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

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - Thousands of abortion rights supporters rallied across the USA 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 in the past.

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

The court's remaining ruling, which could return the power to ban abortion to state legislatures, is anticipated in June. About half of the 50 states are poised to ban or severely prohibit abortion almost immediately should Roe be struck down. read extra

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

Protesters marching below the slogan "Bans Off 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 provoke assist for their social gathering and blunt projected Republican good points in the November elections. learn extra

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 lightweight drizzle to march alongside the Nationwide Mall past the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Courtroom itself.

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

Surrounded by police was a gaggle of some dozen counter-demonstrators holding indicators that read: "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. Because the-anti abortion protesters left, they waved at the crowd, and some called 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 within the day.

The mood 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 Court docket opinion suggesting the potential of overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights choice, in Washington, U.S., Might 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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Law enforcement officials arrived to take care of house between the two teams as they traded taunts and vulgarities. The crowd thinned out in early afternoon as rain fell over the city.

Elizabeth Holtzman, an 80-year-old former congresswoman who represented New York from 1973 to 1981, said that the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion "treats women as objects, as less than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old essential care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally under sunny skies, said abolishing the appropriate to a legal abortion may put lives at risk as ladies seek unsafe alternatives.

Superstar girls's rights lawyer Gloria Allred advised the crowd about her personal "back alley abortion" as a younger girl when she turned pregnant from a rape at gunpoint earlier than Roe. "I almost died," she recounted. "I was 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 among a number of thousand abortion rights supporters who gathered at a park in Chicago.

Casten, whose district includes Chicago's western suburbs, informed Reuters it was "horrible" that the Supreme Court docket's conservative majority would take into account taking away the fitting to an abortion and "condemn ladies to this lesser status."

At an abortion rights protest in Atlanta, more 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 an indication that read, "Stop Little one 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, however his message was more powerful," Marshall stated.

Whereas the Supreme Court 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 will probably be weighing a host of priorities akin to inflation and may be skeptical of Democrats' means to guard abortion access after laws that would enshrine abortion rights in federal regulation failed. read extra

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

"This is simply an affront to all the things I consider that we're imagined to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, mentioned. "If a lady has no control 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; 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; Enhancing by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman, Mark Porter and Grant McCool

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