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

WASHINGTON, Could 14 (Reuters) - 1000's of abortion rights supporters rallied across the United States on Saturday, angered by the prospect that the Supreme Courtroom could quickly overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion nationwide a half century in the past.

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

The court's remaining ruling, which could 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 restrict abortion nearly immediately should Roe be struck down. read extra

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"If you cannot select whether you need to have a baby, if that is not a elementary proper, then I do not know what is," stated 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 under 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 galvanize assist for their celebration and blunt projected Republican good points within the November elections. read extra

The day's largest demonstration unfolded in Washington, where a crowd that organizers estimated at 20,000 people massed on the Washington Monument and braved a lightweight drizzle to march along the National Mall previous the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Court itself.

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

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

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

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

The temper was likewise energetic, and typically contentious, in New York Metropolis as hundreds 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 participate in an indication following the leaked Supreme Court docket opinion suggesting the potential of overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights resolution, in Washington, U.S., Might 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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Law enforcement officials arrived to maintain area between the two groups as they traded taunts and vulgarities. The gang 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 Courtroom draft opinion "treats ladies as objects, as lower than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old critical care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally below sunny skies, stated abolishing the appropriate to a authorized abortion may put lives at risk as girls seek unsafe options.

Superstar girls's rights attorney Gloria Allred told the group about her own "back alley abortion" as a younger girl when she became pregnant from a rape at gunpoint earlier than Roe. "I virtually died," she recounted. "I used to be left in a bath in a pool of my 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 consists of Chicago's western suburbs, instructed Reuters it was "horrible" that the Supreme Courtroom's conservative majority would consider taking away the fitting 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 front of the state capitol, whereas about a dozen counter-protesters stood on a close-by sidewalk.

Holding a sign that learn, "Cease Child 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, however his message was extra powerful," Marshall stated.

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 might be weighing a host of priorities such as inflation and may be skeptical of Democrats' skill to guard abortion entry after laws that might enshrine abortion rights in federal regulation failed. read more

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

"This is just an affront to all the things I consider that we're imagined to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, said. "If a girl has no control over what's going to occur to her personal physique, 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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