Protestors gathered in some of N.C.’s larger cities over the weekend to voice their opposition to Friday’s 6-3 decision in which the court upheld a law in Mississippi that prohibited the abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with a 5-4 majority agreeing further to overturn the Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey precedents guaranteeing women a “constitutional right” to an abortion.
“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
In Charlotte about 300 people from pro-life and pro -choice groups gathered at an abortion clinic to demonstrate. Charlotte police say there was no violence at the gathering. Similar turnouts in Cary, Greensboro, Asheville, and Raleigh brought demonstrators to march, including U.S. Senate candidate Democrat Cheri Beasley who spoke to the protestors in Raleigh. Some there were demanding that Congress codify the original Roe v Wade into federal law, others demanding overthrow of the high court.
In an editorial, University of North Carolina law professor Gene Nichol compared the decision to the beginning of the Civil War, saying that the “Supreme Court fired on Fort Sumter.”
“There is no judicial institution here to save. It’s gone. The only question is whether it takes the democracy with it,” he wrote.
Nichol called for the executive and legislative branches of government to step in and postpone the next term of the Supreme Court.
“The same bunch always warning us of ‘threats to democracy’ are revealing that they don’t care about democracy; they just care about Democratic Party power,” said Brain Balfour, senior vice president of research at the John Locke Foundation.
At the N.C. Republican Party headquarters in Raleigh Friday, vandals spray-painted threats on the NCGOP building. The message read, “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you.” This is the slogan of Jane’s Revenge, a new militant group that began vandalizing pro-life pregnancy centers and churches after the Dobbs decision initially leaked.
“It is unfortunate and unacceptable that left-wing activists resort to vandalism, destruction of property, and threats of violence in response to any political views they disagree with,” the NCGOP wrote in a statement. “The NCGOP calls on Democratic leaders to denounce these and all threats of violence or illegal activity in response to the Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
Other examples of vandalism by Jane’s Revenge and similarly minded abortion-rights activists in the wake of the decision included incidents at pro-life pregnancy centers and churches around the country. In neighboring Virginia, a pregnancy center in Lynchburg was spraypainted with the slogans “Jane’s Revenge” and “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you,” and had multiple windows broken, and a Catholic parish in Reston was targeted with arson and graffiti.
Among supporters of the decision, most focused on the “constitutional” aspect.
“Voters are prob going to come up with some arrangement around abortion that I’m not happy with, but you know I can live with it if the decision was made by politicians picked by me and my neighbors as opposed to nine unelected men in black robes in 1973 mansplaining reproductive rights to the rest of us,” said Charlie Hurst Washington Times opinion editor on Fox News Monday morning.
The Supreme Court’s decision does not ban abortion but rather moves the decision over the legality of abortion to the states. Some states had so-called “trigger laws” that banned or limited abortion once the high court ruled. Louisiana, South Dakota, Kentucky, and Missouri bans are already in effect.