DUNEDIN, Fla. — People in the Tampa Bay area continue to voice their opinions on the Supreme Court's leaked draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade.
After a weekend rally in downtown Tampa, another group rallied in Dunedin Monday evening.
This was led by Rep. Michele Rayner, who is running for congress, and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is running for governor.
Fried described the leak about Roe as a "punch to the gut." Fried added, "It’s just a complete slap in the face to everything we care about in our democracy and our healthcare system."
Fried believes overturning Roe v. Wade won't stop abortions.
"This isn’t going to stop abortions," Fried said. "This is going to stop safe abortions."
As for Gov. Ron DeSantis, he threw Florida's support behind an effort to overturn landmark cases setting the precedent for abortion rights nationwide.
"If you look at the protections I signed into law a couple of weeks ago, those were the strongest that Florida has seen in decades. Our view is that those are fully consistent with the federal Constitution," Gov. DeSantis said during a press conference after the news broke.
Fried mentioned at Tuesday's rally in Dunedin that she worries overturning Roe v. Wade would put other preceding cases on the chopping block, like contraceptives.
A lawyer at WMU Cooley Law said this about birth control potentially being banned.
"Justice Alito's draft opinion contains reasoning so sweeping that it calls into question Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark case establishing that the state has no jurisdiction over the choice whether to access and use contraceptives. The crux of Alito's opinion is that no right that was not recognized many decades ago — or even centuries — can be regarded as a fundamental constitutional right," a constitutional lawyer Brendan Beery said.
The decision on Roe v. Wade is expected to be made by the Supreme Court this summer.
If the Supreme Court, which currently has a 6-3 conservative majority, votes to overturn the cases, a person's right to an abortion may be left up to individual states.