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

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - 1000's of abortion rights supporters rallied throughout the United States 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 will likely be a "summer season of rage" ignited by the May 2 disclosure of a draft opinion showing the courtroom's conservative majority ready to reverse the 1973 ruling that established a lady's constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.

The courtroom's last ruling, which may return the ability to ban abortion to state legislatures, is anticipated in June. About half of the 50 states are poised to ban or severely prohibit abortion nearly instantly ought to Roe be struck down. learn more

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"If you cannot select whether or not you need to have a child, if that is not a elementary proper, then I do not know what's," said Brita Van Rossum, 62, a landscape designer who traveled from suburban Philadelphia to join the abortion-rights rally within the nation's capital, her first ever.

Protesters marching underneath 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 outrage that Democrats hope will assist galvanize support for his or her occasion and blunt projected Republican features in the November elections. read more

The day's largest demonstration unfolded in Washington, where a crowd that organizers estimated at 20,000 individuals massed at the Washington Monument and braved a lightweight 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 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 learn: "End abortion violence" and "Ladies's rights begin within the womb."

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

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

The mood was likewise energetic, and generally contentious, in New York Metropolis 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 Court opinion suggesting the opportunity of overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights resolution, in Washington, U.S., Could 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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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 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 girls as objects, as less than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old vital care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally below sunny skies, said abolishing the fitting to a authorized abortion could put lives at risk as girls search unsafe alternate options.

Celebrity ladies's rights attorney Gloria Allred advised the gang about her personal "back alley abortion" as a young woman when she turned pregnant from a rape at gunpoint earlier than Roe. "I virtually died," she recounted. "I used to be left in a tub in a pool of my own blood, hemorrhaging."

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

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

At an abortion rights protest in Atlanta, greater than 400 folks had assembled in a small park in entrance of the state capitol, whereas a few dozen counter-protesters stood on a close-by sidewalk.

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

"Jesus had just a small group, however his message was more highly effective," Marshall mentioned.

Whereas the Supreme Court docket 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 number of priorities equivalent to inflation and could also be skeptical of Democrats' means to guard abortion entry after laws that would enshrine abortion rights in federal regulation failed. read more

Many of these marching on Saturday expressed fear that rolling again abortion rights would lead to an erosion of civil liberties usually.

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

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Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Washington; Additional 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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