D.C. Closes Bridge after Pro-Abortion Activist Climbs Archway to Protest Overturn of Roe

The Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., closed for hours Friday after a pro-abortion protester scaled one of the bridge’s arches, which are 1,445 feet tall, to protest the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Guido Reichstadter climbed the bridge around 11 a.m., roughly an hour after the Court issued a 5-4 decision returning the question of abortion to the states. Reichstadter posted a tweet as recently as 6:30 p.m., still atop the bridge’s arches.

Officials placed a large inflatable underneath him around noon, Fox 5 D.C. reported. Several Capitol Police cars and at least two fire trucks were on scene, the Daily Wire reported.

“Hey I’m at the top of the Frederick Douglass bridge in Washington DC right now & want to know why YOU aren’t in the streets nonviolently shutting down the gov day after day after day till Congress protects abortion rights? Rise Up my Friends!” Reichstadter wrote in a tweet from atop one of the bridge’s arches.

He said during an Instagram Live video that he planned to be on top of the bridge for “as long as I physically can,” Fox News reported.

The protester told the Daily Wire in a message that he was “getting closer to God” and would come down “any day now.”

“I found a way up, I’ll find one down I guess . . .” he told the outlet.

The demonstration comes after Reichstadter was arrested on June 6 after he chained himself to a fence outside the Supreme Court building using a bike lock and chain, though he did not ultimately face charges, the Daily Wire reported.

“I am not letting my daughter’s rights be taken away by this unelected, unaccountable Supreme Court,” he said while chained to the fence earlier this month.

The Court issued a 6-3 decision on Friday upholding a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks. Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the majority opinion, was joined in upholding the Mississippi law by Justices Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts.

However, Roberts split from the 5-4 majority on overturning Roe. He explained in a concurring opinion that he would have taken a “more measured course” stopping short of overturning Roe altogether but agreed that the Mississippi abortion ban should stand.

The Court’s 5-4 decision returns the question of abortion to the states.

“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Alito wrote for the majority.

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