On Friday, the Supreme Court formally overturned its 49-year-old landmark Roe v Wade decision, and with it, ended the right to abortion that had been constitutionally guaranteed in the United States for half a century.
The 6-3 judgment in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Healthwas sent by a telegram in May unprecedented leak of first draft Majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito. But even though the final official version is slightly less jarring than the leaked document, the impact is the same. Abortion rights have been taken away as if it didn’t exist. The decision on whether to allow the process now rests with individual state governments, with only 16 states and the District of Columbia passing laws to preserve the option, while two other states have state constitutional protections that state courts have made Protection from miscarriage.
Signatories to the majority opinion include Justice Clarence Thomas and all three Justices appointed by President Donald Trump — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Bar Reiter – unequivocally, the 1973 roeand the 1992 case reaffirming this right, Southeastern Pennsylvania Planned Parenthood v. Caseywas wrongly decided.
“Abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, and this right is not implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Alito wrote. “It’s time to focus on the Constitution and put the issue of abortion back in the hands of elected representatives.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, an anti-abortion man, The case was debated in December He favored upholding Mississippi law at the center of the case, agreeing to the judgment but offering his own consent, saying he wouldn’t go that far. “I will take a more measured course,” he wrote. “The Court’s opinion was thoughtful and thorough, but these virtues do not make up for the fact that its dramatic and consequential ruling was unnecessary to adjudicate the case before us.”
On the other hand, the remaining three libertarians on the court, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer, who is retiring at the end of the semester, didn’t make a shot.
“One outcome of today’s decision is affirmative: to disenfranchise women and their status as free and equal citizens,” Breyer wrote in a dissenting opinion signed by three liberals. “Yesterday, the Constitution guaranteed that women facing unwanted pregnancies can (within reason) decide for themselves whether or not to have children and bear all the life-changing consequences of the Act. . Today, a country can always force women to have children, even banning the earliest abortions.”
It’s hard to overstate the impact of the court action.While the Supreme Court has overturned longstanding decisions in the past, especially when it comes to race relationsthe court never granted the right and then removed it.
In this case, too, the impact was immediate.Thirteen states have so-called trigger laws banning abortions roereversal.Other states have alreadyroe Abortion bans that may come back into effect, some already issuedroe Restrictions blocked by courts but may also be in effect. In all, According to Guttmacher According to the Institute for Reproductive Health Policy, 26 states may ban or severely restrict abortions because they are officially permitted.
Proponents of abortion rights responded quickly, although they could not immediately stop the wave of bans or restrictions. A majority of the House of Representatives supports abortion rights in at least some cases, but any legislation that would write abortion protections into federal law would lack a Senate vote to overcome a filibuster.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement swiftly following the verdict: “Today, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court has achieved the Republican Party’s dark and extreme goal of denying women the right to make their own reproductive health decisions. Thanks to Donald With Trump, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party and their overwhelming majority on the Supreme Court, American women today have less freedom than their mothers.”
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that provides in-depth news coverage on health issues.Along with policy analysis and polling, KHN is one of the top three operating programs in the U.S. KFC (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is a donating non-profit organization that provides information on health issues to the state.
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