped in blankets and more than 11 hours of traveling, sleepy eyes widened quickly at the sight of the million-plus Americans gathered.

"I just might have to give up that whole not-crying-in-public thing," Springer said. "It's so powerful to be here right now.

"I just can't put it into words."