Alabamians protested abortion bans and marched in support of access to reproductive health at rallies across the state on Saturday.

From Huntsville to Fairhope, Birmingham to Anniston, marchers called for supporters to contact their elected leaders, vote in the upcoming midterms and help elect candidates who support abortion rights. The Alabama rallies came as part of a wave of rallies organized by the Women’s March and other organizations in cities across the country.

“Coming out and holding a sign is nice but we also have elections coming up, and it’s important for us to find representatives that actually represent us and represent what we believe in,” Frances Wallace, an abortion rights activist, told a small crowd at Linn Park in Birmingham. “If you don’t want to continue to sit here and have your rights stripped from you, then we should be the ones writing those rights. We should be the ones standing up and telling them that we’ve had enough. But we can’t just say we had enough – we’ve got to say this is what we’re going to do about it.”

Rallygoers marched around Linn Park, carrying signs and chanting. The local Democratic party helped people register to vote.

In Huntsville, Katie Lorenze said the state should “butt out” when it comes an individual’s decisions about abortion and reproductive health.

“It’s not about religion or a philosophical question. It’s about the role of the state and the state should not have the right to intervene in these very private medical decisions,” she said.

In Anniston, Marleah Blades brought her 14-year-old child to the march. She said she is also the parent of an 11-year-old daughter.

“I’ve been to a lot of rallies and I’ve been to protests, and I actually sometimes don’t feel like things change, to be honest,” Blades said. “To see my child come in and recognize that there are other people who will fight for stuff reminds me how important it is that I be one of those people.”

She said she marched for change for her children.

“They need protection – now,” she said. “More than I thought they did.”

Travis Jackson, an Iraq veteran and a long-time supporter of abortion rights, said that in addition to being a voice for the voiceless, it’s important to him to be a “source of comfort.”

“What a lot of people don’t mention in the movement is yes, we did get set back decades – and that also brings about emotional trauma,” Jackson said. “They did win that battle, but the war is far from over. As you witnessed across the state today, as well as across the nation I’m sure, we still have enough energy to keep fighting.”

Lorenze said supporters of abortion rights need to organize and demand action at the local level. She said she’s working with other activists to ask cities to pass resolutions barring the use of police resources to investigate pregnancy outcomes.

“It’s not just national politics,” Lorenze said. “Policies are implemented at the lowest level of government.”