News Desk: US Supreme Court’s (SC) decision to scrap the constitutional right to abortion has triggered protests in the country and abroad both in favor and against the landmark ruling.
Thousands of activists, both in favor of and in opposition to the ruling gathered outside the Supreme Court in the nation’s capital, with signs in support of their cause.
Pro-life activists showed up in U.S. cities in celebration of restrictive abortion laws that are now or will be soon, enacted in a number of GOP-led states following the court’s decision.
While the Pro-choice demonstrators protested what they see as an attack on reproductive rights. The protestors began participating in chants voicing frustrations over Friday’s ruling. At one point, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined a crowd calling the court, “Illegitimate!”
The U.S President Joe Biden and, the former President Barack Obama are amongst the protesters who utterly expressed their dismay over the SC decision, while the former president Donald Trump has supported the ruling and said the ruling “will work out for everybody.”
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision last Friday morning overturning the 1973 abortion decision Roe v. Wade, which now allows states to make their own abortion laws.
More than 200 abortion rights advocates turned out at the Florida Historic Capitol Friday. More than a dozen local groups helped organize the event, including the FAMU and FSU chapters of Students for a Democratic Society, the Tallahassee Community Action Committee, and Tallahassee Planned Parenthood.
Speakers reminded participants the reversal will affect people of color and low-income groups disproportionately. They also emphasized the decision will impact groups other than women, including transgender and non-binary individuals.
Protestors also burned an American flag in northwest D.C. Signs near the burning flag read “F–k MPD” and “F–k you Thomas, Alito, Coney Barrett, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Roberts.”
Across the state, crowds of people with signs that read “Bans Off Our Bodies” and “We Won’t Go Back,” chanted refrains of “my body, my choice,” giving voice to their anger, shock and fear.
In 24 cities across Florida, including Miami, Orlando, Gainesville, Pensacola, Naples and West Palm Beach, protestors gathered at courthouses and in public parks to denounce the Supreme Court’s landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The 1973 decision had established a constitutional right to abortion, and nearly 50 years later that legal responsibility has been returned to the states, leaving many Floridians wondering what’s next.
Demonstrators gathered outside the United States embassy in Vauxhall to protest against the decision to scrap constitutional right to abortion, in London, Friday June 24, 2022.
President Joe Biden said Today is a very solemn moment for the United States. The Supreme Court expressly took away a Constitutional right from the American people that it had already recognized. They simply took it away. That’s never been done to a right that is so important to so many Americans. He said “We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that.”
Former President Barack Obama took to twitter and said “Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.
Former President Donald Trump solidified the Court’s conservative majority at 6-3 by appointing Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Trump told Fox News the ruling “will work out for everybody.”
“This is following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago,” Trump told Fox News. “This brings everything back to the states where it has always belonged.” Deflecting his own involvement, Trump said, “God made the decision.”
