1000’s in U.S. march below ‘Ban Off Our Bodies’ banner for abortion rights

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - Thousands of abortion rights supporters rallied across the United States on Saturday, angered by the prospect that the Supreme Court could quickly overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion nationwide a half century ago.

The protests kicked off what organizers predict can be a "summer season of rage" ignited by the Might 2 disclosure of a draft opinion displaying the court docket's conservative majority ready to reverse the 1973 ruling that established a girl's constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.

The court's ultimate ruling, which could return the facility to ban abortion to state legislatures, is predicted in June. About half of the 50 states are poised to ban or severely prohibit abortion virtually immediately ought to Roe be struck down. learn more

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"If you can't choose whether or not you wish to have a baby, if that's not a fundamental proper, then I don't know what is," mentioned Brita Van Rossum, 62, a landscape designer who traveled from suburban Philadelphia to affix the abortion-rights rally in the nation's capital, her first ever.

Protesters marching beneath the slogan "Bans Off Our Our bodies" took to the streets from New York and Atlanta to Chicago and Los Angeles in a show of shock that Democrats hope will assist provoke support for his or her celebration and blunt projected Republican features in the November elections. read extra

The day's largest demonstration unfolded in Washington, where a crowd that organizers estimated at 20,000 people massed on the Washington Monument and braved a light drizzle to march along the Nationwide Mall previous the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Courtroom itself.

The rally erupted in shouts of "Disgrace" and "Bans off our our bodies" as the marchers neared the marbled columns of the courthouse.

Surrounded by police was a bunch of a few dozen counter-demonstrators holding indicators that read: "End abortion violence" and "Girls's rights start within the womb."

The encounter between the 2 sides grew tense at instances. Abortion rights protesters shouted, “Go dwelling!,” and one man whacked a counter-demonstrator within the head along with his poster after profanities were exchanged. As the-anti abortion protesters left, they waved at the crowd, and some referred to as out, “Bye, Roe v. Wade!”

The rally appeared to stay otherwise peaceable, though at the very least one counter-protester was seen being escorted away by a security guard in Washington earlier within the day.

The mood was likewise energetic, and typically contentious, in New York Metropolis as 1000's of abortion rights supporters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, the place they had been confronted by a half dozen anti-abortion activists.

Abortion rights campaigners participate in a demonstration following the leaked Supreme Courtroom opinion suggesting the potential for overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights choice, in Washington, U.S., Might 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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Law enforcement officials arrived to take care of area between the two teams as they traded taunts and vulgarities. The crowd thinned out in early afternoon as rain fell over the town.

Elizabeth Holtzman, an 80-year-old former congresswoman who represented New York from 1973 to 1981, said that the leaked Supreme Court docket draft opinion "treats women as objects, as less than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old vital care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally beneath sunny skies, mentioned abolishing the best to a authorized abortion might put lives in danger as girls search unsafe alternatives.

Superstar girls's rights lawyer Gloria Allred advised the gang about her personal "again alley abortion" as a young woman when she became pregnant from a rape at gunpoint before Roe. "I almost died," she recounted. "I was left in a bathtub in a pool of my very own blood, hemorrhaging."

U.S. Representative Sean Casten and his 15-year-old daughter, Audrey, were amongst a number of thousand abortion rights supporters who gathered at a park in Chicago.

Casten, whose district includes Chicago's western suburbs, told Reuters it was "horrible" that the Supreme Court docket's conservative majority would contemplate taking away the precise to an abortion and "condemn women to this lesser status."

At an abortion rights protest in Atlanta, greater than 400 folks had assembled in a small park in front of the state capitol, while a couple of dozen counter-protesters stood on a nearby sidewalk.

Holding a sign that learn, "Cease Youngster Sacrifice," 23-year-old Bria Marshall, a current public health graduate from Kennesaw State College, acknowledged her group's smaller turnout.

"Jesus had only a small group, but his message was more powerful," Marshall stated.

While the Supreme Courtroom leak thrust abortion again to the forefront of U.S. politics, it was unclear how the difficulty will play out within the coming elections.

Voters can be weighing a bunch of priorities corresponding to inflation and could also be skeptical of Democrats' capability to protect abortion access after legislation that may enshrine abortion rights in federal law failed. learn extra

Lots of those marching on Saturday expressed fear that rolling back abortion rights would lead to an erosion of civil liberties typically.

"This is just an affront to every thing I imagine that we're supposed to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, stated. "If a woman has no control over what is going to happen to her own body, then we're back in 1850 not 1950.

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Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Washington; Further reporting by Eric Cox in Chicago, Maria Caspani in New York, Costas Pitas in Los Angeles and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Writing by Ted Hesson and Steve Gorman; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman, Mark Porter and Grant McCool

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