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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Monday lauded protesters expressing “righteous anger” in the wake of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that shows the court may be poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“While we have seen and heard extraordinary anguish in our communities,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said, “we have been moved by how so many have channeled their righteous anger into meaningful action: planning to march and mobilize to make their voices heard.”
In the statement, Pelosi also attacked Republicans and the Supreme Court over the expected ruling, and says that Democrats will “fight relentlessly to enshrine Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Capitol in Washington, March 30, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“Republicans have made clear that their goal will be to seek to criminalize abortion nationwide,” Pelosi said. “Republican state legislators across the country are already advancing extreme new laws, seeking to arrest doctors for offering reproductive care, ban abortion entirely with no exceptions, and even charge women with murder who exercise their right to choose.”
Pelosi’s statement comes just two days before the Senate is set to take a procedural vote on a bill that would codify abortion protections at a federal level, superseding any state laws on the matter. But the bill is almost certain not to pass, as Republicans oppose it and in the 50-50 Senate, Democrats don’t have the votes to break a filibuster.
The statement also follows a week in which protests broke out in front of the Supreme Court, leading police to erect a fence around the building. And over the weekend some protesters also showed up outside the houses of the conservative justices who are expected to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
WHITE HOUSE CONDEMNS ‘ATTEMPTS TO INTIMIDATE’ DURING PRO-ABORTION PROTESTS AT CATHOLIC CHURCHES
Protestors organized by “Shut Down DC” are expected at the home of Justice Samuel Alito, author of the leaked draft opinion, Monday evening.
Some Republicans, meanwhile, are alleging that those protests are against the law. They cite a federal law that makes it illegal to “picket or parade” outside a courthouse or a judge’s residence “with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty.”
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Politico first broke the news that the justice were planning to overturn Roe v. Wade in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, publishing a draft opinion from Alito from February that called for overturning Roe.
It’s not clear exactly when the justices will formally release their ruling in the case. It’s expected that they will do so by late June or early July, when the Supreme Court’s current term ends.