Thousands march to support women’s right to choose

Thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in cities across the United States to protest the Supreme Court’s overturning of the federal right to abortion and to urge voters to go to a Democratic “blue wave” in the elections next month’s midterm key.

In Washington, a crowd of mostly women chanted “we will not go back” as they marched with signs calling for a “feminist tsunami” and urging people to “vote to save women’s rights.”

“I don’t want to have to go back to a different time,” Emily Bobal, an 18-year-old student, told AFP.

“It’s a bit ridiculous that we still have to do this in 2022,” she said, adding that she worries the conservative-dominated high court could target same-sex marriage.

Several protesters wore green armbands or scarves, a color that symbolizes the right to abortion. Others wore blue – the color of the Democratic Party – with huge flags and banners calling for a symbolic “blue wave” of voters to go to the polls on November 8.

A few showed up and spoke out against it, some urging the crowd to “find Jesus Christ” while others shouted that “abortion is murder.” They were greeted with boos.

Similar rallies took place in cities like New York and Denver.

Polls show Democrats have only a slim chance of keeping control of the House, but their chances are better in the evenly split Senate, where Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is the tiebreaker.

While the Republicans have campaigned mostly around rising prices, and concerns about immigration and crime, the Democrats led by President Joe Biden want to shift the debate to abortion rights and defending democracy.

The Supreme Court in June ended decades of federal protection of abortion rights, leaving it up to each state to set its own standards.

Since then, several Republican-led states have banned or severely restricted access to the procedure, prompting a series of legal challenges.