Published on : 25/06/2022 – 19:37
After the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, supporters of the right to abortion are mobilizing on Saturday in the United States for a second day of demonstrations.
After the shock, the anger. Supporters of the right to abortion in the United States organize a second day of demonstrations in the country on Saturday June 25 to shout their indignation in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision and defend this right which for many seemed acquired.
Dozens of people gathered in the middle of the day outside the Supreme Court in Washington and protests are planned across the country, including in states that took advantage of the high court ruling to immediately ban abortions on their ground.
While clinics in Missouri, South Dakota or Georgia closed their doors one after the other, Democratic states, such as California or New York, have pledged to defend access to abortions on their soil.
This revolution was triggered by the Supreme Court’s decision to revoke its emblematic decision “Roe v. Wade”, which since 1973 guaranteed the right of American women to have an abortion, the majority of its judges considering it today “totally unfounded”. .
President Joe Biden, who immediately denounced a “tragic error”, said on Saturday before flying to Europe to know “how painful and devastating this decision is for many Americans”.
More abortions in Missouri, including rape cases
On Friday, the president had called on Americans to defend the right to abortion during the midterm elections in November.
In Missouri, where abortion was immediately banned, including in cases of rape or incest, protesters gathered in St. Louis outside the state’s last abortion clinic.
Before “Roe v. Wade”, “women died during an abortion”, recalled Pamela Lukehart, a 68-year-old protester. “We tried to protect women’s rights, women’s lives and now they are being taken away from us.”
Defenders of the right to abortion also fear that the Supreme Court, with a clear conservative majority, will reverse other rights such as marriage for all or contraception.
This prospect “worries us” and “we are going to have nightmarish situations”, acknowledged Saturday the spokesperson for the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre, aboard Air Force One. “It’s a scary moment.”
Among the many demonstrations on Friday, two were marked by violence. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a pickup truck rammed into a group of protesters, injuring a woman, according to local media.
And in Arizona, police have admitted using tear gas to disperse protesters who “repeatedly banged on the windows of the state Senate”.
In Los Angeles, a demonstration was dispersed in a muscular way by police officers equipped with batons.
Half of US states should soon ban abortion
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research center that campaigns for access to contraception and abortion worldwide, half of the States should ban abortions in the more or less short term.
Within hours Friday, at least eight states immediately made all abortions illegal.
Seven more are planning to do the same in the coming weeks, but in fact, the clinics there have already stopped performing abortions, as in Texasthe largest US state, where women seeking an abortion will now have to travel hundreds of miles to get to the nearest clinic in New Mexico.
In a whole part of the country, women wishing to have an abortion will be forced to continue their pregnancy, to manage clandestinely, in particular by obtaining abortion pills on the internet, or to travel to other States where abortions will remain legal.
Anticipating an influx, these mostly Democratic states took steps to make abortions easier to access on their soil, and clinics began to shift their staffing and equipment resources.
But traveling is expensive and the Supreme Court’s ruling will further penalize poor women or women raising children alone, who are over-represented in black and Hispanic minorities, abortion rights advocates say.
The judgment crowns fifty years of a methodical struggle waged by the religious rightfor whom it represents a huge victory but not the end of the battle: the movement should continue to mobilize to swing as many states as possible on its side or to try to obtain a ban at the federal level.
It is also part of the record of former President Donald Trump who, during his mandate, profoundly overhauled the Supreme Court by bringing in three conservative magistrates who signed this judgment.
With AFP