WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) – 1000’s of abortion opponents rallied in Washington on Friday for the fiftieth annual “March for Life,” marking a brand new chapter for a motion that has organized for many years round overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that acknowledged a girls’s proper to an abortion.

With that ruling now thrown out, March for Life leaders and activists have been celebrating their motion’s win, pushing for stricter limits on abortion on the state and nationwide degree, and praying to vary the “hearts and minds” of People who help abortion rights.

“We aren’t but carried out,” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini mentioned to the gang, which appeared thinner than the earlier 12 months however nonetheless spilled throughout the Nationwide Mall.

“We are going to march till abortion is unthinkable,” she mentioned.

For the reason that finish of Roe on June 24, 2022, 12 states have enforced whole abortion bans with restricted exceptions and abortion is unavailable in two further states, in line with the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights analysis and advocacy group.

Rally-goers mentioned they wished to see abortion banned in each state, at each stage of being pregnant. Some held indicators that learn, “I demand safety at conception” and “abortion is genocide.”

“I consider that, identical to we would not wish to homicide anyone out right here, we would not wish to see any of those lives damage or misplaced,” mentioned Rob McNutt, a pastor affiliated with a disaster being pregnant heart in Maryland.

“Life begins at conception,” mentioned Kathleen Stahl, a 60-year-old nurse from Washington, D.C., who works in maternal and baby well being.

Stahl and others mentioned that past abortion bans, they wished to see extra laws aimed toward getting assets to girls combating surprising pregnancies.

“We have to present healthcare to our moms, and a variety of our younger moms want extra help,” Stahl mentioned.

Activists recited the Lord’s Prayer and chanted “We love infants!” as they adopted a barely completely different route than in earlier years. In a nod to their Supreme Courtroom victory, they didn’t head on to the excessive court docket’s constructing however as a substitute handed in entrance of the U.S. Capitol, the place they hope to see federal anti-abortion laws enacted.

The occasion occurred two days earlier than what would have been the Roe v. Wade resolution’s fiftieth anniversary.

Abortion rights advocates have been marking the event by reflecting on the large disruption in U.S. reproductive healthcare during the last 12 months, and calling for extra laws to guard abortion rights.

“On what would have been Roe’s fiftieth anniversary, we’re as a substitute going through the deepest disaster in abortion entry in 50 years,” Herminia Palacio, president of the Guttmacher Institute, mentioned in a press release.

NEXT STEPS

Audio system on the rally included Mississippi Legal professional Normal Lynn Fitch, who gained the case Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group that prompted the Supreme Courtroom to overturn Roe, and U.S. Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise.

Scalise touted the Republican-led Home’s passage of the “Born-Alive” invoice final week, which goals to guard the welfare of infants within the very uncommon prevalence that they’re born throughout abortion procedures. The Democratic-led Senate is unlikely to go the invoice.

Going ahead, the March for Life group plans to ramp up its state march initiative to push for extra state-level restrictions, Mancini mentioned.

The primary state iteration of the nationwide march occurred in 2019 in Virginia. In 2023, the group goals to carry 10 state marches, together with in Arizona, Virginia, California and Connecticut.

Among the many states the place Mancini want to see the march motion increase subsequent are these the place the anti-abortion motion has suffered latest defeats, akin to Michigan, she mentioned.

Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Enhancing by Aurora Ellis

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