The retaliation against the entry into force of a Texas law that bans virtually all abortions in this vast state was long overdue. She finally intervened massively, Saturday, October 2. Tens of thousands of women demonstrated across the country to defend the right to abortion.
“Women are human beings in their own right and we must be treated as such. We should be able to decide what to do with our own bodies, period “, launches Laura Bushwitz, 66, a retired teacher who came to demonstrate in Washington for this new edition of the “Women’s March”. “ I’m sick of being told what I can or can’t do (…) You hear that, the Supreme Court ? “
Few demonstrations had been organized against this law until then. But two days before the resumption of hearings at the Supreme Court of the United States, which will be the arbiter of the fight, nearly two hundred organizations have finally called on abortion rights defenders to be heard across the country. .
The jurisdiction, profoundly overhauled by former President Donald Trump (2017-2021), refused to intervene urgently to block Texan law and could take advantage of the review of a restrictive Mississippi law to influence its jurisprudence.
A counter-demonstration in Washington
The flagship event was held in Washington, where nearly 10,000 people gathered, with protesters holding signs “ Take care of your uterus “ Where “ Legalize abortion “ to parade to the Supreme Court which, nearly fifty years after recognizing the right of American women to have an abortion in its landmark Roe decision vs Wade, seems ready to engage the reverse gear.
At the Supreme Court, the protesters met with a counter-demonstration. A chain of riot police kept the two groups at bay.
Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson told a crowd in Washington the story of a Texan who had to drive 1,600 kilometers to have an abortion in Colorado on her own for fear that any person accompanying him can be prosecuted.
“No matter where you are, this fight is right on your doorstep today “, launched the head of the organization, who denounces the fact that “ the change in the Oval office has not put an end to the politicized, perverse and patriarchal desire to control our bodies “, in reference to the election of Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, which did not change the dynamic at the state level.
Gatherings in more than 600 cities
Rallies were also held in more than six hundred cities across the country, from Chicago to San Francisco to New York.
“We are trying to show that we are a strong, united group of people who will not be silent when crazy abortion bans like the one in Texas come in.” “, explains Juliette O’Shea, 17, who mobilized around thirty teenagers to join the New York demonstration.
“We fight so that abortion is not just legal, but also accessible, affordable and stigma-free “, write the organizers in a statement, asking Congress to enshrine in federal law the right to abortion, in order to protect it from a possible reversal of the Supreme Court.
A bill to this effect was adopted a week ago in the House of Representatives, in the hands of the Democrats, but has no chance of succeeding in the Senate where the Republicans have a blocking minority.