Anti-Abortion Marchers Gather With an Eye on the Supreme Court

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Anti-abortion protesters descended on Washington from across the country on Friday for the annual March for Life, a ritual that this year took on a tone of hopeful celebration as they anticipated the Supreme Court overturning the decision that established a constitutional right to abortion half a century ago.

The marchers have arrived by the busload in Washington every January since 1974, the year after the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade established a nationwide right to abortion. The tension this year was higher for both sides in the abortion debate as they await the court’s ruling on a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. The Roe decision forbade states to ban abortion before a fetus becomes viable, or roughly 22 weeks.

At oral arguments in December, the court’s six conservative justices signaled that they were inclined to uphold the Mississippi law. Several justices indicated they were willing to go further and overturn the Roe decision entirely.

“I feel like this year might be the year,” Laura Nunez, a 28-year-old account manager from Philadelphia, said as she gathered with the other marchers on the National Mall. “If that happens, it would be a great win for all of us.”

The typical patient is most likely already a mother, poor, unmarried, in her late 20s, has some college education and is very early in pregnancy.

The number of abortions in the United States has declined since Roe — with 862,000 performed in clinics in 2017, according to Guttmacher. But those declines are largely from a decline in pregnancies. Studies suggest that a reversal of the decision would mostly affect poor women, women of color, and those who are already mothers.

Ms. Mancini, the president of the March for Life, accused abortion rights groups of fearmongering about the risks if Roe falls. In interviews before the march she argued that overturning the decision would simply return the question of abortion rights to states, to decide according to the wishes of their citizens.

Abortion rights supporters argued that the consequences of overturning Roe would be severe and long lasting for women and children.

Diana Greene Foster, the author of the Turnaway Study, which followed about 1,000 women from across the United States over a five-year period — those who had abortions and those who were not able to get them — noted that the women who had to continue their pregnancies often had life-threatening complications and bad health for years. Five years out, women denied an abortion were four times as likely to live below the federal poverty line, and three times as likely to be unemployed. Ninety percent of those women chose to raise the child, she said, and are more likely to stay in contact with an abusive partner.

“People are making careful decisions when they decide to have an abortion,” said Dr. Foster, who is also a professor of obstetrics at the University of California, San Francisco. “They say that they can’t afford a child, and we see they become poorer. They say they need to take care of their existing kids, and their existing children fare worse.”

While the speakers at the rally were optimistic that the court would choose to overturn Roe by this summer, many marchers said they would continue attending future rallies to press for a complete ban across the country.

Doug Winne, 69, and Ruth Winne, 65, had driven two hours from Lancaster, Pa., to this year’s rally. They have attended the March for Life regularly for about 35 years, and Mr. Winne said he was encouraged by the number of younger people in attendance.

Gazing at the crowd around him, Mr. Winne said he was hopeful that younger people would continue to fight to end abortion. “We’re clearly on the older end,” Mr. Winne said. “That’s an encouragement that this isn’t just something that we, as people in their 60s, are concerned about.”

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