Katie Barnett walks between the tables at Community Hall in Southampton, a northern Philadelphia suburb, on Sunday, May 15. She thanks the hundreds of supporters who have come to support her run for the United States Senate in the Republican Party primary. No mention of her position on abortion in her remarks. But everyone, like Richard, in his picture t-shirt and Trump cap, knows his personal story: “Unfortunately, Katie Barnett’s mother was raped when she was 11 and she is the result of that rape. Your mother did not have an abortion.” . And that’s how she is for life.”
>>> American women demonstrate in Paris for abortion rights in the USA: “My own mother had an illegal abortion 50 years ago and almost died”
Abortion, which is permitted in Pennsylvania up to the 24th week of pregnancy, is again dividing the country. In recent weeks, demonstrations for and against abortion have increased. The starting point of this mobilization was the leak of a project by the Supreme Court, which wants to reconsider the right to voluntary abortion guaranteed by a 1973 case law. The text was voted on, the country’s highest judiciary authority could leave each state free to legislate on the subject as it pleases.
Hymn, prayer…welcome to this multipurpose shed in Lititz, Lancaster County, in the heart of Amish country, that religious community opposed to technological advances. We came here to listen to another Republican candidate, businessman Dave McCormick, who is also not speaking out on the Supreme Court leaks on abortion.
Diana, a Catholic – like one in five adults in Pennsylvania – hopes the issue doesn’t divide her camp: “I think this leak was planned to rally the left, to get people to vote. They say the gay community will be next. It’s funny that there was a leak just before these primaries.” All of this, she says, serves to distract from problem number one, inflation.
For Rud, abortion embarrasses a large segment of Republican voters. Hence the candidates’ discretion: “I think there’s a good percentage of Republicans who aren’t necessarily pro-abortion, but have a problem telling women what they can and can’t do.” Trump lost Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes in the last presidential election. It’s one of the states that could determine which party controls the Senate in Washington after November’s midterm elections.
United States: abortion rights in the midterm election campaign – report by Sébastien Paour
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