Rival abortion protesters face off in America

Pro and anti-abortion campaigners have been facing off in the US.

Those against want Congress and Donald Trump to strip the Planned Parenthood women’s health organisation of federal funding. It provides abortion services at hundreds of centres.

But pro-abortion activists want funding to continue.

“When they’re always counter picketing a clinic, the right wing, there is a majority of men always present. They harass women. Many times they’ll call them murderers and everything like that. We have to meet them face to face,” said Bettey Maloney, a pro-demonstrator in New York City.

About a dozen anti-abortion protesters also turned out in the city, holding signs like “unborn lives matter.”

One of them, Carol Romeo, said: “As long as that cell is replicating, it is alive. It’s not a polyp to be removed like a cancerous growth. I don’t think they’re evil people. I truly don’t think they understand. They see it as somebody interfering with their choice.”

Planned Parenthood says cutting off federal funds would make it more difficult for women to access birth control and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.