“I can’t believe it’s real,” said Lauren Marlowe, 22, an antiabortion demonstrator who shrieked and embraced her friends when the decision came down. “I just want to hug everyone. … We’re in a post-Roe America now.”
Tanya Matthews, a 26-year-old masters student in anthropology from Charleston, S.C., was on her way to the Library of Congress when she heard about the decision and headed to the Supreme Court. Matthews, who said she had an abortion at 19 and supports abortion rights, was dismayed by the celebratory crowd of antiabortion activists, many of whom were young women.
“It feels like we’re at a Justin Bieber concert,” Matthews said. “They don’t understand the gravity of this decision. Just because it’s not legal doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen.”
She interrupted antiabortion activist A.J. Hurley as he explained why he had come to Washington from Los Angeles.
“What about rapists?” Matthews asked, referring to abortion exceptions.
“I think rapists should be executed, but you don’t execute the child for the crimes of the father,” Hurley, 38, replied.
Matthews asked how he could be for the death penalty and call himself “pro-life.”
“I hate rapists more than you do,” he said. “I have a degree in biology. You don’t have a degree.”
“You don’t know my degree,” Matthews shot back.
By midday, such confrontations had not escalated into violence, authorities said. Police officers observed a scene in which equally impassioned crowds chanted but did not confront each other en masse.
Shortly before noon, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) appeared at the rally and delivered a speech through a borrowed megaphone to abortion rights supporters.
“This is not going to be instant gratification,” she said, promising a long fight to rebuild the rights the court revoked Friday. She left amid an escort of police officers, who protected her from antiabortion activists who swarmed and screamed at her.
Dustin Sternbeck, a D.C. police spokesman, said the full department had been activated, meaning all officers were standing by to be deployed as necessary to the demonstrations.
A few miles south, traffic on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge spanning the Anacostia River was shut down late Friday morning after D.C. police said a demonstrator climbed to the top of a 70-foot-tall archway.
Police said the demonstrator displayed a flag or a banner reading: “Don’t tread on my uterus.” Authorities halted traffic on the bridge as they tried to coax the person down.
Caroline Flermoen and Kate Spaulding, both 17, had just begun their walking tour…
Read More: Supreme Court protests erupt after Roe v. Wade ruling in Dobbs
