Heavily pregnant woman writes ‘not yet a human’ across her belly to protest Supreme Court decision

A heavily pregnant woman has gone viral after she had three words written across her belly to protest the US Supreme Court’s abortion decision.

A heavily pregnant woman has gone viral after scrawling the words “not yet a human” across her belly to protest the Supreme Court’s abortion decision.

Amanda Herring, 32, was among the pro-choice protesters in Washington DC on Friday after the conservative-majority court voted to overturn its two landmark abortion rights decisions, 1973’s Roe v. Wade and 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

“I am very pregnant – I am due tomorrow,” Ms Herring told NBC News.

The Jewish educator, who showed up with her one-year-old son Abraham, told the outlet the Supreme Court ruling was an infringement on her religion.

“This is a part of me right now,” she said.

“I’m Jewish and according to Jewish law and tradition, life begins with the first breath at birth, and that if anything were to happen up until then that it is part of me, and it is my decision, it’s part of my body – it’s like a limb. It’s a significant part of me, but it’s my decision.”

Asked why she wrote “not yet a human”, she said it was “because everyone is talking about murder”.

“And it’s just – it’s me, it’s not somebody else yet,” she said.

“I have a child. This is a person, this is a person with will, this is a person who has decision-making power, and this is me.”

She said the Supreme Court decision was “awful, I mean it’s horrible”.

“I don’t know what parts this baby is going to have but if he or she does not have the options they need to make bodily choices around what they can do with their own life, I don’t know how to protect them in the world,” she said.

The provocative protest has generated heated discussion after images of Ms Herring went viral on social media.

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Amanda Herring, 32, outside the Supreme Court. Picture: NBC News

“The abortion movement relies on you ignoring the evidence of your own eyes,” Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro wrote on Twitter.

Conservative political commentator Austin Petersen said, “And yet, negligently running them over would be double manslaughter.”

The photo has attracted more than 13,500 comments on Reddit, with a number of pro-choice advocates describing it as “disturbing”.

“Ya, this is not going to help the pro-choice community, this is exactly what pro-lifers are concerned about,” one person said.

Another agreed, “Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice I don’t know how someone that far along can deny that they have a human being inside them.”

The abortion movement relies on you ignoring the evidence of your own eyes pic.twitter.com/iT4nNBgolW

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 27, 2022

A third wrote, “Yeah, no kidding. I don’t get it. Abortions at the stage she’s at are virtually unheard of and premature births in the mid-third trimester are not uncommon. It’s really uncomfortable when someone makes a straw man of themselves in support of a generally valid argument.”

A fourth said, “Also pro-choice. Also disturbed AF to see this. No one wants to kill actual babies over here.”

The 6-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, upholding Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, found that there is no right to abortion guaranteed by the US Constitution – as claimed in Roe and Casey – thus sending the matter back to individual states to legislate.

Abortion rights activists outside the White House. Picture: Samuel Corum/AFP

Justice Samuel Alito opened the majority opinion by acknowledging abortion “presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views”.

“Some believe fervently that a human person comes into being at conception and that abortion ends an innocent life,” he wrote.

“Others feel just as strongly that any regulation of abortion invades a woman’s right to control her own body and prevents women from achieving full equality. Still others in a third group think that abortion should be allowed under some but not all circumstances, and those within this group hold a variety of views about the particular restrictions that should be imposed.”

For the first 185 years of America’s history, “each state was permitted to address this issue in accordance with the views of its citizens”, but in 1973, “even though the Constitution makes no mention of abortion, the Court held that it confers a broad right to obtain one”.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Alito wrote.

“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely – the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.’ The right to abortion does not fall within this category.”

Pro-choice and anti-abortion activists argue. Picture: Kevin Dietsch/Getty/AFP

The ruling ending the nationwide right to abortion was one of the most seismic domestic political shifts in a generation — up-ending the crucial midterm elections that will decide who controls Congress next year.

Republicans are celebrating the culmination of almost 50 years of activism around the argument that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided.

Democrats, too, have been galvanised by the scrapping of half a century of reproductive rights, and by fears Republicans will go further and introduce a federal abortion ban if they retake Congress — threatening legal access nationwide.

Democratic President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set out what they see as the stakes on Friday, with both saying abortion would be “on the ballot” in November.

Republican leader and former president Donald Trump called the decision “the biggest win for life in a generation” while Adam Laxalt, the Republican Senate nominee in Nevada, said the issue “won’t distract voters from unaffordable prices, rising crime or the border crisis.”

In Congress, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested that a federal ban would be “possible,” although he has also acknowledged that no position on the issue has ever achieved the upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold.

The decision set off a frenzy of activity on both sides, with at least eight states imposing immediate bans and a similar number expected to follow suit within weeks.

Dozens of arrests were reported during a weekend of nationwide protest — although incidents of violence and vandalism were isolated.

— with AFP