*The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, which, since 1973, had permitted abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
The court’s conservative majority, in a 6-3 ruling, upheld a Republican-backed Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, half the states are expected to outlaw or severely restrict abortion, CNBC reports.
The decision comes a month after a 98-page opinion — allegedly authored by Justice Samuel Alito — leaked and was published by Politico. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote.
“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Alito continued.
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“That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ’implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”
“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” Alito wrote.
The new ruling was reportedly opposed by the three liberal justices.
Per CNBC, the liberal justices blasted the ruling, writing in their joint dissent, “The majority would allow States to ban abortion from conception onward because it does not think forced childbirth at all implicates a woman’s rights to equality and freedom.”
“Today’s Court, that is, does not think there is anything of constitutional significance attached to a woman’s control of her body and the path of her life,” said the dissent by Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan
“A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs.”
After the draft opinion leaked on May 2, Vice President Kamala Harris condemned Republican legislators.
“Republican legislators in states across the country are weaponizing the use of Roe v. Wade against women,” she wrote in a tweet, PEOPLE reports. “The rights of all Americans are at risk. This is the time to fight for women and our country with everything we have.”
Meanwhile, many conservatives are celebrating the ruling on social media, while abortion rights advocates are descending on the Supreme Court in the wake of the decision.
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