U.S. emerges from day of protests, celebrations
Demonstrations celebrating and protesting Friday’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade’s abortion protections continued to reverberate across the country Sunday. The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, although damage and temporary road closures were reported in some cities. More rallies were scheduled for Sunday.
Abortion opponents are celebrating a long-sought victory for the conservative legal movement, one made possible by the presidency of Donald Trump. “This is a huge victory for the prolife movement,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump — who nominated three of the six conservative justices on the court — whipped up his supporters at an Illinois rally Saturday night.
President Joe Biden criticized the Supreme Court on Saturday, saying the justices have “made some terrible decisions.” He is in Europe this week to meet with leaders of the Group of Seven nations.
The vote was 6 to 3 to uphold a restrictive Mississippi law. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., though, criticized his conservative colleagues for taking the additional step of overturning Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which had reaffirmed the right to abortion.
In their joint dissent, the court’s three liberal justices took note of the states that will move quickly to restrict abortion access and emphasized the sweeping impact of the court’s decision on the rights of women to terminate their pregnancies.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, defended the trigger law that went into effect in his state after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday. The Arkansas law bans abortions in all instances except to save the life of the mother.
Hutchinson on Sunday demurred when asked whether he was comfortable with the fact that a 13-year-old girl in Arkansas raped by a relative would no longer be able to get an abortion in the state.
“I would prefer a different outcome than that. But that’s not the debate today in Arkansas,” Hutchinson said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”