Where were you when this happened? Friday morning, The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion.
The opinion is the most consequential and influential Supreme Court decision in decades and will transform the landscape of women’s reproductive health in America.
The landmark decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to abortion had been in existence since 1973. Next year would have been its 50th anniversary.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion. “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.”
Going forward, abortion rights will be determined by states, unless Congress acts. Already, nearly half of the states have or will pass laws that ban abortion while others have enacted strict measures regulating the procedure.
REELated: UTA to reimburse travel costs for employees affected by abortion ban
The earthquake-like decision instantly shifts the focus of one of the nation’s most divisive issues to state capitals: Republican lawmakers are set to ban abortion in about half the states while Democratic-led states are likely to reinforce protections for the procedure. Access to abortion, in other words, will depend almost entirely on where a person lives.
“After today, young women will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers had,” Associate Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a dissent joined by the court’s two other liberal justices. “The majority accomplishes that result without so much as considering how women have relied on the right to choose or what it means to take that right away.”
The decision, one that Liberals will surely protest and sue over and Conservatives will cheer, comes as no surprise as a draft of the SCOTUS decision was leaked last month.
Unions as well as advertising agencies and brands are sure to respond quickly.
This story is developing.
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