Ohio abortion rights advocates support Roe v. Wade outside Statehouse

Deborah O’Brien has been right here earlier than.

“I used to be on the Girls’s March in (Washington) D.C., and now I am right here once more,” the 70-year-old mentioned.

O’Brien was one in every of a number of hundred protestors who gathered Saturday with flags, indicators and coat hangers outdoors the Ohio Statehouse as a part of a nationwide “Ban Off Our Our bodies” occasion, organized by Deliberate Parenthood and a number of other ladies’s rights organizations.

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The rally got here in response to the leaked U.S. Supreme Court docket draft choice indicating that overturning the choice in Roe v. Wade, which has protected abortion rights nationally since 1973, was imminent.

Organizers handed out indicators studying “Bans off our our bodies” and “Stand with Black ladies,” whereas handmade indicators within the crowd had extra scathing messages, equivalent to “In case you minimize off my reproductive alternative, can I minimize off yours?” with a hand-drawn image of a pair of scissors, and “If I needed the federal government in my uterus, I might (expletive) a senator.”

“I need Mike DeWine to grasp, or hopefully Nan Whaley, if she will get elected, however I need the Ohio Legislature to grasp that we’d like entry to protected abortion,” mentioned Christina Pusecker, 48, of Cedarville. “The primary rally I attended was in Washington, D.C., in April 1992, when the Supreme Court docket was deciding the Casey case.”

Round 1 p.m., crowds blocked West Broad and North Excessive streets, straight outdoors the Statehouse and chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, abortion bans have gotten to go,” in addition to “1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-(expletive)-12,” referring to police.

Anti-abortion advocates held indicators outdoors the rally as nicely, with members of the anti-abortion group “Created Equal” holding indicators with pictures of aborted fetuses.

“I am simply giving out my opinion,” mentioned James Stevens, who sat close to the Statehouse. “In case you’re mad since you bought pregnant, you should not have had intercourse. If you are going to have kids, would possibly as nicely have them stay.”

One speaker in contrast the U.S. to Vatican Metropolis and the Philippines, two locations the place abortion is against the law.

The speaker later led a chant in Filipino: “Maki baka,” that means “I’ll persist.”

Kim Thompson, 65, of Marysville, held two indicators — one with a bloody coat hanger and one other studying “I’ve no regrets.”

“I hope to make the Supreme Court docket see that they are going towards the fallacious choice and that individuals are not going to be completely happy about it,” Thompson mentioned. “This is a crucial difficulty, and it is opening a can of worms that is going to go in quite a lot of completely different instructions, and isn’t going to take a seat nicely with America.”

Pam MacDougall, 57, of Marietta, held up an indication with the obituary of her great-grandmother, Hazel Carr, who died after having an unlawful abortion carried out by a midwife.

“My great-grandfather remarried, however two years later, he died, leaving my grandfather an orphan as a result of some individuals really feel that they’ve the precise to inform different individuals what to do with their our bodies,” MacDougall mentioned. “My physique, my alternative; finish of debate.”

“I simply cannot imagine we’re again at this once more,” O’Brien mentioned. “I am actually, actually upset.”

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