Akron celebrates, mourns the end of constitutional right to abortion

Joy and devastation echoed through Greater Akron Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court took away the constitutional right to have abortions.

Allie Frazier, who leads Right to Life Northeast Ohio, called the ruling “inspirational.”

“In order to achieve something great in this world, you have to have capacity to dream,” Frazier said. “It’s such a huge victory…and the pro-life movement led the charge.”

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She said those opposed to abortion rights must now “work even harder than ever” to support women and children through emergency financial lines of support, paid family leave and nonprofits that provide things like diapers and infant formula.

“Pro-life says to love them both, mothers and children” Frazier said. “It’s not a platitude, it’s a promise.”

Just then, cheers erupted behind Frazier, who was with several hundred local and station leaders at the annual National Right To Life Convention in Georgia.

“Everyone was waiting for this, refreshing phones, sitting by laptops,” Frazier said about 40 minutes after the court ruling. “Everyone knew this was happening…but but honestly, there’s just happiness."

'A major step forward in protecting all human life'

Frazier’s celebration was shared by the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, which has long opposed abortion. Bishop Edward Malesic praised the decision, calling it “a major step forward in protecting all human life.”

“I wholeheartedly applaud today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which reverses the grave injustice of 1973, when Roe v. Wade decided that a whole class of human beings, the preborn, are outside the protection of the law and had no constitutional right to life,” Malesic wrote in a statement.

Pro-abortion rights advocates in Akron gather to strategize

Those who support abortion rights in Akron, meanwhile, despaired.

Beth Vild was doing dishes and making coffee when her phone rang Friday morning.

It was her friend, Nancy Holland, an Akron City councilwoman.

“She just called to make sure I heard it from a friend. I live by myself and she said didn’t want me to be alone in this,” Vild said.

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Holland told Vild her Highland Square porch was open and soon Vild, Holland and a half dozen other women gathered there, some in tears, to talk about the ruling and a strategy to fight back, starting with a Reproductive Justice Vigil at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Swirsky Park.

“It’s primarily for people with wombs and allies to come together and grieve and come up with next steps,” said Vild, chief operations officer of the Big Love Network and founder of Wild Woman Designs and Consulting.

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The Rev. Nanette Pitt, the senior minister for the First Congregational Church in Akron, said she expects to care for others who lament the Supreme Court’s decision in her role as a pastor. Her main focus now is “to take care of the women who feel distressed by the fact that personal choice is being removed from them.”

“We believe that women have a right to determine for themselves with their conscience before God and quite frankly, in this instance, with their doctor what should be happening with their bodies,” Pitt said. “As a religious leader, I don’t believe that women’s bodies should be the ground upon which political battles are fought.”

Rabbi Josh Brown from Temple Israel of Akron expressed his disappointment in the ruling, stating that it “weakened the separation of church and state that the Jewish community has so often relied on.”

“Ending a pregnancy is a personal and sacred choice and it is not the job of our courts, our houses of worship or us as individuals to judge that choice,” Brown wrote in a statement to the Beacon Journal. “Jewish tradition has a long history of protecting a mother's life and viewing the fetus as a part of the mother.”

Vild and some others said they fear abortion rights may be the first of other rights taken away, particularly after Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in an opinion Friday that the court should also reconsider rulings that protect contraception and same-sex marriage.

“I thought that we would have more time, with all the things going on around gun violence, it would buy us more time to protect Roe,” said Vild, “But they have their own agendas making us second class.”

The Rev. Michael Howard, who is a minister with the United Church of Christ of Northeast Ohio, shared Vild's fear of what might happen if the Supreme Court reconsiders these other rulings.

“Think about how many people are gonna hurt from this,” Howard said. “If any of that changes, I mean, that’s just going to have a tidal wave of devastation to families across the country.”

Ohio anti-abortion rights advocates pushing for full ban

Abortion, for now, remains legal in Ohio up until 20 weeks of pregnancy.

But it’s not clear for how long.

Within two hours of the Supreme Court ruling, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a motion asking a federal judge to allow a 2019 state law banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected to be implemented.

If a judge hears arguments on both sides, it could take a couple of weeks to rule on the so-called “heartbeat law.”

Frazier’s group, however, is pushing for an even stricter Ohio law called the Human Life Protection Act that would end all abortion.

“We do believe there are no caveats on rights for humans,” she said, adding that “science makes this clear” that all the DNA necessary for human life is present at conception.

The law, she said, wouldn’t punish women who seek abortion and wouldn’t ban them from leaving Ohio to seek abortion. But it would hold doctors or others who perform abortion legally accountable, including those who supply drugs for non-surgical abortions.

Kellie Copeland, who leads Pro Choice Ohio and is based in Akron, said the law would hurt women because, among other things, it doesn’t allow for any exceptions, even if an abortion could save the life of a mother.

“That’s the big lie. Women are already penalized,” Copeland said. “Do we really think they will stop here?”

Copeland said three abortion clinics are still serving Greater Akron and urged people to keep appointments they have and to schedule appointments they need as soon as possible.

Frazier said her organization is pivoting after the Supreme Court ruling.

“Our biggest focus is to come toward the people on the other side (of abortion rights) who feel scared or threatened,” Frazier said. “I don’t view you as an enemy, but as a friend.”

'Ohio is not a safe place for pregnant women'

But those who support abortion rights appeared to be unlikely to join hands with those celebrating, expressing fear, disappointment and rage.

“Majority of the country supports abortions,” Paranita Singh — who organized a Bans Off our Bodies rally in Akron earlier this year — posted on Facebook.

Above the post was an image of women wearing red capes like characters from the book and television show “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a dystopian fiction where U.S. men treat women like property.

The caped women in Singh’s photo hold signs reading, among other things, “Get out of our Privates” and “Never Again” with a picture of a coat hanger, something people used to perform abortions until they were legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court nearly 50 years ago.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again the Supreme Court does not represent the American people,” Singh wrote. “It is full of conservative psychopaths who want to strip us of all our human rights. It’s anti democratic and broken.”

Vild, meanwhile, was thinking about her own future.

At 36, she planned to have children in the next year or two.

“What if something goes wrong? If I have a partial miscarriage, am I going to be forced to die?” she asked since abortion may not be an option.

Vild said she’s thinking about moving to New York, where she can live with her brother for the duration of the pregnancy.

“Ohio is not a safe place for pregnant women,” Vild said.

And yet Frazier, and many celebrating the end of Roe, say they're working to make sure it's never been safer, for women or their unborn children.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron celebrates, mourns end of of Constitutional right to abortion