Women's March rallies set for today focus on threat to Roe v. Wade

Tens of thousands of people are expected to take to the streets and gather in parks across Southern California today for rallies organized in support of reproductive rights.

Many of the “Bans Off Our Bodies Abortion Rally” events were planned before the May 2 leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion indicating justices plan to undo federal protections around abortion access that have existed for half a century under Roe v. Wade. In fact, Emiliana Guereca, a cofounder of the Women's March Foundation, said they first learned about the draft opinion after looking into why there was a sudden, dramatic spike in registrations for the rally planned for the steps of Los Angeles City Hall.

“At this point we are getting a few registrations a minute,” she said.

A good number of participants are telling organizers they haven't turned out for Women's March events before, Guereca said, including when an estimated 750,000people marched at the event in LosAngeles after President Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2017.

“They thought that we were wrong and that Roe v. Wade would never fall, or that this would not be possible in the United States,” Guereca said.

“But whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, women's rights are on the line. That should have never been politicized.”

While advocates expected the Supreme Court to unwind Roe this summer, organizers of a rally planned at Centennial Park in Santa Ana said they were struggling to build a sense of urgency around the threat to abortion rights before the opinion was leaked.

At the start of May, they had 400 people signed up to attend today's event, according to Sadaf Rahmani with Planned Parent