Protests in US

On Monday night, pro-abortion rights supporters and anti-abortion rights activists clashed in the streets of Washington, D.C., after a leaked draft majority opinion suggested the country’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court was planning to overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide.

The dueling protests in Washington, DC encapsulated a decades-long polarization of US politics over abortion access.
Hundreds of abortion rights activists chanted “Abortion is healthcare” and “My body, my choice” in front of the Supreme Court. Anti-abortion rights activists gathered at the location as well, chanting chants like “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Roe v Wade has got to go.”

Roe v Wade, a 1973 Supreme Court decision, barred states from barring abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy, saying that outlawing abortions would violate an individual’s constitutionally protected right to privacy.
Following that, Supreme Court judgments, such as Planned Parenthood of southern Pennsylvania v Casey in 1992, have made it illegal for states to impose “undue barriers” on people seeking abortions.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the draft majority decision, which was obtained by Politico magazine, and was backed by four other conservatives on the nine-member court. The ruling in Roe v Wade was described as “egregiously erroneous from the outset” by the group.

While the leaked draft is susceptible to change before it is made official, and it is still conceivable that a justice’s vote will change, it provides a clear indicator of the court’s decision-making approach.

Abby Korb, a 23-year-old postgraduate student and legislative staffer in Washington, DC, told the AFP news agency that she went to the Supreme Court as soon as word of the leaked ruling emerged.

Her reaction was “actual astonishment,” she said.
“Every day, my rights are being stripped away from me as a woman,” she stated.
“I hope they overturn it,” Claire Rowan, a 55-year-old mother of seven who accompanied her to the anti-abortion rights march, said.

Rowan expressed her desire that now is the time for individuals to “ask God for forgiveness so that the nation might recover.”

Senators have reacted with both criticism and appreciation to the leaked view, with Nancy Pelosi of the US House of Representatives and Chuck Schumer of the US Senate both stating the action “would go down as an outrage, one of the worst and most harmful judgments in recent history.”

“Congress must adopt legislation that codifies Roe v Wade as the law of the land in our nation NOW,” stated independent Senator Bernie Sanders.

The polls will determine if Democrats can maintain their razor-thin congressional majorities for the next two years of President Joe Biden’s presidency.