BREAKING: Supreme Court OVERTURNS Roe v Wade
The Supreme Court has declared Roe v Wade unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday released a ruling in the case of
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. They have overturned
Roe v Wade, which legalized abortion at the federal level. At issue in the case was whether all restrictions to abortion prior to viability are unconstitutional, or not.
The decision, a draft of which was
leaked in late April,
essentially overturns the landmark 1973 ruling in
Roe v Wade that federally legalized abortion. Now, the decision on whether or not abortion is legal returns to the states.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization tested a Mississippi law that banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Lower courts prevented the law from being enacted, as it was directly contrary to a previous ruling in
Planned Parenthood v. Casey that stopped states from banning abortion within the first 24 weeks of gestation.
Several states have said that they would become sanctuary states for abortion access, California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Colorado among them. Many states already have abortion on demand, such as Oregon, up into the third trimester. The Biden administration has promised to try and counteract any laws opposing abortion.
Other states have enacted laws that drastically restrict abortion, such as Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and others.
The Centers for Disease control report that there were 629,898 abortions in the United States in 2019, but they rely on voluntary reporting data, and California, Maryland, and New Hampshire did not report their totals. This number is higher than the voluntarily reported 619,591 in 2018, and 612,719 abortions in 2017.
The Guttmacher Institute compiles its data by contacting every abortion provider in the country and uses health department data, and found that there were 862,320 abortions in 2017.
Neither of these numbers factor in the use of abortion pulls that were obtained outside of known health providers.
Abortion activists and militants have issued statements that they would be actively and violently protesting the ruling the night the decision drops, calling for a "
Night of Rage." The homes of Supreme Court justices have been
protested.
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade: Live updates after abortion decision
The Supreme Court has overturned its 49-year-old landmark
Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion throughout the US, upholding a Mississippi law banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy – and leaving the issue up to each of the 50 states.
The decision was handed down weeks after a draft version of the opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito
was leaked to Politico – sparking outrage and protests across the country.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in that leaked decision, adding that “its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”