A host of well-known Latines – from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Selena Gomez – have spoken out strongly against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling last Friday (June 24), which had protected a woman’s right to have an abortion for the last nearly 50 years.
Now, conservative lawmakers at the state level can set their own abortion restrictions. Many have already started enacting laws to outlaw all abortions outright.
“Forced pregnancy is a crime against humanity,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted two days after the news broke.
The New York congresswoman also angered conservatives when she posted a guide on how women can “access abortion in a post-Roe world.”
On her Instagram page, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also spoke to people for nearly an hour about the next steps in the fight for women’s rights, health care, and reproductive justice.
When asked on the red carpet at her premiere for her TV series Only Murders in the Building, Selena Gomez said she was unhappy with the Supreme Court’s decision and called on men to be advocates on the issue.
“Watching a Constitutional right be stripped away is horrific,” Gomez tweeted last week. “A woman should have the right to CHOOSE what she wants to do with her own body. End of story.”
A couple of those men who spoke out in their own way were actor John Leguizamo and Maná lead vocalist Fher Olvera. Leguizamo called out the Supreme Court with a few choice words on social media and said, “One small step for the court and one giant motherf—ing leap for misogynists and rapists everywhere.”
Olvera shared the same kind of sentiment with fans when he walked by them holding up a sign that read, “F–k the Supreme Court. Women’s Rights = Human Rights.”
Other high-profile Latines, like singer Mariah Carey and Republican political commentator Ana Navarro, also chimed in.
“It is truly unfathomable and disheartening to have to try to explain to my 11-year-old daughter why we live in a world where women’s rights are disintegrating in front of our eyes,” Carey tweeted.
Oscar-winner Rita Moreno said she was “really nervous and frightened and horrified that this is taking place” and Melissa Fumero feared what this new court decision was going to lead to.
