Protesters To Rally Friday In Minneapolis After Roe V. Wade Reversal

MINNEAPOLIS — Advocates for access to abortion and reproductive health care were expected to demonstrate Friday evening at the University of Minnesota, hours after the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights protected for the past five decades by Roe v. Wade.

The rally, called The Decision Day Action in the Twin Cities: We Won’t Go Back, was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Friday. Organizers said the group will rally near the Minneapolis campus’s Humphrey Garden at 301 19th Ave. S. before marching in support of access to safe abortions and health care.

RELATED: Roe V. Wade Overturned: What It Means In Minnesota

“We have had enough of the attacks on women and the LGBTQ community,” organizers said. “We will not go back to the days before the historic victories won by Roe v. Wade — we must build a fighting movement and say NO to rolling back our rights.”

Click here to sign up for the rally and get more information.

The Supreme Court released a ruling Friday that overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. That ruling and one on a subsequent case on fetal liability — Planned Parenthood v. Casey — was expected after Justice Samuel Alito Jr.'s majority opinion draft was leaked in May to Politico.

RELATED: Roe V. Wade Overturned: Abortion Rights Left To States To Decide

More than half of U.S. states are expected to make it almost impossible for a woman to get a procedure that was legal for her mother, grandmother or even great-grandmother, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research and policy group.

The state of Minnesota has the most liberal abortion laws in the region. Under Minnesota law, abortions are allowed during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

RELATED: Protesters Gather After Supreme Court Strikes Down Roe V. Wade

UnRestrict Minnesota was also set to host an abortion-rights event Friday evening in Minneapolis.

The organization said it will hold a Vigil for Reproductive Freedom at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the federal courthouse, 300 S. Fourth St., to "grieve and process this monumental reversal of our rights and what this will mean."

Planned Parenthood locations in Minnesota reminded anyone who called that "no matter what you're hearing, abortion is still legal in our region." But the organization's clinics in Wisconsin were forced to temporarily suspend all abortion services because of Friday's ruling from the Supreme Court.

"Today, our daughters have less rights than their mothers, less rights than their grandmothers. This is absolutely unconscionable," Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin President Tanya Atkinson said Friday.