Thousands of demonstrators turned out in San Antonio, Texas, over the weekend in opposition to a recently enacted ban on nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy in Texas. Similarly styled demonstrations unfolded in hundreds of other cities on the same day, with protesters uniting in their opposition to draconian attempts to impose harsh restrictions on those who may become pregnant at some point in their lives. Check out footage of those in San Antonio below:
Here is a look at protesters gathered in Downtown San Antonio to march against Texas' abortion ban. pic.twitter.com/3ME48IvM0a
— KENS 5 (@KENS5) October 2, 2021
Texas’s abortion ban was allowed to remain in effect, for now, by the U.S. Supreme Court, meaning that reproductive rights remain severely curtailed in the state of Texas. Unlike other attempts at imposing abortion bans where the responsibility for enforcing the law rests with government personnel, the Texas legislation includes provisions by which private citizens handle “enforcement” of the law. Under the guidelines, private citizens may sue those suspected of involvement in the procurement of an illegal abortion, and should such claims be successful, those who brought them are entitled to at least $10,000 — essentially setting up a bounty system.
Regarding the weekend demonstration in San Antonio, the San Antonio Report shared that “Organizers came from a broad coalition including Planned Parenthood, Texas Organizing Project, Avow, The Lilith Fund, Southwest Workers Union, Women’s March San Antonio, Women’s March Central Texas, and others,” and the outlet added that the event “may have been the largest political demonstration since the Black Lives Matter protests last summer.” Exact estimates of the crowd size varied, with Mara Posada, who serves as director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood, stating that some 3,000 people were there, while Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar placed the crowd size at 4,000.
Amanda Reyna, who serves as a board member for the abortion fund known as the Lilith Fund, said at the rally that “we are done compromising and playing defense when it comes to our lives and our families.” The Justice Department, as led at present by Attorney General Merrick Garland, has filed a lawsuit against Texas over the abortion ban. Garland said that the law “is clearly unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent,” and he added that federal officials have “the authority and responsibility to ensure that no state can deprive individuals of their constitutional rights through a legislative scheme specifically designed to prevent the vindication of those rights.”
