Thousands in U.S. march beneath ‘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 Courtroom could soon 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 likely be a "summer time of rage" ignited by the Might 2 disclosure of a draft opinion exhibiting the court's conservative majority ready to reverse the 1973 ruling that established a girl's constitutional proper to terminate her pregnancy.

The court docket's last ruling, which might 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 restrict abortion nearly immediately ought to Roe be struck down. learn more

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"If you cannot choose whether you wish to have a child, if that is not a fundamental proper, then I do not know what's," stated Brita Van Rossum, 62, a landscape designer who traveled from suburban Philadelphia to hitch 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 present of outrage that Democrats hope will help provoke help for their occasion and blunt projected Republican gains 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 at the Washington Monument and braved a light-weight drizzle to march along the Nationwide Mall past the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Court 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 group of a few dozen counter-demonstrators holding signs that learn: "Finish abortion violence" and "Girls's rights begin in the womb."

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

The rally appeared to remain in any other case peaceable, although at least 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 thousands of abortion rights supporters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, the place they had been confronted by a half dozen anti-abortion activists.

Abortion rights campaigners participate in a demonstration following the leaked Supreme Court docket opinion suggesting the potential of overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights choice, in Washington, U.S., May 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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Cops arrived to maintain space 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 lower than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old crucial care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally underneath sunny skies, mentioned abolishing the appropriate to a legal abortion might put lives in danger as ladies search unsafe alternate options.

Superstar girls's rights attorney Gloria Allred told the group about her own "back alley abortion" as a young girl when she grew to become pregnant from a rape at gunpoint before Roe. "I virtually died," she recounted. "I was left in a bath in a pool of my very own blood, hemorrhaging."

U.S. Representative Sean Casten and his 15-year-old daughter, Audrey, were amongst several thousand abortion rights supporters who gathered at a park in Chicago.

Casten, whose district consists of Chicago's western suburbs, advised 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 girls to this lesser status."

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 nearby sidewalk.

Holding a sign that read, "Cease Little one Sacrifice," 23-year-old Bria Marshall, a latest public well being graduate from Kennesaw State University, acknowledged her group's smaller turnout.

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

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

Voters will be weighing a bunch of priorities corresponding to inflation and could also be skeptical of Democrats' capacity to protect abortion access after legislation that might enshrine abortion rights in federal regulation failed. learn extra

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

"That is simply an affront to the whole lot I imagine that we're supposed to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, mentioned. "If a lady has no management 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; 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; Modifying by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman, Mark Porter and Grant McCool

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Trust Ideas.