An abortion-rights activist climbed to the top of Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., on Friday to protest the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Twitter user @Crimster shared a video of the protester standing atop the bridge after unfurling a green banner, spraying green smoke. Green is the international color for abortion rights.
The District Department of Transportation shut down the bridge due to safety concerns.
The protester, identified as Guido Reichstadter, is with the group Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, which has been staging demonstrations nationally since a draft version of the opinion was leaked in May.
The Supreme Court struck down the landmark 1973 precedent that protected abortion rights at the federal level in a Friday decision to uphold a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Previously, Roe v. Wade required that states permit abortion until fetal viability, at around 24 weeks of pregnancy, and that requirement was reaffirmed in the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the opinion for the 63 conservative majority.
Knowing this moment would come does not make it any less devastating, Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement. Make no mistake if they can take away the right to abortion, a right we’ve held for nearly 50 years, they won’t stop here: All of our freedoms are on the line.
