US braces for vast abortion rallies
>>NEW YORK: Thousands of activists were gearing up to take to US streets yesterday in a national day of action calling for safe and legal access to abortion.
The planned nationwide demonstrations are in response to a leaked draft opinion showing the United States Supreme Court’s conservative majority is considering overturning Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 ruling guaranteeing abortion access nationwide.
“Our bodies are our own — if they are not, we cannot be truly free or equal,” says a petition from Bans Off Our Bodies, which was organised by groups including Planned Parenthood and the Women’s March.
“Across the country, some politicians are trying to make decisions about our bodies for us,” it says.
“We won’t let the abortion bans sweeping the country put our lives and futures at risk, and we won’t be silenced while our fundamental right to control our bodies is taken away.”
Protesters are expected in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Austin and Chicago, as well as at hundreds of smaller events across the country.
The right to access abortion has long triggered activism, but the Supreme Court leak has spurred an uptick in demonstrations, including outside the homes of justices.
The largely peaceful protests have drawn Republican criticism over privacy rights of court members, but activists have responded by pointing to years of often violent protests outside abortion clinics and at the homes of doctors providing the medical procedure.
And many have cited the pending Supreme Court decision as a far greater invasion of privacy.
“You don’t get to take away my bodily autonomy and get to enjoy your Saturday at home. You can do one or the other,” one protestor, Nikki Enfield, told a local CBS television affiliate.
Police in Washington set up temporary fencing around the Supreme Court ahead of yesterday’s planned protests.