Protesters on both sides of the abortion debate took to the streets of Washington on Monday, 39 years after the Supreme Court legalised it.

They staged rival demonstrations in the rain, pushing the issue up the election-year agenda.

Several hundred opponents of abortion gathered in the National Mall, and a smaller number of pro-abortion activists rallying outside the Supreme Court on the anniversary of its landmark ruling, known as Roe versus Wade.

“Killing is never right,” said Kassey Maldag, a student from Michigan, who was among the protesters that included students from Catholic schools. “It is a human person, even in a womb. To perform an abortion is to kill.”

Organising the anti-abortion protest was March for Life, founded in 1974 to draw attention to the untenable legacy of Roe versus Wade and to persuade America’s leaders to eradicate it from America’s future.

Prior to the march from the Mall to the Supreme Court, the demonstrators met with John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, who said: “A bipartisan majority is standing up for life and working to restore the damage of Roe versus Wade.

“We are heeding the voice of the people, who overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.”

Many conservatives regard federal funding for family planning programmes as incentives for abortion.

On the other side of the debate, about 60 demonstrators, mostly women belonging to pro-choice, gathered at the Supreme Court in the morning to “keep abortion legal”.

“This past year has been the worst year legislatively for the right to abortion and birth control,” Debra Sweet of The World Can’t Wait, activist group.

‘With Democrats mostly pro-choice and Republicans mostly pro-life, the abortion issue is coming to the fore in this election year’

In that period, she said, 92 pieces of legislation to restrict abortion had been passed, on top of other laws at the state and federal level making it harder to access birth control. With Democrats mostly pro-choice and Republicans mostly pro-life, the abortion issue is coming to the fore in election year.

“I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right,” Democratic President Barack Obama said.

Abortion is bitterly debated every Presidential election year, with conservative Republicans eager to repeal Roe versus Wade and liberal Democrats insisting abortion is a fundamental right to be protected at all costs.