WASHINGTON — Monday marked the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned the federal legal right to an abortion. Hundreds of demonstrators in D.C. held a women's strike in front of the United States Supreme Court.
Organizers with the National Organization of Women and the Women's March said D.C. was one of the eight cities across the country holding strikes Monday.
"We stand together for all Americans to show that the nation needs us."
Zoe Johnson, 15, from Roanoke, Virginia was among the demonstrators and even though she won't be able to vote in the upcoming election, she says it's important to make sure her voice is heard.
"It’s just our bodily autonomy, and it’s being taken away by old white men who don’t know what it’s like to be a woman, to have a uterus, to be scared to walk the streets alone," she said.
Tamika Middleton, who is the Managing Director of the Women's March, said she was encouraged by the number of younger people like Zoe getting involved in mobilizing efforts.
NOW President Christian Nunes said in a statement that the organization will stand with the Women's March to show that women's contributions will not be taken for granted.
“Roe was the federal umbrella that protected a woman’s basic right to bodily autonomy. However, the Supreme Court destroyed it with the Dobbs decision. Two years later, women have fewer rights than we did fifty years ago," Nunes said in a statement Monday.
Vice President Kamala Harris said “everything is at stake” with reproductive health rights in November's election as the Biden campaign steps up its focus on contrasting the positions taken by Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump on the issue before their debate this week. Harris is expected to be in College Park, Maryland on Monday.
President Joe Biden issued a statement Monday that said, in part:
"My message to Americans is this: Kamala and I are fighting like hell to get your freedom back. And we won’t stop until we restore the protections of Roe v. Wade for every woman in every state.”
“Every person of whatever gender should understand that, if such a fundamental freedom such as the right to make decisions about your own body can be taken, be aware of what other freedoms may be at stake,” Harris said in a joint MSNBC interview with Hadley Duvall, an abortion rights advocate from Kentucky who was raped by her stepfather as a child. Part of the interview aired Sunday.
The Biden campaign believes that abortion rights can be a galvanizing issue in what is expected to be a close general election.
Pro-life activists showed up to the strike by the dozens, chanting and holding up signs.
"Abortion is murder so we’re going to say it," said Caroline Smith, who is the Executive Director of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, "I am here to celebrate because we have saved thousands of lives since Roe fell two years ago but clearly all these people think it’s okay to murder human beings so we’re going to come here and have our voices heard."
Trump has taken credit for Dobbs with his conservative base, while stopping short of supporting a national abortion ban sought by supporters on the religious right.
In April, Trump said he believed the issue should be left to the states. He later stated in an interview that he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion if it were passed by Congress. He has declined to detail his position on women’s access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
At a campaign event Saturday, Trump said his administration did “something that was amazing” with Dobbs, while acknowledging the political peril of pressing further on the issue at the moment.
“Every voter has to go with your heart and do what’s right, but we also have to get elected,” he said.
Biden has begun private preparations at Camp David for the debate Thursday night in Atlanta. Trump is expected to hold meetings at his Florida estate this week as part of an informal prep process.
Duvall, of Owensboro, Kentucky, first told her story publicly last fall in a campaign ad during the governor’s race in her home state discussing the consequences of abortion restrictions, particularly those without exceptions for rape or incest.
Duvall also joined first lady Jill Biden at a Pittsburgh campaign rally Sunday where the two criticized Trump for supporting the Dobbs decision.
“He thinks we can be ignored,” Biden said of Trump. “He doesn’t know that when our bodies are on the line, when our daughters' futures are at stake, we are immovable and we are unstoppable.”
Duvall's home state of Kentucky has enacted a near-total abortion ban following the Dobbs decision. The state bans abortions except when carried out to save the mother’s life. It does not include exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
Trump in a Fox News interview earlier this month said the way some states are enshrining abortion rights and others are restricting them was "a beautiful thing to watch.”
“I would like to ask him: What is so beautiful about telling a 12-year-old girl that she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her?” Duvall said.
The Associated Press does not normally identify sexual assault victims, but Duvall, 22, chose to be identified and has spoken out publicly about her experience and its connection to the debate over abortion.
RELATED: The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Here’s the state of abortion rights now in the US
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