The Supreme Court ruled Friday that Americans no longer have a constitutional right to abortion.
In the most closely watched and controversial case in years, a majority of the justices held that the right to abortion was not found in the text of the constitution.
The court's liberal justices dissented from the opinion written by associate justice Samuel Alito.
Alito wrote for the majority that Roe was incorrect from the beginning. The decision has had damaging consequences.
Alito said it was time to return the issue of abortion to the elected representatives.
The decision immediately shifts the focus of one of the nation's most divisive issues to state capitals, where Republican lawmakers are set to ban abortion in about half the states. The location of a person's home will affect access to abortion.
"After today, young women will come of age with less rights than their mothers and grandmothers had," Associate Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a dissent. The majority doesn't consider how women have relied on the right to choose or what it means to take that right away.
The court's decision changed the relationship between Americans and the government in a big way. While the opinion will be celebrated by conservatives, it will almost certainly lead to protests, new lawsuits and charges from the left that the nation's highest court is just as political as the other parts of the federal government.
The draft opinion in Mississippi's challenge to abortion leaked May 2. There were protests across the country after the Supreme Court protocol was broken. Friday's opinion seemed to follow the leaked draft.
The decision was welcomed by anti-abortion groups.
"Today marks an historic human rights victory for unborn children and their mothers and a bright pro-life future for our nation," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony SBA Pro- Life America. The will of the people can now be allowed into the law by our elected representatives.
A poll shows that the furor over the Wade reversal won't save Democrats in the upcoming elections.
The Supreme Court ruling is going to cause a lot of state abortion laws to change.
The 14th Amendment's guarantee of due process may be at risk if the decision is upheld. For a long time, many of those have been taken for granted, such as the right to same-sex marriage, the right to interracial marriage, and the right to access contraception.
The decision was denounced by Democrats and groups that supported abortion rights.
Nancy Pelosi said that the Supreme Court had achieved the GOP's goal of ripping away women's rights to make their own reproductive health decisions. American women have less freedom than their mothers because of Donald Trump and the Republicans on the Supreme Court.
Conservatives have been trying for decades to overturn the high court's 1973 decision that legalized abortion. The effort to roll back that right was aided by President Donald Trump, who promised to name justices who would overturn the right. Three conservative justices were put on the high court by Trump.
Under the high court's previous decisions, Mississippi's law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancies was allowed.
Jackson Women's Health Organization, the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, challenged the state law because it conflicted with the 1992 case in which the Supreme Court upheld the right to abortion.
The decision in 1992 allowed people to get an abortion until viability, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the uterus.
The courts agreed with the clinic. The Supreme Court was asked to do away with the right to abortion altogether. The state argued that because the issue is divisive and personal, it should be decided by state lawmakers.
Here's how abortion access could change in your state if the Supreme Court overturns the case.
The Supreme Court may look to China as it reconsiders the case of abortion.
The justices who are on the high court had a lot to do with the case. The Conservatives have a 6-3 majority on the court. Four of them were nominated by the president.
The Supreme Court was asked to overturn the decision. When the case was brought to the court in 2020, the state took a more cautious stance.
The legal battle over abortion has focused on regulating the procedure, such as requirements that minor inform their parents before ending a pregnancy or requiring doctors to have privileges at nearby hospitals. In the past, anti-abortion groups have focused on whether the procedure is constitutional.
The Supreme Court ended the right to abortion.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
