San Diego

San Diego Abortion Rights Advocates Rally Against New Laws

Abortion rights advocates across the nation, including in San Diego, held rallies Tuesday against a new wave of restrictive abortion legislation across the country. 

The "Stop the Bans" rallies were being held at four locations in San Diego County as Louisiana inches closer to becoming the sixth state to pass laws meant to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Marchers gathered at noon at San Diego's Federal Court building, in Spring Valley and Escondido and for an evening rally in Poway

Marchers told NBC 7 she believes the right to consider an abortion should be left up to the woman. 

"I think abortion should be a fundamental choice that woman get to make for themselves, with their families, with their doctors," abortion rights supporter Jennifer Henehan said. "It is absolutely immoral that they are people trying to impose what our religious and personal beliefs on other women with, without consent of the actual women." 

Though others in San Diego, including family medicine practicioner George Delgado, thinks it is everyone's responsibility to protect children. 

"I think unfortunately in our country the respect for life has taken a big hit and people now feel abortion is a right," Delgado said. "Tthe right is for all of us to be alive." 

Delgado said with modern care, there is no reason to have an abortion to protect the life of a mother. 

"I think its very important that we have to love and protect both the mother and unborn child, we shouldn’t pick one or the other. Protect both," he said. 

Abortion opponents are emboldened by new conservative justices on the Supreme Court. The opponents have pushed new restrictions in several states this year in the hopes that a case will prompt the court to re-evaluate and maybe overturn Roe v. Wade.

Louisiana's law, awaiting one final vote in the state House, would prohibit abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, similar to laws passed in Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia and Ohio.

Alabama has gone even further, enacting a law that makes performing abortions a felony at any stage of pregnancy with almost no exceptions.

The measures have energized abortion rights activists, who on Sunday marched on the Alabama Capitol in protest of the newly approved abortion ban.

The San Diego rallies were organized in part by Indivisible San Diego, Women's March San Diego, Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union in conjunction with more than 400 demonstrations in all 50 states. The flagship rally will take place outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

None of the laws has actually taken effect, and all are expected to be blocked by the courts as the legal challenges play out with an ultimate eye on the Supreme Court, NBC News reported.

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