Several dozen protesters from both sides of the abortion debate shouted, rallied and waved competing scripture interpretations outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday, one of the last days the court could release its decision in a case that directly challenges the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade nearly 50 years ago.

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       A decision didn’t come, but advocates said they will return Thursday, the next time the decision could be announced.

       “We are calling on everybody to come back into these streets, to stop what you are doing — I don’t care what kind of inconvenience it is. You know what’s inconvenient? Having your life shattered by forced motherhood. And we are the ones who can stop this. There is nobody else,” Sunsara Taylor of New York City, co-founder of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, told a crowd of about 100 in which journalists and passersby outnumbered advocates.

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       Taylor said advocates would be there Thursday “and every single day until the Supreme Court rules, and if they take this right away, every day until they reverse that decision. This is our responsibility. This is our duty.”

       Advocates for abortion access outnumbered opponents by about 2-1 Tuesday morning.

       Three people were arrested by the Supreme Court Police on Tuesday morning and transported to a city jail, Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe wrote in an email. She said the three had entered an unauthorized area on court grounds and refused to leave.

       Many abortion rights advocates have been protesting for more than a month, after a leaked draft opinion overturning Roe was published in May. Each week, they have been bracing for the high court’s final majority opinion in the most highly anticipated decision of the term.

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       They have chanted on the National Mall, rallied outside the Supreme Court and marched past the homes of conservative justices. This month, authorities arrested a man they say traveled from California in an attempt to kill Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

       Supreme Court is ready to strike down Roe v. Wade, leaked draft shows

       Antiabortion activists found encouragement in the leaked draft after spending nearly half a century working toward the goal of overturning Roe and banning abortion across the country.

       Americans support the landmark abortion decision in Roe v. Wade by a ratio of 2-1, according to a November 2021 Washington Post-ABC News poll.

       Americans broadly support Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose Texas abortion law, Post-ABC poll finds

       Araceli Herrera, 72, came from San Antonio to protest outside the court. She said that in her youth, she was raped by classmates in Mexico, where getting an abortion was illegal. She raised her son without telling him until he was an adult about his father.

       “Not having the right to abortion puts women in chains,” she said in an interview in Spanish. “When my son grew up, it was the hardest thing for me. Imagine if your son asks, ‘Who is my father? Where is he?’ What do you tell him? ‘You are the product of a rape.’ ”