In GOP legislatures, a gender divide emerges over abortion

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Outside the chambers of the West Virginia Legislature, the marble foyer was packed with young women in T-shirts, ripped jeans, and gym shorts holding signs with uteruses drawn in colored marker.

“Bans off our bodies,” the signs said. “Abortion is essential.”

Inside, a group of lawmakers, almost all of them men, sat at desks in pressed suits, doing their best to talk over protesters’ chants carrying through the heavy wooden doors.

A stark gender divide has emerged in debates unfolding in Republican-led states including West Virginia, Indiana and South Carolina following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision to end constitutional protections for abortion. As male-dominated legislatures worked to advance bans, often with support of the few Republican women holding office, protesters were more likely to be women.