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

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - Hundreds of abortion rights supporters rallied throughout the United States on Saturday, angered by the prospect that the Supreme Court docket may 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 of rage" ignited by the Might 2 disclosure of a draft opinion displaying the courtroom's conservative majority able to reverse the 1973 ruling that established a lady's constitutional proper to terminate her being pregnant.

The courtroom's remaining 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 prohibit abortion virtually immediately ought to Roe be struck down. learn extra

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"If you can't select whether or not you want to have a child, if that's not a basic proper, then I don't know what's," said Brita Van Rossum, 62, a panorama designer who traveled from suburban Philadelphia to hitch the abortion-rights rally within 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 present of outrage that Democrats hope will assist galvanize support for his or her get together and blunt projected Republican beneficial properties 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 alongside the Nationwide Mall past the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Court itself.

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

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

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

The rally appeared to remain in any other case peaceable, though no less than one counter-protester was seen being escorted away by a safety guard in Washington earlier in the day.

The temper was likewise energetic, and generally 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 take part in a demonstration following the leaked Supreme Court docket opinion suggesting the opportunity of overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights choice, in Washington, U.S., Could 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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Police officers arrived to keep up area between the two teams as they traded taunts and vulgarities. The group 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, stated that the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion "treats ladies as objects, as lower than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old important care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally underneath sunny skies, stated abolishing the proper to a authorized abortion might put lives in danger as women seek unsafe options.

Celebrity ladies's rights lawyer Gloria Allred informed the group about her personal "again alley abortion" as a younger woman when she turned pregnant from a rape at gunpoint before Roe. "I virtually died," she recounted. "I used to be left in a bath in a pool of my very own blood, hemorrhaging."

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

Casten, whose district consists of Chicago's western suburbs, instructed Reuters it was "horrible" that the Supreme Court docket's conservative majority would think about taking away the best to an abortion and "condemn women to this lesser status."

At an abortion rights protest in Atlanta, greater 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 read, "Cease Child Sacrifice," 23-year-old Bria Marshall, a recent public health graduate from Kennesaw State University, acknowledged her group's smaller turnout.

"Jesus had only a small group, however his message was extra powerful," Marshall stated.

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

Voters can be weighing a bunch of priorities resembling inflation and could also be skeptical of Democrats' capacity to guard abortion entry after laws that might enshrine abortion rights in federal legislation failed. learn extra

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

"That is simply an affront to everything I believe that we're speculated to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, stated. "If a girl has no management over what will 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 Wealthy McKay in Atlanta; Writing by Ted Hesson and Steve Gorman; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman, Mark Porter and Grant McCool

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Trust Ideas.