Report that Covid-19 vaccine was required to join Roe v Wade protests comes from satirical page

14 July 2022
What was claimed

Official protests against the overturning of the Roe v Wade abortion ruling required a Covid-19 vaccination status check for admission.

Our verdict

This claim is taken from a satire page on Twitter. There’s no evidence this was the case.

A post on Facebook shows a screenshot of a tweet saying: “Official ‘My Body My Choice’ protests are scheduled for tonight all across the nation. Find the nearest protest in your city! *Vaccination status check required for admission to the protest.”

However, the Twitter account that posted the original tweet, News That Matters, appears to be a satire account. Previous tweets include “Hey Ladies! Did you know that ‘mansplaining’ is a portmanteau for ‘man explaining’?” and “Inflation. Right wing politicians and pundits will use it to try to scare voters this midterm. But here’s why inflation is actually great news for more than 30 million Americans who will use an air mattress this summer!”

We could find no evidence that protests following the decision to overturn the Roe v Wade abortion ruling required attendees to prove they were vaccinated.

Roe v Wade was a 1973 US Supreme Court ruling which made abortion legal in the first trimester across the country. It was overturned in June.

The slogan “My body, my choice” has long been used by pro-choice protestors, but those protesting against the Covid-19 vaccine roll-outs have also more recently used it to express their opposition to any form of mandatory vaccination. 

Photo courtesy of Gayatri Malhotra

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