Supreme Court Officially Overturns Roe V Wade
Less than two months ago, an initial draft majority opinion on Roe v. Wade from the Supreme Court was leaked to the public. This was an unprecedented leak that sparked outrage across the country. While that was merely a draft opinion, SCOTUS has officially made its decision on Roe v. Wade.
The 1973 SCOTUS landmark case granted federal constitutional protections to women to abort their unborn babies. This was later upheld by the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. In the draft opinion that was leaked, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “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."
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote. As of this morning, SCOTUS officially ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade
This SCOTUS opinion is one of most consequential decisions to ever take place in American history. Overturning Roe v. Wade doesn't automatically make abortion illegal; rather, it defers abortion laws to the states. Depending on where you live, your state will either maintain its abortion laws as they are or they will move to pass stricter abortion laws.
"With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent," Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan wrote in a joint dissenting opinion.
Some experts predict that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will result in abortion being banned in roughly half of the states in the U.S. 13 states have trigger laws that ban abortion, including Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. These laws will immediately go into effect now that Roe v. Wade is overturned.
People are already gathering outside the Supreme Court in Washington, DC to protest the decision, and many are expecting that there will be riots in the nation's capital in addition to various major cities across the country.