Students rally to protest overturning Roe
More than 100 students and others demonstrated late Tuesday afternoon outside the Ohio Statehouse to express outrage over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and Ohio’s restrictions limiting abortions.
Many of the participants in the Central Ohio Student-led Rally for Reproductive Rights were Ohio State University students who told The Dispatch that the decisions were changing their perspective on pregnancy and whether they have a future living in Ohio.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, erasing a reproductive right the high court established nearly five decades ago.
Abortion in Ohio is still legal up until about six weeks into pregnancy under the so-called “heartbeat” law, but outside that window, people who want to terminate a pregnancy will have to travel to other states.
Eliana Palermo, 20, an Ohio State University student, said her first thought when she heard the ruling was: “What’s coming next?”
“For someone who has been taking birth control since I was 16 years old, that was immediately my first thought,” Palermo said.
Palermo said her mother had a miscarried pregnancy, and she can’t even imagine what she would do if she discovered she had an ectopic pregnancy or another complication in an environment where access to abortion is restricted.
Lara Pfrimmer, 20, another OSU student, is from Minnesota, where abortion remains legal. But Pfrimmer said she is considering changing her voter registration to Ohio so she can vote for pro-abortion politicians.
“I don’t think I would want to continue to live in a state where I wouldn’t have access to abortion,” Pfrimmer said.
Maggie Kauffeld, 24, a student at Ohio State’s College of Pharmacy, said her experience working in medicine has shaped her perspective about abortion and health care. Although she said she loves Ohio, she said that after graduation “you got to go where you think you can be best taken care of.”
Alicia Nye, 20, of Lancaster, said she wasn’t a student but wanted to demonstrate Tuesday because she wasn’t sure what current rights would be taken away next by the U.S. Supreme Court. Asked if the recent decision has affected whether she would remain in Ohio, she said she had already been thinking about it.
“Like the way that things are going, or things you hear people are saying about taking away gay rights and stuff like that, like, I don’t want to be here anymore,” Nye said. “In Ohio. The country. I want to get out before it gets worse. It’s terrifying.”
Tuesday’s student-led demonstration was significantly smaller than Sunday’s rally hosted by Ohio Democrats, which featured U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, former Dayton mayor and gubernatorial candidate Nan Whaley, and was attended by as many as 3,000. Cbehrens@dispatch.com @Colebehr_report