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

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

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

The courtroom's closing ruling, which might return the facility to ban abortion to state legislatures, is anticipated in June. About half of the 50 states are poised to ban or severely restrict abortion nearly instantly should Roe be struck down. read extra

Register

"If you cannot choose whether or not you want to have a child, if that's not a fundamental right, then I do not 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 underneath the slogan "Bans Off Our Bodies" took to the streets from New York and Atlanta to Chicago and Los Angeles in a show of outrage that Democrats hope will assist galvanize support for his or her celebration and blunt projected Republican positive aspects in the November elections. read more

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

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

Surrounded by police was a gaggle of some dozen counter-demonstrators holding signs that read: "Finish abortion violence" and "Ladies's rights begin in the womb."

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

The rally appeared to stay in any other case peaceable, although not less than 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 City as hundreds of abortion rights supporters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, where they have been confronted by a half dozen anti-abortion activists.

Abortion rights campaigners participate in an indication following the leaked Supreme Court opinion suggesting the possibility of overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights determination, in Washington, U.S., Might 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

Read More

Cops arrived to maintain area between the two groups as they traded taunts and vulgarities. The group thinned out in early afternoon as rain fell over the city.

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

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old critical care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally under sunny skies, said abolishing the precise to a authorized abortion could put lives at risk as women seek unsafe alternatives.

Movie star girls's rights lawyer Gloria Allred informed the crowd about her own "again alley abortion" as a young woman when she turned pregnant from a rape at gunpoint earlier than Roe. "I nearly died," she recounted. "I used to be left in a tub in a pool of my very own blood, hemorrhaging."

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

Casten, whose district consists of Chicago's western suburbs, told Reuters it was "horrible" that the Supreme Courtroom's conservative majority would take into account taking away the precise to an abortion and "condemn ladies to this lesser standing."

At an abortion rights protest in Atlanta, more than 400 people had assembled in a small park in entrance of the state capitol, while about a dozen counter-protesters stood on a nearby sidewalk.

Holding a sign that learn, "Stop Baby Sacrifice," 23-year-old Bria Marshall, a recent public well being graduate from Kennesaw State University, acknowledged her group's smaller turnout.

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

Whereas the Supreme Court leak thrust abortion back to the forefront of U.S. politics, it was unclear how the difficulty will play out in the coming elections.

Voters will probably be weighing a host of priorities akin to inflation and may be skeptical of Democrats' means to guard abortion access after legislation that may enshrine abortion rights in federal regulation failed. read extra

A lot of these marching on Saturday expressed concern that rolling again abortion rights would lead to an erosion of civil liberties generally.

"This is simply an affront to all the things I consider that we're supposed to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, stated. "If a girl has no control over what is going to occur to her own physique, then we're again in 1850 not 1950.

Register

Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Washington; Extra 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; Enhancing by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman, Mark Porter and Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Belief Ideas.