Megan Rapinoe, other women athletes back abortion rights at US Supreme Court

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(Reuters)A radical of salient women athletes including shot prima Megan Rapinoe and hoops standouts Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird connected Monday urged the US Supreme Court to support termination rights successful a lawsuit involving Mississippi's Republican-backed bid to prohibition the process aft 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion opponents person asked the court, which has a 6-3 blimpish majority, to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized a woman's close to extremity a gestation and made termination ineligible nationwide aft it was outlawed successful definite states.

More than 500 athletes and groups signed a friend-of-the-court little to the justices, including 26 Olympians, 73 nonrecreational athletes and assorted jock associations. They argued that termination rights person helped the maturation of women's sports and expressed interest that aboriginal athletes would endure without those protections.

    Without the close to terminate a pregnancy, "the carnal tolls of forced gestation and childbirth would undermine athletes' quality to actualize their afloat quality potential," the little stated.

      "As women athletes and radical successful sports, we indispensable person the powerfulness to marque important decisions astir our ain bodies and exert power implicit our reproductive lives," Rapinoe, a two-time World Cup victor and an Olympic golden medalist, said successful a statement, calling authorities curbing termination rights "infuriating and un-American."

      Rapinoe has been outspoken connected assorted governmental issues. Bird and Taurasi, some stars successful the WNBA, helped the US women's hoops squad triumph the golden medal astatine this year's Tokyo Olympics. Taurasi is the WNBA's all-time starring scorer. Bird is joined to Rapinoe.

      Other signatories included Ashleigh Johnson, the archetypal Black pistillate connected the US Olympic h2o polo squad and besides an Olympic golden medalist successful Tokyo.

      The Supreme Court connected Monday has acceptable oral arguments successful the lawsuit for December 1. A ruling is owed by the extremity of adjacent June.

        Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican backed by termination opponents, said successful papers filed with the tribunal successful July that the Roe v. Wade ruling and a consequent 1992 determination that affirmed it were some "egregiously wrong" and should beryllium overturned.

        Mississippi's tribunal filing marked the archetypal clip that the Republican-governed state, successful seeking to revive a instrumentality blocked by little courts, made overturning Roe v. Wade a cardinal portion of its argument.

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