![]() “That’s what difference elections make,” he declared. The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, welcomed the marchers to Washington, pledging: “You now have a Congress that is standing up for life.”Īddressing the crowd, Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, touted a pair of anti-abortion measures that passed the chamber earlier this month, among the first actions taken by the new Republican majority. “What is the most ambitious we can be?” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), a leading anti-abortion group, told reporters this week.ĭannenfelser said she would like to see Congress enact a “federal minimum standard” that would ban abortions after a certain point early in a pregnancy, though she was clear-eyed that the prospects of such action were dim as long as Democrats held the Senate and the White House. But the post-Roe landscape has exposed fault lines in the anti-abortion movement as Republicans, elected officials and activists press ahead with varying demands, tactics and approaches. Instead of finishing at the foot of the supreme court, they concluded at a spot located between the court building and the US Capitol.Īt the rally, the speakers presented a united front, committed to the march’s overarching vision to end abortion. To further underscore the shift, the march charted a slightly different course. The theme of this year’s gathering was “Next Steps: Marching Forward into a Post-Roe America”, a recognition that the fight to end abortion in America has moved to Congress and all 50 state legislatures. “If anything, the pro-life movement is more important than ever before because now it’s up to the states,” said Katie, a 19-year-old college student from Massachusetts who preferred not to give her last name. “But in doing so, we brought more battles to the forefront because now every state has a right to decide what their position is going to be.”Īctivists from states where abortion remains legal said they were working toward a more complicated goal that required changing not only the laws, but hearts and minds, too. “We did it,” the Rev Lalita Smith said, recounting her “exuberance” when the Dobbs decision was handed down. Busloads of high school students, a hallmark of the event, carried signs proclaiming: “I am the post-Roe generation.” They marched alongside seasoned activists exulting in a victory that had once seemed unimaginable. At the ballot box, abortion opponents have suffered a string of significant and unexpected defeats, including in conservative states like Kansas and Kentucky, while several Republican candidates who supported abortion bans without exceptions lost high-profile races in the 2022 midterm elections.īut at Friday’s march, the mood was undeniably joyful. Initiatives have sprung up to help women seeking abortions travel to states where it remains legal or to access abortion pills. Their efforts to advance new measures at the state level have been met with fierce opposition from abortion rights advocates. ![]() Pending legal challenges have added to the uncertainty. ![]() More than a dozen states have enacted sweeping bans on abortion, while several more aim to take similar actions when state legislatures reconvene this year. In the seven months since the supreme court ended the federal protections guaranteed by Roe, abortion access in America has become a patchwork of state-by-state policies. He called on Congress to codify abortion rights and pledged to continue to use his limited executive authority to protect access wherever possible. “In doing so, it put the health and lives of women across this nation at risk.” “Never before has the court taken away a right so fundamental to Americans,” Biden said in the statement. “It is our charge today, in this new Dobbs era, to channel that same determination and hope and prayer that has led you to these streets for 50 years.”įrom the White House, Joe Biden marked the occasion with a vow to protect abortion access and a proclamation recognizing the 50th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, which falls on Sunday 22 January. “This is not the end of our journey,” the Mississippi attorney general, Lynn Fitch, whose office brought the supreme court case – Dobbs v Mississippi – that overturned Roe, said from the stage before the march. On Friday, they warned activists against complacency, with one speaker acknowledging that the decision had ushered in “challenging times of unrest and new threats to human life” as a reinvigorated reproductive rights movement pushes back. Since Roe fell, movement leaders have urged Republicans to use their new House majority to pass federal restrictions on abortion, while they press for new bans and restraints at the state level. “While the march began as a response to Roe, we don’t end as a response to Roe being overturned,” Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told a jubilant crowd.
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