Activists march on Roe vs Wade anniversary

Biden slams Republicans over abortion rights, which could emerge as key poll issue in 2024

Editor's note: Saturday marked the first anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs vs Jackson Women's Health Organization case, which overturned the landmark 1973 Roe vs Wade abortion decision. This page takes a closer look at calls across the US for attention to constitutional protections for abortion as well as reactions of leaders from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

"It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives."

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito declared that in the majority opinion he wrote last year that ended the 50-year-old precedent Roe vs Wade and, with it, the constitutional right to abortion in the United States and turned the choice over to state legislatures.

Saturday marked one year since the court's decision. Advocates on both sides marched at rallies in Washington and across the country to call attention to the decision.

"I'm absolutely livid that people think that they can interfere with medical decisions between a woman and her doctor," said Lynn Rust of Silver Springs, Maryland, at a Women's March rally in Washington.

In Chicago, dueling rallies gathered on opposite sides of a street outside a downtown federal building. There was shouting but no reports of clashes.

In Washington, speakers from national abortion rights groups, including Women's March and NARAL Pro-Choice America, assembled in Columbus Circle to celebrate the defeat of some abortion opponents in the 2022 midterm races and to rally voters ahead of next year's congressional and presidential elections.

Across town at the Lincoln Memorial, anti-abortion groups, including Students for Life America, hosted a "National Celebrate Life Day Rally".

On Saturday, President Joe Biden issued a statement vowing to fight against the "extreme and dangerous" effort by Republicans to curb access to the procedure nationwide. He signed an executive order a day before that seeks to protect and expand access to contraception, which advocates had feared Republicans would target next as they seek to impose more restrictions.

In the year since the decision, the overturning of Roe has inflamed debate and deepened divisions along partisan, ideological and religious lines. It has — as Alito urged — moved the issue of abortion rights to state legislatures and courts to decide.

Republican-controlled legislatures in numerous states passed restrictive legislation, with near-total abortion bans now in place in 14 states. Another 11 states have enacted further restrictions on abortion, though some have been tied up in litigation. In 25 states, abortion remains generally legal up to at least 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Estimates from the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit research organization in Colorado focusing on reproductive rights and abortion, suggest the states that instituted abortion bans had more than 7,000 fewer abortions in the six months following Roe.

There have been 40 cases of legal challenges to abortion bans in states and 29 are pending at the trial or appellate level, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school.

More legal constraints could be on the way.

The move from surgical to medication abortion with the use of the drug mifepristone has frustrated abortion opponents. Access to medication abortion is legal in some way in 36 states and Washington, DC. However, a lawsuit seeking to upend the Food and Drug Administration's longtime approval of one of two pills, mifepristone, is being considered by a federal court and is likely to head back to the Supreme Court. The court ruled in April that access to mifepristone may continue while litigants seek to overturn the FDA's approval for it.

"Congressional Republicans want to ban abortion nationwide, but go beyond that, by taking FDA-approved medication for terminating a pregnancy, off the market, and make it harder to obtain contraception," Biden said on Saturday. "Their agenda is extreme, dangerous and out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans."

Polls taken before and after the court's decision have showed a majority of US people favor abortion.

A poll released on June 14 by Washington-based research organization Gallup found that 69 percent of US citizens said abortion should be legal throughout the first trimester of pregnancy. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said the procedure should be legal in the second trimester, while 22 percent said the same about the third trimester.

An NBC News poll released on Thursday showed that 61 percent of all registered voters disapprove of the court's decision. That includes nearly 8 in 10 female voters aged 18 to 49, two-thirds of suburban women, 60 percent of independents and one-third of Republican voters. The poll also showed 87 percent of Democratic voters strongly disapprove of Roe's overturn, versus 52 percent of Republicans who strongly approve.

Strategists in both parties have said that higher support from women who back abortion rights helped lead to a number of prominent victories for Democrats in last year's midterm elections.

Most polls showed inflation as the No 1 issue for voters, with Republicans riding an expected victory wave, but abortion access gave Democrats wins in battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, where abortion was a top issue.

Democrats also expanded their thin Senate majority and kept the GOP's majority in the House narrow when many predicted a "red wave "of Republican victories, but the Democrats' victories helped to weaken the wave into a ripple.

The question now is whether fervor over the fall of Roe that led to the Democrats' victories can last through next year's presidential and congressional races.

Democrats have vowed to codify the right to abortion in federal law, but do not have the votes in Congress to do so.