Hundreds in U.S. march underneath ‘Ban Off Our Our bodies’ banner for abortion rights

WASHINGTON, Might 14 (Reuters) - 1000's of abortion rights supporters rallied across the USA on Saturday, angered by the prospect that the Supreme Court could quickly overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade determination that legalized abortion nationwide a half century in the past.

The protests kicked off what organizers predict might be a "summer time of rage" ignited by the May 2 disclosure of a draft opinion displaying the courtroom's conservative majority ready to reverse the 1973 ruling that established a girl's constitutional proper to terminate her being pregnant.

The court docket's remaining ruling, which may return the ability to ban abortion to state legislatures, is predicted in June. About half of the 50 states are poised to ban or severely restrict abortion virtually instantly should Roe be struck down. read more

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"If you can't select whether you need to have a child, if that is not a elementary right, then I don't know what is," stated 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 present of outrage that Democrats hope will help galvanize assist for his or her party and blunt projected Republican positive factors in the November elections. read more

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 past the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Courtroom itself.

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

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

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

The rally appeared to stay in any other case peaceful, though at least one counter-protester was seen being escorted away by a security guard in Washington earlier in the day.

The temper was likewise energetic, and sometimes contentious, in New York City as hundreds of abortion rights supporters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, where 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 decision, in Washington, U.S., Could 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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Cops arrived to maintain area between the two teams as they traded taunts and vulgarities. The gang thinned out in early afternoon as rain fell over 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 girls as objects, as less than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old essential care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally underneath sunny skies, said abolishing the right to a authorized abortion may put lives in danger as girls search unsafe alternate options.

Celebrity women's rights legal professional Gloria Allred told the group about her own "again alley abortion" as a younger woman when she grew to become pregnant from a rape at gunpoint before Roe. "I almost died," she recounted. "I was left in a bath in a pool of my very own blood, hemorrhaging."

U.S. Consultant Sean Casten and his 15-year-old daughter, Audrey, had been among 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 Court's conservative majority would take into account taking away the suitable to an abortion and "condemn women 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, whereas about a dozen counter-protesters stood on a nearby sidewalk.

Holding a sign that learn, "Stop Little one 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, however his message was more highly effective," Marshall stated.

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

Voters shall be weighing a bunch of priorities resembling 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 more

Many of those marching on Saturday expressed worry that rolling again abortion rights would lead to an erosion of civil liberties generally.

"This is just an affront to everything I believe that we're purported to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, said. "If a woman has no management over what will occur to her personal body, then we're again in 1850 not 1950.

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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; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman, Mark Porter and Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.