Posted25 June 2022, 10:33
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Leaders, doctors or citizens promise to “fight” so that their democratic states guarantee hundreds of thousands of women the right to a legal and safe abortion.
Thousands of people angry after the Supreme Court’s decision demonstrated Friday night in Manhattan, New York.
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In the state of New York, fourth in the country (20 million inhabitants), classified on the left because of the weight of its megalopolis, politicians and health professionals had been preparing for weeks for the burial of the right to interruption voluntary pregnancy by the Supreme Court.
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And in this Democratic stronghold in the northeast, an influx of patients is now expected from conservative states in the south and center of the country, some of which immediately banned abortion on their soil on Friday. “We know that the needs are going to skyrocket,” says Sarah Moeller, health professional from the Brigid Alliance association, which pays for travel, accommodation, food and financial support for women of modest means who have to perform an abortion.
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Her association helps a hundred women each month, and Sarah Moeller now estimates that “hundreds of thousands more people will have to travel out of their states for abortion-related health care.”
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300,000 abortions per year in conservative states
Alice Mark, a doctor and adviser to the National Abortion Federation in Massachusetts, also wonders “what will happen to all these people in the 26 states where abortion is going to be partially or totally banned”. There are to date, according to her, 300,000 voluntary terminations of pregnancy per year in all these conservative states such as Louisiana, Missouri or Oklahoma.
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As in Massachusetts – even if its governor is Republican and abortion is expensive there – Alice Mark hopes that “states such as Illinois” will make their clinics more accessible, by hiring more staff, and open at night. and the weekend.
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Protest in Manhattan
Upon the shock announcement of the Supreme Court’s decision, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul was the first politician to denounce a “rollback in the rights of millions of American women” and promised to “invest $35 million to facilitate access to health services for abortion”. “Our state will always be a sanctuary for those seeking to perform an abortion,” assured the elected Democrat, who took part, Friday evening, in a demonstration of thousands of angry people in Manhattan.
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“We have gone back 100 years. It’s insane that we have to continue to fight for this,” said Brandy Michaud. In Brooklyn on Friday morning, several women had already expressed their “sadness” and their “anger”. But if Lili Bernstein, 21, wondered about her desire to “be part of this country”, Nabila Valentin, 36, said on the contrary “happy to live in the State of New York”, where she feels “safe” and where her rights are “protected”.
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The three Pacific Rim states unite
At the other end of America, the governors of three “progressive” West Coast states – Gavin Newsom in California, Kate Brown in Oregon and Jay Inslee for Washington State – have “committed” in a text common to “advocate for access to contraceptive health care, including abortion”.
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They regretted that “in more than half of the country – that is 33.6 million women (10% of the American population, editor’s note) – abortion is now illegal or inaccessible”. The three states are to release $152 million in aid.
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(AFP)
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