*Editor’s note: On March 4, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast. The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.
Friday, June 24, was a historic day for the U.S. Early in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Mississippi and held that states have the right to restrict abortion.
The Supreme Court overturned the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision that barred states from imposing such restrictions and established the constitutional right of a woman to seek an abortion. Subsequently, abortions were federally funded.*
The Supreme Court’s held that Roe v. Wade was “egregiously wrong” and that “Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.”
This decision has rendered abortion clinics and nongovernmental organizations such as Planned Parenthood (which, its name notwithstanding, was mainly engaged in parenthood prevention, in short — in abortion propaganda) desperate.
The Supreme Court’s decision didn’t come as a surprise; the numerical superiority of the conservative judges, who took six seats out of nine after Donald Trump’s nominations, ensured that the decision would be as it was. The same was clear from the first-ever-in-the-history-of-the-Supreme Court leak of the draft opinion to the press several months ago.
Activists advocating for a wide range of different rights promised a “summer of rage” if the Supreme Court’s decision matched a draft leaked earlier to the press. They have been preparing to challenge the decision, which means that the midterm election year should proceed like it did in 2020, with mass protests and attacks on those with dissenting views.
Right after the court’s decision, human rights defenders suddenly remembered the word “woman.” Before the decision, they settled on “pregnant people” and didn’t know what a woman was since they were apparently not biologists. And now they have remembered the word “woman,” claiming that a woman must choose what to do with her body, and any infringement on that right is simply unacceptable.
T]hose who talk about how a women’s body is inviolable are the same ones who say people unwilling to be vaccinated for COVID-19 must be forced to do so. So much for deprivation of rights.
Moments after the Supreme Court’s decision was announced, a crowd of anti-abortion supporters assembled around the Supreme Court and erupted into cheers. However, in just a few hours, abortion supporters and antifa militants carrying their black umbrellas arrived and fights broke out.**
There were a huge number of death threats made on Twitter to the Supreme Court justices making the decision; there were those who hoped someone would kill the justices, some said they would do it, and mentioned a justice by name. Twitter did not block any of these accounts and the police did not pay any visit to the homes of the people who tweeted these threats.
Someone even tried to beat up Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene with a flagpole outside the court building and were blocked by her security, who led the congresswoman away. Eventually, the area around the Supreme Court was filled with pro-abortion supporters.. The radical group “Ruth Sent Us” leaked the home address of Justice Clarence Thomas and called for a protest at his residence that evening.
Jennifer Van Laar, the managing editor of Red State, reported that two Supreme Court justices were taken to “safe places,” without specifying which ones. The police arrested an armed man outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house at night earlier this month who admitted that he planned to kill the justice.
Far-left Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maxine Waters also appeared at the Supreme Court, calling for protest, and demonstrators later burned an American flag in Washington.
The protest in Washington was mainly peaceful aside from these events. Later that evening, demonstrators took to the streets shouting “fuck the church, fuck the state, women will decide their fate” at people in restaurants.
The largest and most spectacular protests took place in Los Angeles. Activists there chanted 2020 slogans about burning down police departments in every city and assaulted police officers with fireworks. They blocked a highway and assaulted passing cars with sticks.
New York also saw large protests. And since there was no conservative court [there], the protesters gathered at the Fox News building, chanting “shame.”
Protests in St. Louis, Missouri, organized by Planned Parenthood, were led by Rep. Cori Bush, who compared abortion restrictions to limiting access to medical help for people with mental health problems and heart disease, comparing the process of ending a child’s life to methods that support the lives of others. One of the speakers at this rally went so far as to call abortion an “act of love.”
In Phoenix, Arizona, the protest was organized by Planned Parenthood Action Arizona and Radical Women Phoenix. It was also reported that certain teachers took part in this protest, disgruntled by the fact that, according to new laws, parents will gain the right to control what teachers do. The crowd went on to break down doors at the State Senate Building, and were dispersed by police using tear gas. State senators, evacuated from their chamber, resumed work in another building.
Other large U.S. cities also saw protests, but what happened on Friday was only the beginning. Rep. Lauren Boebert posted a photo on her social media page showing pallets with bricks and wondered what 20 of these pallets were doing just one block away from the Capitol where no construction work was underway.
Major protests are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Conservatives have noted a curious paradox in that leftists protesting abortion bans in Republican states are willing to trash the cities with Democratic mayors, the majority of them located in Democratic states where abortions are legal.
*Editor’s note: With rare exceptions, federal funding for abortions is prohibited by the Hyde Amendment of 1976.
**Editor’s note: Antifa is short for “anti-fascists” an umbrella description for the far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events.
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