In New York State, health politicians and professionals have been preparing for weeks for the burial of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy by the US Supreme Court
From New York to California, officials, doctors, or citizens pledge to “fight” for their Democrat-controlled states to be “shelters” that guarantee hundreds of thousands of women each year the right to a safe and legal abortion. .
In the state of New York, the fourth most populous country in the country (20 million inhabitants), politicians and health professionals have been preparing for weeks for the burial of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy by the US Supreme Court.
And in this Democratic-controlled state in the northeastern United States, women are now expected to flock to conservative states in the south and center of the country, some of which immediately banned yesterday, Friday, the abortions in their territory.
“We know the needs will increase dramatically,” said Sarah Mahler, a health professional at Brigid Alliance, which pays for travel, food and accommodation and financially supports low-income women who need to have an abortion.
The association helps about a hundred women each month, and Meller estimates that from now on “hundreds of thousands more people will have to travel outside their states to receive abortion-related health care.”
300,000 abortions per year
Alice Mark, a doctor and counselor at the Massachusetts National Abortion Federation, also wonders “what will happen to all these people in 26 states where abortion will be partially or completely banned.”
To date, she says, 300,000 abortions are performed annually in all of these conservative states, such as Louisiana, Missouri or Oklahoma.
As in Massachusetts, although its governor is Republican and abortion is expensive, Alice Mark hopes “states like Illinois” will make it easier to access their clinics by hiring more staff and opening nights and weekends.
Following the announcement of the shock decision of the US Supreme Court, the governor of New York state Kathy Hawkul was the first politician who complained about the “backwardness of the rights of millions of Americans” and pledged to invest $ 35 million to facilitate access to abortion services “.
“Our state will always be a refuge for those seeking abortion,” said the Democratic governor, who attended a rally of thousands of angry people in Manhattan last night.
“It’s absurd! We’re back 100 years (…) It’s absurd that we have to keep fighting for it,” one of them, Brady Miso, reacted.
In Brooklyn, women interviewed by AFP yesterday expressed their “sadness” and “anger”.
However, although 21-year-old Lily Bernstein wondered if she wanted to “be part of this country”, Nabila Valentin, 36, said: “I am happy to live in New York State where I feel safe and my rights are protected.”
On the other side of the US, the governors of three “progressive” West Coast states, Gavin Newsom in California, Kate Brown in Oregon and Jay Insley in Washington, D.C., “pledged” in a joint statement to contraceptive health care, including abortion “.
33 million women
They lamented that “in more than half the country, 33.6 million women (10% of the US population), abortion will henceforth be illegal or inaccessible.” The three states will release $ 152 million in aid.
At the same time, community and religious associations are also fighting for the right to abortion.
The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), based in the federal capital Washington, has set up a “Jewish access fund for abortion in partnership with the national abortion federation,” the president told AFP.
And she reckons in the Northeastern Democratic States that they will be “shelters” for women: as “the urgency is to help people get in touch to have an abortion.”
Katz is also committed to continuing to fight “so that every woman can decide for herself, consciously, about her body, her life, her future. Whoever she is and wherever she lives.”
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