Local anti-abortion activists celebrate court decision limiting reproductive rights

WOOSTER – Cindy Deppe took a deep breath and blew into a horn, blaring a nasal-like noise amid the din of passing traffic along Burbank Road on Friday at noon.

Drivers and the nearby Aldi's customers turned their heads toward the group of over a half dozen anti-abortion rallygoers holding signs and cheering the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In a 6-3 ruling along party lines, the high court scrapped a reproductive rights precedent it set nearly five decades ago.

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The court ruled abortion is not a right protected by the Constitution by upholding a Mississippi ban on most abortions after 15 weeks.

"We're amazed," Deppe said. "All life is precious; babies have rights too."

The ruling has proved to be divisive. On the opposite side of town, Linda Houston spoke out against the high court's decision at the daily Black Lives Matter rally in downtown.

"This is a big problem for minority women who often have worse health outcomes," Houston said.

Supreme Court majority decision

Associate Justice Samuel Alito's penned the 6-3 majority opinion released Friday that struck down the historic decision upholding abortion rights.

"Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," Alito wrote. "Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division."

The opinion immediately shifted the divisive issue to state capitals, where Republican lawmakers are poised to ban or severely limit abortion access with trigger laws while Democrat-controlled states will likely reinforce protections.

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"After today, young women will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers had," Associate Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the dissent. "The majority accomplishes that result without so much as considering how women have relied on the right to choose or what it means to take that right away."

The overturning of Roe v. Wade puts into question existing precedents including same-sex marriage, Breyer wrote.

Alito disagreed.

"But we have stated unequivocally that '[n]othing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,'" Alito wrote in the majority opinion.

Writing separately was Associate Justice Clarence Thomas who explicitly called on the court to revisit other rulings.

"For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell," Thomas wrote.

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut that married couples could purchase contraceptives.

In 2003, the high court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that it was unconstitutional to criminally punish people for sodomy, anal and oral sex.

The most recent of the three, Obergefell v. Hodges, established same-sex marriage as a fundamental right guaranteed by the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Anti-abortion rallygoers see the end of Roe v. Wade as the beginning

For Dorene Miller, the high court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade was a long time coming, but she said more needs to be done to eliminate abortions.

"We need to eliminate chemical abortions and establish sanctuary cities where Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics are banned," said Miller, a Wooster resident.

She organized the small rally in under an hour after the decision was announced, she said. The event is part of the Pro-Life Action League, an anti-abortion movement that aimed to overturn Roe.

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Miller self-identifies as a Christian who views abortion through the Bible.

"Nothing belongs to us because everything belongs to God," she said. "Your body belongs to God."

Another rallygoer, Susan Sonnett was stunned but pleased by the decision.

"I'm grateful to the judges and President Trump who made it possible," Sonnett said. "This is just the beginning; the tide is turning."

The Pregnancy Care Center of Wayne County, which provides pregnancy medical care and abortion education, expressed its support for the decision in a Facebook post writing, "ROE IS OVERTURNED IN A 6-3 DECISION!! #LifeWins #Dobbs."

Despite the decision, the center said the affirmation of the 15-week Mississippi abortion law by the Supreme Court will not change its mission, according to a press release.

"We acknowledge that women and men in our community will still be in crisis. We want to engage, equip and empower women to make healthy pregnancy decisions that are alternatives to abortion," the release stated.

'Abortion saved her'

Jay Klemme, 70, stood at the Wooster square holding a Black Lives Matter sign.

Like him, many of the daily ralliers were not explicitly protesting the Supreme Court decision, but a few spoke out against it.

"My wife had a crisis after we had our two kids; she had an ectopic pregnancy," Klemme said. "Without that abortion, she would have died."

For Klemme, the decision to overturn a precedent that protected a reproductive right puts all women at risk, especially his children and grandchildren.

"I'm out here for Black lives, and this Supreme Court decision is very relevant because it will hurt those in poverty and people of color," he said.

Reach Bryce by email at bbuyakie@gannett.com

On Twitter: @Bryce_Buyakie

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Wooster rallies react to Supreme Court abortion ruling