New York, June 24. With red paint on a white skirt and legs, a 33-year-old woman sat this Friday on Fifth Avenue in New York along with thousands of people to protest against the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to annul the protection of the right to abortion , in force since 1973, in a historic decision that will allow each state to decide whether to maintain or prohibit this reproductive right.
“This morning I woke up full of anger and sadness because I knew this was going to happen. This decision does not reflect the point of view of the majority of the people of the country. The Supreme Court made a decision that the majority of this country does not support” , told Efe the young woman who identified herself with the pseudonym Jane Roe, the same one that Norma McCorvey used in her lawsuit, which in 1973 led to the Supreme Court’s decision to protect the right to abortion throughout the United States.
For this New Yorker, protesting is the only way she can ask for change, and she says she will do so until the government acts and “makes, through federal law, abortion legal and easily accessible to all people living in the country”.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, affirmed this Friday from the White House that his Government will defend the right to abortion and encouraged Americans to turn out to vote in the November elections to guarantee a majority in Congress to pass laws that protect him
For her part, Judy Leventhal went out to protest in Washington Square Park – a central square that has historically been a traditional site of political rallies and demonstrations – with a coat hanger in hand along with a poster that read: “The future”.
“Using a coat hanger is how you had to deal with unwanted pregnancies in the past. And this is what we’re coming back to in much of America today. Fortunately not here in New York, but what if my children move to a state where they can’t have abortions? I am horrified”, explains the 64-year-old woman.
Leventhal said that she grew up knowing that she had the option to have an abortion, although she never used it, and that she finds it “terrifying” to think that this right will no longer be a reality for many women in other states.
Until now, 9 states of the 50 that make up the country have prohibited the interruption of pregnancy this Friday as soon as the Supreme Court’s decision was known, while another 14 states could do so in the short term.
New York is on the other side, in this state abortion is safe, accessible and legal both for its residents and for other women in the United States.
“Last month, in anticipation of this decision, I made a historic $35 million investment to support our state’s network of abortion providers,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said today in a statement. .
In the massive New York protest on Friday, green abounded, a nod to the Argentine activists who, after many protests, managed to pressure Argentina to protect voluntary abortion by law until the 14th week of gestation, and, in addition, messages could be read in Spanish.
“Sexual education to decide. Contraceptives to prevent. Legal abortion so as not to die,” read the cardboard of Ana Sofía, a Mexican who is studying in the Big Apple.
“I am quite surprised that now in states like Texas, women have fewer rights than in (some states of) Mexico, which is a historically conservative country. But it still scares me a little, because I think that usually what happens in the United States has repercussions in Latin America, so I think this could be the trigger for something much bigger,” the 26-year-old noted.
Sarah Yanez-Richards
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