Jane Fonda urges Americans to 'fight like hell' against potential Roe v. Wade reversal

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Hollywood legend and longtime political activist Jane Fonda has spoken out against a high profile leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion that suggests the group's likely intent to overturn Roe v. Wade and strip Americans of their liberty to choose to have an abortion.

"The same type of people that support this ending of Roe v. Wade, ending the idea that a woman has the right to control her own body, are the same people that don't want to be vaccinated," the Grace and Frankie star said on Friday's episode of The View. "[They say], 'Don't tell me what to do, the government can't be involved in what I shoot into my body,' and yet they're willing to support taking away from a woman her constitutional right, her human right, to determine what happens to her body and if she has or doesn't have a child. It's unconscionable."

Jane Fonda attends the Special FYC Event For Netflix's "Grace And Frankie" on April 23, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Jane Fonda attends the Special FYC Event For Netflix's "Grace And Frankie" on April 23, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.

Charley Gallay/Getty Images Jane Fonda at the 'Grace and Frankie' premiere.

The 84-year-old two-time Oscar winner went on to urge people to "fight like hell to not allow this to happen" after recently leaked documents appeared to show that the Supreme Court held an early, private vote in favor of striking down the landmark 1973 ruling.

"And if it does [overturn], fight like hell through the vote. One of the things that this horrendous leak shows us is the importance of voting. We allowed someone to be elected to office who has put three fringe, right-wing people into the Supreme Court, which is supposed to be a non-political, non-activist body," she continued, referring to former President Donald Trump. "The Republicans complain about activist Supreme Court, activist lawyers — this is the most activist, politically oriented, narrowly focused Supreme Court in United States history, so we have to vote, we have to mobilize to get out the vote in the midterm elections and in 2024 to make sure that we don't put in office anyone who does not support women's right to choose and doesn't understand the crisis called the climate crisis, which we have only eight years to address."

After courting controversy for her political activism throughout her multi-decade career, Fonda was famously arrested multiple times throughout January 2020 in front of the U.S. Capitol as she protested in the name of climate change awareness.

Fonda's voice on Friday joined other famous figures who've hit back at the Supreme Court's draft opinion — which is not an official ruling — throughout the week, including Hillary Clinton, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Milla Jovovich, who revealed in 2019 that she had an emergency abortion in the past.

"Not surprising. But still outrageous. This decision is a direct assault on the dignity, rights, & lives of women, not to mention decades of settled law," tweeted former Secretary of State Clinton of the leak, which was first published Monday evening by Politico. "It will kill and subjugate women even as a vast majority of Americans think abortion should be legal. What an utter disgrace."

The opposition comes after the leak indicated that Republican-appointed Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett voted with Samuel A. Alito Jr. to overturn the ruling, against dissenting votes of Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts' stance was not reported.

The high court's vote occurred amid the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in Mississippi, which involved the state's attempt to ban abortions after 15 weeks.

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