Megan Rapinoe, a well-known female athlete, has joined forces with 500 other athletes in a legal brief to urge the US Supreme Court to safeguard women’s access to abortion.
Rapinoe, along with basketball players Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird, lent their voices to the opposition against a Mississippi law aiming to restrict abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Advocates of this law seek to overturn the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling, which legalized abortions across the United States. The group of athletes express their concerns about how this change could impact women’s sports, highlighting the importance of maintaining legal abortion access for the progression of women’s athletics.
In a joint statement to the court, the athletes emphasized that “mandated pregnancies and childbirth could hinder athletes from realizing their full potential.”
Rapinoe criticized the proposed law as “outrageous and un-American.”
“As female athletes and individuals in the sports world, it is crucial for us to have the autonomy to make decisions regarding our bodies and reproductive choices,” she remarked.
Among the signatories was Ashleigh Johnson, a gold medalist from the women’s water polo team at the Tokyo Olympics. Rapinoe, Taurasi, and Bird are all Olympic gold medalists themselves, with Rapinoe being well-known for her activism on various social and political matters.
