PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Protests continue around the nation, the West Coast and in Portland following the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned a constitutional right to an abortion.
The court ruled 6-3 to uphold a Mississippi abortion ban being challenged in the case and 5-4 to overturn Roe. The difference is that in the second vote, Chief Justice John Roberts was the 4th vote to not overturn Roe.
Late Saturday afternoon, abortion rights supporters hung banners from overpasses along the length of I-5 to get their message out: “Politicians need to keep their bans off our bodies!”
The #BansOffOurBodiesWestCoast action, according to a release from Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, will show “support for reproductive freedom from Canada to Mexico.
In Portland, demonstrators hung the banner from the overpass at North Missouri and Ainsworth.
There were no counter-protesters at this location.
Skyler Howe, who was one of the people hanging the banner in Portland, said she is fine with anyone who wants to counter-protest.
“If they disagree with that, that is their right,” Howe said. “However, we’re out here and we’re not going to stop. We’re not going away now and we’re not going away for as long as it takes to restore our freedoms and completely reach equality.”
An Do, the executive director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, said this and other similar protests are important at this very moment.
“It’s incredibly important in this moment, when the Supreme Court has literally robbed us of our bodily autonomy, our power over our lives and futures, and handed over that power to politicians, that we show up in the streets on I-5, because we know that now people are going to be traveling hundreds of miles in order to get the care that they need,” she said.
The Portland demonstration was one of 3 banner drops in Oregon, with the others in Salem and Eugene.
This demonstration followed on the heels of a large gathering in Portland Friday night that brought more than 1500 people downtown to voice their displeasure over the Supreme Court decision.
Activists who spoke with KOIN 6 News said they are “disappointed and enraged” by the Supreme Court decision.
“This is not what most people in America want and lives are at stake – lives have already been sacrificed. It’s the end of rights as we have known them and have been fighting for so many years,” Samantha Willow told KOIN 6 News.
Around 11 p.m., well after the bulk of the crowd had already left, a KOIN 6 News crew saw a separate group start marching, with some participants throwing glass bottles at the federal court house building and starting a street fire.
Portland police said no arrests were made.
KOIN 6 News will continue to follow this story.