The Supreme Court Has Struck Down Roe V. Wade

The Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research and advocacy group that tracks state legislation, predicts that 26 states will ban abortion early in a woman's pregnancies. 13 states, including Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Mississippi, have already passed so-calledtrigger laws, which are designed to take effect when abortion becomes legal in another state.

The right to abortion is protected in at least 16 states and the District of Columbia. Though they face opposition from anti-abortion legislators, medication abortions are still an option. People who need to travel to get healthcare can use abortion funds.

"There are groups that exist to make sure that we can get you to a place where abortion is still accessible and make sure you have everything you need to make the healthcare decision that best works for you."

The leak of an early draft opinion that Justice Samuel Alito and other members of the Supreme Court's conservative majority were in favor of overruling was the reason for the ruling.

The state of Mississippi's arguments were adopted in the draft opinion, which said that the Supreme Court had failed to resolve the issue of abortion. Alito wrote that the issue of abortion should be left to the states because the Constitution does not explicitly refer to it.

It was revealed that the court's conservative majority was willing to tear down abortion protections that have been in place for decades, causing uproar.

Conservative justices seemed poised to rule in favor of Mississippi and chip away at abortion rights during the December arguments, but their liberal colleagues warned the decision could harm not only the country, but the Supreme Court.

The public perception of the Constitution and its reading is that it's just political. "Justice, what do you think?"

The majority woefully ignored the "geographically expansive effects" of its ruling according to the dissent.

"Today's decision, the majority says, permits 'each State' to address abortion as it pleases,'" wrote the three dissenters. It's cold comfort for the poor woman who can't afford to travel to a distant state for a procedure.

Attorneys for the Center for Reproductive Rights argued in briefs to the court that the right to abortion is important for gender equality. It is possible that reversing major gains for women and endangering the lives of pregnant people will happen. They argued that people who are denied abortions face a higher risk of health problems.

One result of today's decision is certain: the curtailment of women's rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.

The Supreme Court has identified other rights that could be at risk. The 14th amendment protects a pregnant person's liberty to choose whether to have an abortion. Marriage for same-sex couples, interracial marriage, and access to contraception were all protected by the same reasoning.

According to a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, it is possible to say that none of these things are actually in the constitution. It feels like a situation where a minority of the country claims democratic process but actually establishes a set of rules that only the minority wants.

In a concurring opinion Friday, Justice Clarence Thomas said explicitly that the court should now reconsider other precedents, including decisions on contraception, same-sex sexual activity, and same-sex marriage.

"We have a duty to correct the error that has been established in those precedents because any substantive due process decision is 'demonstrably incorrect,'" Thomas wrote.

The state of Mississippi wants the Supreme Court to overturn the restrictions on abortion. The idea that states can't ban abortion before viability was upheld byCasey. The attorneys for the state argued that the Constitution does not protect the right to abortion, and that the court's requirement that state law not place an "undue burden" on abortion access unfairly impedes states from creating their own abortion regulations.

Scott Stewart said that a right to abortion is not grounded in the text. The concept is grounded on abstract concepts.

Friday's ruling marks the first time the justices have ruled on the constitutionality of a law that prohibits abortion before a fetus is viable outside the womb. The abortion case was the first major one decided by the court since the conservative majority grew to 6–3 with the confirmation of Justice Amy ConeyBarrett in 2020.

Though the right to an abortion had been considered a settled matter of law, the ruling is the product of yearslong effort by anti-abortion activists. After Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 conservative lawmakers and anti-abortion advocates put the plan into action, passing pre-viability bans they knew would be blocked by the lower courts in order to get the laws to the nation's highest court. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Mississippi's case afterBarrett's confirmation.

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