Protesters arrested at Supreme Court abortion rights rally (2)

More than 180 people have been arrested near the US Supreme Court in Washington, including Democratic lawmakers, during a protest in support of abortion rights.

Hundreds of people marched to court on Thursday and briefly halted traffic in response to Roe vs. Wade overturned last week. Organizers, including the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the Center for Popular Democracy, said they want to break the record for the most women arrested in a single action on Capitol Hill.

US Capitol Police said they took 181 people away for blocking an intersection on a street that runs alongside the courthouse. Among them was the candidate for Congress Brittany Ramos DeBarroswho is running for a House seat in the borough of Staten Island in New York, according to a statement from his campaign.

“I’m here to make sure that every woman in every state in this country has the right to an abortion,” the rep said. Judy Chu, a California Democrat, who was among those seated at a crossroads and arrested by police. “We’ve seen the Supreme Court’s devastating decision, and it’s already putting lives at risk.”

Others briefly held up a green banner on Constitution Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Washington, which read “We will not back down.” The demonstrators chanted: “We want justice. We want it now.

Actress Busy Philipps and #MeToo activist Tarana Burke were among those leading the crowd that marched to and around the Supreme Court.

Police created a bicycle barrier surrounding protesters sitting at an intersection and began arresting people just after noon.

Protesters rallied in support of abortion rights after the June 24 Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling that established a woman’s procedural right in the United States. Since then, several states have implemented so-called trigger laws that immediately ban or severely restrict abortions.

The protest coincided with a historic day for the Supreme Court as Ketanji Brown Jackson has been sworn as the first black woman to sit on the bench. She occupies the seat vacated by outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer.

Earlier Thursday, President Joe Biden said he would support change the Senate’s filibuster rules provide an exception for laws guaranteeing the right to privacy and access to abortion.

(Updates with tally of police arrests in third paragraph.)

–With the help of Billy House and Zach C. Cohen.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Madison Alder in Arlington at [email protected];
Alicia Diaz in Washington at [email protected];
Maia Spoto in Arlington at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Scott Lanman to [email protected]

Katia Dmitrieva, Margaret Collins

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