The Supreme Court made a monumental decision on Friday, striking down Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that has protected the right to abortion for nearly 50 years. The court’s decision comes after a draft opinion was leaked in May, indicating that a majority of justices planned to strike down the 1973 precedent.
According to The Washington Post, the legality of abortion will now be left to individual states. Almost half the states are expected to outlaw or severely restrict abortion after the latest ruling, CNBC reports.
In its ruling on Friday, the court also tossed out Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision which upheld abortion rights.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the opinion. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
While the court made the ruling with a 6-3 decision, three liberal justices filed a dissenting opinion. The liberal justices bashed the majority, who said “from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of.”
“A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs,” the dissent read. “An abortion restriction, the majority holds, is permissible whenever rational, the lowest level of scrutiny known to the law. And because, as the Court has often stated, protecting fetal life is rational, States will feel free to enact all manner of restrictions.”
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that led to Roe’s demise, is related to a Mississippi law that banned nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
