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WASHINGTON (AP) – The first women’s march in the Biden administration heads straight for the steps of the Supreme Court on Saturday, amid nationwide protests demanding continued access to abortion over the course of a year where conservative lawmakers and judges put it in danger.
Thousands of women filled a place near the White House for a rally before the march. Many signs waved “Take care of your own womb”, “I love someone who has had an abortion” and “Abortion is a personal choice, not a legal debate”, among other messages.
Some wore t-shirts that read simply “1973,” a reference to the landmark Roe v. Wade, who legalized abortion for generations of American women.
Elaine Baijal, a 19-year-old student at American University, took photos of her cell phone with her friends and their signs at the start of the event. She said her mother told her she had come to a march for legal abortion with her own mother in the 1970s.
“It’s sad that we still have to fight for our rights 40 years later. But it’s a tradition that I want to carry on, ”Baijal said of the walk.
Organizers say the Washington march will be one of hundreds of abortion-themed protests across the country on Saturday. The demonstrations occur a few days before the start of a new term for the Supreme Court, which will decide the future of abortion rights in the United States, after judicial appointments by President Donald Trump strengthened conservative oversight of the high court.
The march is part of a “struggle to guarantee, safeguard and strengthen our constitutional right to abortion,” Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March, said in a statement. “And this is a fight against the Supreme Court justices, state lawmakers and senators who are not on our side – or are not acting with the urgency that this moment demands.”
The walk occurs a day after the Biden administration urged a federal judge to block the country’s most restrictive abortion law, which has banned most abortions in Texas since early September. This is one in a series of cases that will give the country’s divided high court an opportunity to uphold or overturn Roe v. Wade.
Texas law was at the center of the debate. Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood nationwide, spoke of women being forced to drive countless hours across state lines – sometimes multiple state borders – to end pregnancies in the weeks that followed the entry into force of Texas law.
“The timing is dark… but that’s why we are here,” Johnson told the crowded crowd in Freedom Square and the surrounding streets. With the upcoming Supreme Court mandate, “No matter where you are, this fight is at your doorstep right now.”
One opponent of women’s access to abortion called the theme of this year’s march “macabre”.
“What about equal rights for unborn women? Tweeted Jeanne Mancini, president of an anti-abortion group called March for Life.
The Women’s March has become a regular event – albeit interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic – since millions of women traveled to the United States and around the world following Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. Trump endorsed the punishment of women for having abortions and made the appointment of conservative judges a mission of his presidency.
Without Trump as the central figure against which to rally women of various political persuasions, and with the pandemic still strong, organizers speak of hundreds of thousands of participants nationwide on Saturday, not millions of 2017.
Latina comedian and activist Cristela Alonzo hosted Saturday’s rally in Washington, which included speeches from many advocates and providers of abortion access. Actress Busy Philipps and swimmer Schuyler Bailar were scheduled to attend.
Security in the capital was much lighter than at a political rally a few weeks ago in support of Trump supporters jailed during the Jan.6 uprising. No fencing has been placed around the United States Capitol, with the Capitol Police Chief saying there was no suggestion that Saturday’s rally would be violent.
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