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Thousands of abortion advocates are protesting across the United States on Saturday, and organizers say marches will continue throughout the summer if the Supreme Court overturns the Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide.
Planned Parenthood, Women’s March, and other abortion rights groups staged more than 400 marches Saturday, with the largest turnout expected in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The demonstrations are a reaction to a preliminary opinion leaked to the media on May 2, where the conservative majority of the court presented arguments for the annulment of the historic 1973 decision that established the federal constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.
The final court ruling, which could give states the power to ban abortion, is expected in June. About half of U.S. states can ban or significantly restrict abortion if the Supreme Court overturns a ruling that protects the right to abortion.
Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to attend Saturday’s rallies, which organizers said would be the first of many coordinated protests over a possible Supreme Court ruling.
“For the women of this country, this is going to be a summer of anger,” said Rachel Carmona, president of Women’s March. “We will not stop until this government starts working for us, until the attacks on our bodies cease, until the right to abortion becomes law.”
Several thousand abortion supporters began gathering in a Chicago park Saturday morning, including Congressman Sean Casten and his 15-year-old daughter, Audrey.
Mr Casten, whose district covers the western suburbs of Chicago, told Reuters it was “terrible” that the Conservative Supreme Court was considering stripping abortions of women with “lower status”.
Democrats, who currently control the White House and both houses of Congress, hope the backlash against the Supreme Court ruling will contribute to the victory of their party candidates in the November congressional election.
But voters will weigh abortion rights against other issues such as rising food and gas prices, and they may have doubts about Democrats’ ability to defend access to abortion as efforts to pass legislation that would guarantee abortion rights in federal law, failed.
In Atlanta, more than 400 people had gathered in a small park in front of the state capital.
Democrat Elizabeth Murphy, 40, said she believes abortion rights advocates will turn out to vote in the November election.
“I am voting and this time I am telling everyone I know to vote,” she said.
In downtown Brooklyn, thousands of abortion rights activists gathered to cross the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan.
Elizabeth Holtzman, an 80-year-old marcher who represented New York in Congress from 1973-1981, said the Supreme Court’s leaked preliminary opinion “treats women as objects, less than human beings.”
“I have fought for women’s rights for 50 years and I will not give up,” she said.
Supporters of abortion rights in Washington gathered at the Washington Monument to then walk to the Supreme Court. Protests were also planned in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.
Last week, some protesters went to the homes of Supreme Court members Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, who according to the preliminary version published in the media are in favor of overturning the decision “Roe vs. Wade”.
Conservative member of the Court Clarence Thomas said Friday at a conference in Dallas that the leak had permanently broken trust within the Court.
“When I lose faith, especially in the institution where I am, the institution changes radically,” he said.
Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion group with university branches across the country, said it was staging counter-protests on Saturday in nine cities, including Washington.
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