A growing throng was on a knife’s edge outside the United States Supreme Court late Monday night following the bombshell leak of a draft decision from the high court overturning the landmark Roe v Wade case that guaranteed the federal right to abortion.
Roads were blocked around the Supreme Court building immediately after the news broke that the upcoming ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization would overturn the 1973 case. The decision was expected sometime over the next two months, but after Politico obtained a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito and signed by a majority of justices, word spread quickly.
“Let’s make a deal: For every one woman who dies from this, one of you goes too,” read a hand-scrawled sign dangling from a coat hanger and held aloft by a woman protesting the apparently pending decision.
Pro-abortion rights protesters gathered with hastily made signs after the news broke. (Mary Margaret Olohan/The Daily Wire
As perhaps 700 demonstrators on both sides of the contentious issue gathered, the tension around the storied building was palpable. In writing that the high court must overturn Roe and the related 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v Casey, Alito reportedly wrote that the matter is for states to determine. That means red states are sure to follow Mississippi, where the Dobbs case originated, and place more restrictions – and perhaps bans – on abortion.
“Legal abortion once and for all!” read one banner held by two members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “We won’t go back. We will fight back!”
Self-professed socialists protest outside the Supreme Court late Monday. (Mary Margaret Olohan/The Daily Wire)
Several jubilant pro-lifers gathered to celebrate, though they were surrounded and heavily outnumbered by pro-abortion protestors.
“We are going to be here all night standing vigil and we are going to be here all day tomorrow,” said Terrisa Bukovinac, founder of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. “We are just so, so energized by this news, and we are hoping Roe is history.”
The leak has rocked the political world, prompting harsh words from Democrats eager to defend abortion across the U.S.
Here at the Supreme Court where crowds are reacting to POLITICO report that Roe is overturned. pic.twitter.com/EAKOcKs27X
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) May 3, 2022
“The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “Several of these conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation.”