Aviva Fried
While abortion is now banned in 13 American states, demonstrations to defend this right are organized this Sunday in several American cities. Tens of thousands of people are expected in Wisconsin, the location of the main rally.
Six years after the “Women’s March” on Washington, which brought together millions of people, the movement is once again organizing around a hundred rallies across the United States to defend the right to abortion. Tens of thousands of people are expected, not in Washington but in Wisconsin where the main rally is to take place.
A date: January 22, 1973
The date was not chosen by chance. On January 22, 1973, the US Supreme Court legalized abortion at the federal level. 50 years later, instead of celebrating the event, defenders of the right to abortion are again forced to fight, since nearly seven months ago, the Court reversed this legalization. And if today, it is not in Washington that the most important demonstration will take place, but in Wisconsin, in Madison, it is because from now on, the fight takes place at the local level, at the level of the States.
Wisconsin is preparing to elect a judge for its own Supreme Court in the coming months. If ever a progressive judge is elected, then he can weigh in on the decision to overturn a state law banning abortion. It is therefore a political test: if the mobilization is sufficiently important, it will mean that abortion will still be one of the major subjects of the presidential election next year. Which would not bode well for the Conservative candidates.