The supreme court has ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States, upending a precedent set nearly 50 years ago in the landmark
Roe v Wade case – a rare reversal of long-settled law that will fracture the foundations of modern reproductive rights in America.
The court’s ruling came in the
pivotal case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the last abortion clinic in Mississippi opposed the state’s efforts to ban abortion after 15 weeks and overturn Roe in the process.
The reversal of the 1973 opinion will again allow individual US states to ban abortion.
At least 26 states are expected to do so immediately or as soon as practicable.
The short version of how Americans lost their right to terminate a pregnancy might be summed up in one name: Trump.
The real estate tycoon and reality-TV star first shocked the world by winning the US presidency, then rewarded his base by confirming three supreme court justices to a nine-member bench, thus rebalancing the court to lean conservative for a generation to come.
That short road led to Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an opinion released this week in which supreme court justices voted 6-3 to overturn the landmark case
Roe v Wade, which in 1973 granted a constitutional right to abortion.