On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court reversed the landmark “Roe v. Wade” ruling, which enshrined a nationwide right to abortion in 1973, in a highly controversial decision.
Opponents of abortion and advocates of access to abortion held rallies in the US capital Washington on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision. At a small demonstration, protesters wore T-shirts with inscriptions such as “Unborn Lives Matter” (“The life of the unborn matters”).
Biden warned that Republicans were working on a nationwide ban on abortion. In addition, Republicans in Congress wanted to go further and take FDA-approved abortion pills off the market and make contraception more difficult to access, the president continued.
About 20 conservatively governed states had banned abortions after the Supreme Court’s decision or severely restricted access. The closure of abortion clinics in about a dozen states has forced tens of thousands of women to travel to other parts of the country to have an abortion.
Abortion rights are one of the most controversial socio-political issues in the United States. Biden and his Democratic Party are committed to protecting access to abortion. Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, want to limit or ban abortion altogether.
The issue played a big role in the campaign leading up to last November’s midterm elections – and is likely to do so again in the November 2024 presidential and congressional elections.
The topic is already present in the race for the Republican presidential candidacy. Promising former US President Donald Trump remains vague on whether he would support federal legislation to ban or limit abortion.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is also running for the Republican presidential nomination and is considered Trump’s most dangerous challenger, referred to a law in his state at the evangelical conference in Washington on Friday that bans abortions after just six weeks. “It was the right thing to do – don’t let anyone tell you it wasn’t,” DeSantis said. Trump had criticized the law in Florida as “too tough”.
