With Roe ruling in peril, thousands gather to march for abortion rights

WASHINGTON • Protesters in the US marched in the rain to the Supreme Court in Washington, chanting "We will not go back" and "Abortion is a human right".

In New York, thousands crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. And in Los Angeles, demonstrators filled a park near City Hall to show their support for abortion rights.

Thousands of protesters converged in cities across the United States on Saturday, nearly two weeks after the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v Wade.

In the capital city, a crowd of protesters gathered near the Washington Monument before marching to the Supreme Court, with some wearing shirts that read "Bans Off Our Bodies" and "Keep Abortion Safe and Legal".

They vowed to fight to preserve abortion rights, even as some accepted that Roe would most likely be overturned.

Ms Colleen Lunsford, 42, a lawyer from Arlington, Virginia, brought her five-year-old daughter, Orla. Pointing to her daughter, she said she attended the march for "her future and autonomy".

"I'm terrified," she said. "We did our best to elect a Democratic president and House and Senate, and this is still happening."

There were over 450 marches across the country, said Ms Rachel O'Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women's March, a nonprofit group that helped organise the event and other protests supporting women's rights.

Organisers had been planning a national march for abortion rights before the draft opinion leaked, but they fast-tracked the event after the opinion was published.

The leaked draft opinion shows that the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe, the landmark 1973 decision that guarantees the right to abortion. The court's ruling is not expected until next month or early July.

With the midterm elections months away, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are hoping to use the issue to energise voters. Democratic senators failed in their attempt last week to advance legislation to guarantee abortion rights nationwide in the face of opposition from Republicans and one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

In Washington, Ms Elizabeth Moser, 34, a communications specialist from Burke, Virginia, said she hoped the marches would galvanise voters and politicians. Although she had been planning to vote in the midterms, she said she was now also considering driving people to the polls and texting her friends to encourage them to attend other rallies in support of abortion rights.

"I'm out here trying to build a movement," said Ms Moser, who wore a red bandanna and held up a sign that read, "I will not go quietly back to the 1950s".

NYTIMES