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

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - 1000's of abortion rights supporters rallied across the USA on Saturday, angered by the prospect that the Supreme Court may 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 can be a "summer 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 woman's constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.

The court's last 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 nearly immediately should Roe be struck down. read extra

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"If you cannot select whether or not you wish to have a child, if that is not a elementary right, then I do not know what's," said Brita Van Rossum, 62, a landscape designer who traveled from suburban Philadelphia to hitch the abortion-rights rally in the nation's capital, her first ever.

Protesters marching under the slogan "Bans Off Our 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 assist impress help for their social gathering and blunt projected Republican positive factors in the November elections. read extra

The day's largest demonstration unfolded in Washington, the place a crowd that organizers estimated at 20,000 individuals massed on the Washington Monument and braved a lightweight drizzle to march alongside the National Mall previous the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Court 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 gaggle of a few dozen counter-demonstrators holding indicators that read: "Finish abortion violence" and "Ladies's rights begin in the womb."

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

The rally appeared to stay in any other case peaceable, though at the 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 1000's 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 take part in a demonstration following the leaked Supreme Court opinion suggesting the potential for overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights resolution, in Washington, U.S., May 14, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

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Police officers arrived to maintain space between the two teams as they traded taunts and vulgarities. The gang 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 Courtroom draft opinion "treats girls as objects, as lower than full human beings."

Malcolm DeCesare, a 34-year-old crucial care nurse who attended a Los Angeles rally under sunny skies, mentioned abolishing the suitable to a legal abortion could put lives in danger as ladies seek unsafe alternatives.

Celeb ladies's rights attorney Gloria Allred told the crowd about her own "again alley abortion" as a young girl when she became pregnant from a rape at gunpoint before 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, had been among several thousand abortion rights supporters who gathered at a park in Chicago.

Casten, whose district contains Chicago's western suburbs, informed Reuters it was "horrible" that the Supreme Courtroom's conservative majority would contemplate taking away the precise to an abortion and "condemn girls to this lesser status."

At an abortion rights protest in Atlanta, more than 400 people 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 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 only a small group, however his message was more powerful," Marshall said.

While the Supreme Courtroom 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 can be weighing a host of priorities equivalent to inflation and could also be skeptical of Democrats' capacity to guard abortion entry after legislation that would enshrine abortion rights in federal regulation failed. read extra

Many of those marching on Saturday expressed concern that rolling again abortion rights would result in an erosion of civil liberties usually.

"That is just an affront to every little thing I imagine that we're presupposed to be about," Los Angeles musician Joel Altshuler, 73, mentioned. "If a woman has no management 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; Modifying by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman, Mark Porter and Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Rules.