Hundreds of rallies held across the USA in support of abortion rights

Pro-choice supporters have demonstrated at hundreds of rallies across the United States after the Supreme Court indicated that it will soon scrap the constitutional right to abortion established in 1973.

A leaked draft opinion has suggested the court’s conservative majority will overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling from nearly half a century ago.

Republican-led states are now poised to enact tighter restrictions.

About a thousand abortion rights protesters gathered outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in Louisville, one of only two abortion providers in the state of Kentucky.

Texas is another state expected to scrap abortion rights once the Supreme Court takes its decision.

For the past twenty years, whilst Republican lawmakers have been in control of Texas, they’ve eroded women’s access to abortions in creative ways.

And in the state’s biggest city Houston hundreds of women demonstrated outrage.

On Wednesday Democrats in the Senate had tried to enshrine abortion rights in federal law but were blocked by the Republicans.

The Women’s Health Protection Act which has been passed by the House of Representatives would have given care health professionals the right to provide abortions and patients the right to receive them.

Polls show that most Americans want to preserve access to abortion – at least in the earlier stages of pregnancy – but the Supreme Court appeared to be poised to let the states have the final say.

If that happens, roughly half of states, mostly in the South and Midwest, are expected to quickly ban abortion.