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

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

The protests kicked off what organizers predict will probably be a "summer time of rage" ignited by the May 2 disclosure of a draft opinion showing the court's conservative majority able to reverse the 1973 ruling that established a lady's constitutional proper to terminate her being pregnant.

The court's ultimate ruling, which might 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 prohibit abortion nearly instantly should Roe be struck down. read extra

Register

"If you can't choose whether or not you want to have a child, if that's not a fundamental proper, then I don't 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 beneath the slogan "Bans Off Our Bodies" took to the streets from New York and Atlanta to Chicago and Los Angeles in a present of shock that Democrats hope will help provoke assist for their celebration 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 people 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 "Disgrace" and "Bans off our bodies" because the marchers neared the marbled columns of the courthouse.

Surrounded by police was a group of a few dozen counter-demonstrators holding signs that learn: "Finish abortion violence" and "Ladies's rights start within the womb."

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

The rally appeared to stay in any other case peaceable, although a minimum of one counter-protester was seen being escorted away by a security guard in Washington earlier in the day.

The mood was likewise energetic, and typically contentious, in New York Metropolis as thousands of abortion rights supporters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, the place they have been confronted by a half dozen anti-abortion activists.

Abortion rights campaigners take part in a demonstration following the leaked Supreme Courtroom opinion suggesting the potential for overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights determination, in Washington, U.S., Could 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

Learn Extra

Law enforcement officials arrived to maintain area between the two groups as they traded taunts and vulgarities. The crowd 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 crucial care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally underneath sunny skies, stated abolishing the precise to a authorized abortion may put lives at risk as girls seek unsafe alternate options.

Superstar ladies's rights lawyer Gloria Allred informed the crowd about her personal "again alley abortion" as a younger woman when she grew to become 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. Consultant 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 includes Chicago's western suburbs, instructed Reuters it was "horrible" that the Supreme Courtroom's conservative majority would contemplate taking away the right to an abortion and "condemn girls to this lesser standing."

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

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

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

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

Voters shall be weighing a host of priorities resembling inflation and could also be skeptical of Democrats' means to guard abortion entry after legislation that will enshrine abortion rights in federal regulation failed. learn extra

Lots of those 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 every little thing I consider that we're alleged to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, stated. "If a woman has no management over what's going to occur to her personal physique, then we're back in 1850 not 1950.

Register

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

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Belief Ideas.