One 12 months ago, the annual March for Life protest against legal abortion took place in Washington amid a mood of undisguised triumph. With a fresh conservative majority on the Supreme Court, 1000’s of marchers braved bitterly cold weather to rejoice the seemingly inevitable fall of Roe v. Wade.
Now, with the constitutional right to abortion not the rule of the land, the March for Life returns Friday with a latest focus. As a substitute of concentrating their attention on the Supreme Court, the marchers plan to focus on the constructing directly across the road: the U.S. Capitol.
Movement leaders say they plan to warn Congress against making any try and curtail the multiple anti-abortion laws imposed last 12 months in a dozen different states.
“This 12 months can be a somber reminder of the tens of millions of lives lost to abortion prior to now 50 years, but in addition a celebration of how far we now have come and where we as a movement have to focus our effort as we enter this latest era in our quest to guard life,” Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said in an announcement.
Some movement leaders also hope to plant seeds in Congress for a possible federal abortion restriction down the road. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, said she envisions an eventual “federal minimum standard” cut-off line similar to 13 weeks of pregnancy after which abortion wouldn’t be permitted in any state. Dannenfelser’s scenario would still leave individual states free to impose their very own, stricter measures, including a complete ban.
That last ambition is an admitted longshot since even when it passes the newly Republican-controlled House of Representatives, it might more than likely fail within the Democratic-held Senate.
“We comprehend it’s not going to occur this session, but that is the start,” Dannenfelser said. “It’s (Congress’) responsibility to hearken to the desire of the people.”
In permit applications to the National Park Service, protest organizers estimated 50,000 participants this 12 months, concerning the same size as previous marches.
Within the absence of Roe v. Wade’s federal protections, abortion rights have change into a state-by-state patchwork.
Since June, near-total bans on abortion have been implemented in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Legal challenges are pending against several of those bans.
Elective abortions are also unavailable in Wisconsin, as a result of legal uncertainties faced by abortion clinics, and in North Dakota, where the lone clinic relocated to Minnesota.
Bans passed by lawmakers in Ohio, Indiana and Wyoming have been blocked by state courts while legal challenges are pending. And in South Carolina, the state Supreme Court on Jan. 5 struck down a ban on abortion after six weeks, ruling the restriction violates a state constitutional right to privacy.
But other states have witnessed unexpected pushback on the difficulty. Voters in Kansas and Kentucky rejected constitutional amendments that might have declared there isn’t a right to abortion; Michigan voters approved an amendment enshrining the proper to abortion within the state structure.
President Joe Biden’s administration has limited options within the wake of the Supreme Court decision. Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to present a speech in Florida on Sunday, the fiftieth anniversary of the unique Roe v. Wade ruling, to emphasise that abortion rights remain a core focus for the administration.
“The vice chairman will make very clear: The fight to secure women’s fundamental right to reproductive health care is removed from over,” said an announcement from Kirsten Allen, a Harris spokesperson. “She’s going to lay out the implications of extremist attacks on reproductive freedom in states across our country and underscore the necessity for Congress to codify Roe.”
In line with an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in July, 53% of U.S. adults said they disapproved of the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe, while 30% approved.
Dannenfelser disputes those numbers and says that while blanket abortion bans are a divisive issue amongst voters, limited restrictions similar to a ban after the primary trimester of pregnancy are “wildly popular” in each red and blue states.
Anti-abortion activists even have their eye on the upcoming 2024 presidential elections and are essentially vetting prospective candidates over their views on the difficulty. Dannenfelser said she met recently with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a possible leading Republican candidate, and got here away “incredibly impressed,” but said it was still too early for her organization to endorse anyone.
She predicted that there can be some “fault lines” amongst Republican presidential contenders over abortion rights and protections, but warned that any candidate perceived as being soft on the difficulty could have “disqualified him or herself as a presidential candidate in our eyes, and having done so has little or no probability of winning the nomination.”
