Confrontation On The Bridge By Jacob Lawrence

The significance of protests and marches in American history cannot be overstated. Social movements are a significant part of American history that have helped progress American society and have inspired numerous people to seek and hold varying perspectives and opinions. Protests have had a profound impact on various facets of life, including the arts, evidenced by numerous artists throughout history who have created works based on past or current social movements (Lawrence). A great example of this is "Confrontation on the Bridge" by Jacob Lawrence, which illustrates the Selma to Montgomery marches that fought for African Americans to gain the right to vote within the United States (“Confrontation.1975”). These illustrations of history show

With the liberty of medical treatment, the abortion laws were a violation of this amendment as it prohibits Roe’s right to medical treatment of abortions (“The Right to Privacy”). Roe’s case was eventually reargued on October 11th, 1972, and decided on January 22nd, 1973 in favor of Roe giving citizens of the United States the right to an abortion (Supreme Court of the United States and Blackmun). American citizens had the right to an abortion for nearly half a century, until June 24, 2022, when the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court overturned the right. With thousands of protests surrounding this topic since the 1960s, and the sudden overturning of Roe v. Wade (Bernhardt), a question has come to the masses’ attention: Are protests and marches toward the Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade

While protests and marches do have huge impacts on legislation, certain key factors go into an effective demonstration (Social Change Lab). According to Social Change Lab, the three main aspects of protest movements are nonviolent tactics, preexisting support, and a substantial number of participants. In the early 1970s, pro-life movements were well behind pro-choice organizations in all three of these factors because of the movement starting their campaign after so many years of great amount of publicity towards pro-choice advocacy. Due to NARAL and the Association for the Study of Abortion, there had already been an accumulation of support the pro-life movement lacked. A study from Omar Wasow, an assistant professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Political Science, found in the 1960s, states with nonviolent tendencies leaned more towards Democratic candidates while those with more violent tendencies were in favor of Republican candidates (Social Change Lab). Furthermore, nonviolent protests have been proven to lead elected representatives to support the views of the protestors of the demonstration, making the March for Life movement at a disadvantage due to its Republican standpoint (Social Change