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Abortion rights activists took to the streets across the country on Tuesday to protest the recent wave of restrictive state laws.
Demonstrators marched, chanted slogans and waved signs in Atlanta, St. Louis and Charlotte, North Carolina, among other cities. Outside the Georgia state capitol, demonstrators held signs that read "Our bodies, our choice" and "You, yes you: Run for office."
In Washington, D.C., hundreds of abortion rights advocates — including some Democrats running for the 2020 presidential nomination — massed in front of the Supreme Court.
"We are not going to allow them to move our country backward," Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told the crowd from a lectern near the high court.
Three Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, also attended the Washington rally.
"I stand in solidarity with those across the country to #StoptheBans," Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., tweeted, using a hashtag that unites all the events. "We will fight with everything we've got to protect a woman's right to make her own health care decisions."
Dozens of other #StopTheBans rallies at statehouses and city centers around the nation — as well as in Puerto Rico and Canada — were scheduled Tuesday.
The events were organized in part by the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America and other abortion rights groups.
Alabama last week enacted the strictest abortion law in the country, making performing the procedure a felony at any stage of pregnancy with close to no exceptions.
Governors in Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have approved laws that would ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected — usually around six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. A federal judge struck down Kentucky's law this month, but Missouri and Louisiana are close to enacting similar prohibitions.
"We have fought — and will continue to fight — these bans in the courts, and we are proud to join today with our partners and people around the country to fight these bans in the streets," the ACLU said in a statement ahead of the day's protests.
Alabama's abortion ban and some of the other recent restrictions are intended to challenge Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide.
