Joe Lynde
Protesters will rally all week to oppose the abortion bans recently levied in Georgia, Missouri, and Alabama.
The public came out to more than 500 rallies against state-level abortion bans in every state in the country around noon on May 21.
There will be more rallies from coast to coast this week. Check out Planned Parenthood’s handy interactive website to find the action near you.
The tipping point for this outpouring of activism came last week when Alabama passed the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, without exceptions for victims of rape or incest. That bill, along with similar measures in Georgia and Missouri, is part of a national strategy to take a case all the way to the Supreme Court in the hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade.
As Alabama Pro-Life Coalition President Eric Johnston, who helped craft the Alabama abortion ban told NPR, “the strategy here is that we will win.”
Donald Trump’s two Supreme Court appointees “may give the ability to have Roe reviewed," Johnston said. "And Justice Ginsburg—no one knows about her health."
Standing in front of the Supreme Court, Representative Diana Degette, Democrat of Colorado, denounced the Republicans’ effort to overturn Roe. “We won’t let that happen,” she told the fired-up crowd. “Every day and every way, we must resist.”
Joe Lynde
Pro-choice rallies were held in several states today and will continue through the week.
“We won’t go back to the days of illegal abortion; this is about women’s freedom,” said Representative Donna Shalala, Democrat of Florida, who served as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, at the rally in front of the Supreme Court.
But even without a third Trump appointee, the outlook on the Court is not good. The conservative majority recently overturned a longstanding precedent in a case not related to abortion, dispelling the illusion that conservative appointees will, out of respect for precedent, continue to regard Roe as settled law.
We could soon be going back to an era in which each state has the power to impose unlimited restrictions on abortion. Nineteen states have abortion bans that could suddenly take effect if Roe is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Among the most draconian measures are Alabama’s new ninety-nine-year prison term for doctors who perform abortions, and personhood laws that allow states to punish women. Get ready for the first woman charged with murdering her unborn child in Georgia, a death-penalty state where a six-week ban that recognizes an embryo or fetus as a “natural person” could trigger a test case, according to legal scholars.
At the rally in front of the Supreme Court, women held up signs that said “We Won’t Be Punished,” a reference to Donald Trump’s comment in an interview with Chris Matthews during his 2016 campaign that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.
“This is a systemic attack on our health care,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and 2020 presidential candidate, told the crowd outside the Supreme Court. Republicans in Congress first tried to defund Planned Parenthood, Klobuchar pointed out, reducing women’s access to birth control at the same time they were attacking the Affordable Care Act. “This is a matter of civil rights,” she said.
In state capitals around the country, “from Alabama to Missouri to Texas and beyond,” pro-choice activists are fighting 300 new abortion restrictions introduced by Republican legislators all at once, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, told the crowd outside the Court. “We are here to send these folks a message,” Schumer added. “Not on our watch!”
As the bans gather steam in the states, women have been sharing their personal stories on social media under the hashtag #YouKnowMe.
As the bans gather steam in the states, women have been sharing their personal stories on social media under the hashtag #YouKnowMe. Pointing out that one in four women has had an abortion, actor and talk show host Busy Philipps started the #YouKnowMe campaign to highlight the fact that abortion is a common experience.
Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, Women’s March, NARAL, and other groups are circulating petitions, filing lawsuits, and holding teach-ins this week.
Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, have re-introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act, which aims to stop state-level abortion restrictions that run afoul of Roe.
The act seeks to ensure “that abortion services will continue to be available and that abortion providers are not singled out for medically unnecessary restrictions that burden women by preventing them from accessing safe abortion services.”
In the coming week, tens of thousands of people are expected to participate in actions at state capitols and public spaces throughout the country. Keeping abortion legal has widespread public support: 73 percent of Americans favor keeping Roe intact, and 67 percent believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
“To every politician in the country who’s ever voted for an abortion ban: We’re coming for your seat,” NARAL’s website declares.
Despite the fact that public opinion is on the pro-choice side, it will take an enormous effort to reverse the decades of work anti-abortion activists and politicians have put into turning back the clock.