On Saturday, the first Women’s March under the Biden administration marched straight to the Supreme Court. This was part of large-scale protests across the country that drew many people to Washington and elsewhere to ask for abortion access in a year in which conservative judges and lawmakers have threatened it.

The streets were crowded with thousands of demonstrators shouting “My Body, My Choice” to cheer loudly to the beats of the drums.

The marchers gathered on a square just near the White House, before setting off. Many held up signs such as “Mind you own uterus,” and “I love someone who had an abortion,” along with other messages. Some people wore Tshirts with the words “1973” on them, a nod to the Roe V. Wade landmark decision that made abortion legal for all American women.

Elaine Baijal (19 years old) was an American University student who took cell phone photos along with her friends, and also their signs when the event started. According to her, her mother had told her that she went along with her mother to the 1969 march in support of legal abortion.

It’s bitter that 40 years after the march, we have still to fight for what is right. Baijal spoke of the march as a “tradition I would like to keep,”

According to organizers, the Washington march is one of hundreds planned nationwide on Saturday. These demonstrations were held just prior to the start of a new term for the Supreme Court on Monday that will decide the future of abortion rights in the United States, after appointments of justices by President Donald Trump strengthened conservative control of the high court.

“Shame!” On their way to the Supreme Court, marchers sang “Shame, shame and shame!” Some protestors booed at Trump’s landmark and waved their arms.

Biden’s administration was in place the day before the march. urged a federal judge to block The nation’s strictest abortion law has been in effect since September and prohibits all abortions in Texas. The case is just one in a number of that could give America’s divided high courts an opportunity to either uphold Roe or overrule Roe.

Many of those who spoke and demonstrated were motivated by the Texas law.

Marsha Jones from Afiya Center for Black Women’s Health Care in Dallas said, “We’re going to continue giving it Texas,” and she made the pledge to the Washington crowd. “You cannot tell us how to manage our bodies!”

Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood nationally, told of women forced to drive many hours across state lines — sometimes multiple state lines — to end pregnancies in the weeks since the Texas law went into effect.

Johnson stated that “the moment is dark…but that is why it is here”, to the packed Freedom Square crowd. This fight, no matter where you live, is right at your fingertips with the Supreme Court term.

Governor. Kathy Hochul addressed rallies at Seneca Falls, then Albany. She said, “I am sick and tired of fighting over abortion rights.” “It is settled law in this nation, and you’re not taking it away from us now nor ever.”

Unrelated to the Maine event, Republican Senator Susan Collins called Texas’ law “extremely inhumane” and declared that she is working hard to make Roe V. Wade “the law of the land.”

She stated that she was working together with two Democrats as well as a Republican to “vet” the bill’s language. Collins refused to name her colleagues but stated that legislation will soon be introduced.

This year’s march theme was referred to as “macabre” by an opponent of abortion access for women.

“What about equality for unborn females?” Jeanne Mancini is president of March for Life, an anti-abortion organization.

The Women’s March has become a regular event — although interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic — since millions of women turned out in the United States and around the world the day after the January 2017 inauguration of Trump. Trump supported punishing women who have abortions, and made it a goal of his presidency to appoint conservative judges.

With the sun beating down Saturday, Ramsay Teviotdale of Arlington, Virginia — who when asked her age said she was “old enough to remember when abortion wasn’t legal” — was one of the few wearing the hand-knitted pink wool caps that distinguished the 2017 Women’s March.

Trump has been removed as the central figure of women from many political backgrounds to support them, and the pandemic is still going strong. Organisers talk about hundreds of thousands of people participating nationally Saturday. They are not talking of the millions.

Teviotdale stated that this doesn’t lessen the urgency. “This Texas thing — no way can it stand. “It’s just the thin edge,” she stated.

Rachel O’Leary Carmona (executive director of Women’s March) stated in a statement that the march was part of “a fight against, safeguard, strengthen, and secure our constitutional right to abortion.” “And it’s a fight against the Supreme Court justices, state lawmakers, and senators who aren’t on our side — or aren’t acting with the urgency this moment demands.”

Cristela Alonzo, a Latina comedian and activist, hosted the rally in Washington on Saturday. It featured speeches by many abortion providers and advocates. Participating were actress Busy Phillips and the swimmer Schuyler Bailar.

The security in the capital was less than it was for the rally supporting Trump supporters who were jailed during the Jan. 6, insurrection. A fence was not put around the U.S. Capitol. The Capitol Police chief said that there wasn’t any evidence suggesting Saturday’s demonstration would be violent.