Hundreds in U.S. march beneath ‘Ban Off Our Bodies’ banner for abortion rights

WASHINGTON, Might 14 (Reuters) - Thousands of abortion rights supporters rallied throughout america on Saturday, angered by the prospect that the Supreme Courtroom might quickly overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade choice that legalized abortion nationwide a half century in the past.

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

The court docket's ultimate ruling, which could return the power 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 should Roe be struck down. learn extra

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"If you can't select whether you wish to have a baby, if that's not a basic right, then I don't know what is," said Brita Van Rossum, 62, a panorama designer who traveled from suburban Philadelphia to join the abortion-rights rally within the nation's capital, her first ever.

Protesters marching beneath the slogan "Bans Off 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 help impress help for his or her occasion and blunt projected Republican positive factors within the November elections. read extra

The day's largest demonstration unfolded in Washington, the place a crowd that organizers estimated at 20,000 folks massed on the Washington Monument and braved a lightweight drizzle to march along the National Mall past the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Court docket 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 bunch of some dozen counter-demonstrators holding signs that learn: "End abortion violence" and "Ladies's rights start within the womb."

The encounter between the two sides grew tense at instances. 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. Because the-anti abortion protesters left, they waved on the crowd, and a few called out, “Bye, Roe v. Wade!”

The rally appeared to remain in any other case peaceable, although a minimum of one counter-protester was seen being escorted away by a safety guard in Washington earlier within 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 an indication following the leaked Supreme Courtroom opinion suggesting the opportunity of overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights resolution, in Washington, U.S., Might 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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Cops arrived to take care of area between the two groups 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 lower than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old crucial care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally below sunny skies, stated abolishing the precise to a authorized abortion might put lives at risk as women seek unsafe alternate options.

Movie star girls's rights legal professional Gloria Allred informed the group about her own "back alley abortion" as a younger girl when she turned pregnant from a rape at gunpoint before Roe. "I nearly died," she recounted. "I used to be 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, had 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, instructed Reuters it was "horrible" that the Supreme Courtroom's conservative majority would take into account taking away the proper 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 about a dozen counter-protesters stood on a nearby sidewalk.

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

"Jesus had just a small group, but his message was more powerful," Marshall said.

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

Voters can be weighing a number of priorities similar to inflation and could also be skeptical of Democrats' means to guard abortion access after legislation that will enshrine abortion rights in federal legislation failed. read more

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

"This is just an affront to every little thing I imagine that we're supposed to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, said. "If a woman has no management over what is going to occur to her own 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

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