US: Abortion rights activists call for mass rallies on May 14

“We’re in action”: Many major progressives have called on Americans to hold mass rallies across the United States on May 14 to defend the right to an abortion, which the country’s Supreme Court seems ready to strengthen.

“The time has come to redouble our efforts,” “there is no time to lose,” Kelly Robinson, a Planned Parenthood official who runs many clinics across the country, told a news conference by telephone on Thursday. in which abortions are performed.

“On May 14, we will express our outrage,” he said, announcing the launch of four major marches in Washington, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and hundreds of rallies across the country. “We expect hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.

Other actions will follow. “It’s going to be a summer of rage,” said Rachel Carmona, whose Women’s March group had rallied millions of people against former President Donald Trump in 2017 for a first “Women’s March.”

A sign of the fever that prevails in Washington is the security roadblocks that were set up yesterday, Thursday, around the white marble building that houses the US Supreme Court.

The institution is in turmoil following the publication on Monday of a draft opinion on the Politico news website, which, if adopted, would bring the United States back 50 years, when every state was free to ban or approve abortions.

The text, which was drafted in February and can be negotiated until June 30, states that the historic Row v. Wade 1973 ruling, which protects American women’s right to terminate their pregnancies, was unfounded from the beginning “and that nothing in the Constitution protects the right to abortion.

“Absolutely scandalous”

The revelations shocked the American left: hundreds of people spontaneously gathered in front of the Supreme Court, Democrats in Congress raised their voices, and US President Joe Biden called on voters to defend the right to abortion in his midterm elections.

“We see an action we have never seen before,” Rana Epting, director of the progressive MoveOn association, said yesterday, accusing Republicans of orchestrating this setback by appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court.

“Our message to Republicans is clear: you will see us on the streets in May, you will see us on the streets in June and you will see us at the polls in November!”

Within the Supreme Court, the annoyance is palpable. Its head, Judge John Roberts, on Tuesday condemned what he called “treason” and ordered an investigation to find the culprit.

This breach of the secrecy of the consultation is “absolutely scandalous”, he underlined on Thursday during his first public appearance after the leak.

The person responsible for it is “crazy” if he thinks that it will affect the position of the judges, he added before lawyers who had gathered in Atlanta.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

Source: Capital

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