The Supreme Court on Friday, 6-3, overturned Rowe v. Wade, the remarkable ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the United States in 1973.
The controversial but anticipated court ruling gives states the power to determine their own abortion laws without worrying about facing Roe, who has allowed abortions for nearly half a century during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
Nearly half of the states are expected to ban or severely restrict abortion as a result of a Supreme Court ruling that has severely restricted a new Mississippi abortion law.
Other countries plan to maintain more liberal rules governing abortion.
Judge Samuel Alito was expected to write the majority’s opinion, which rejected Rowe, as well as the 1992 Supreme Court ruling to protect abortion rights in a case known as Planned Parenthood v. Caseys. He was joined in the decision by five other Conservative members of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts.
The three liberal judges of the court gave a special opinion on the decision, which quickly attracted protesters to the building of the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC
“We believe that Rowe and Casey should be canceled,” Alito wrote.
“The constitution does not mention abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by a constitutional provision, including the one that Rowe and Casey’s defenders now rely on, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Alito wrote.
“This provision is considered to guarantee certain rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in the history and tradition of this nation’ and ‘implicit in the concept of orderly freedom’.
“It is time to listen to the constitution and return the issue of abortion to elected representatives,” Alito wrote.
In their joint disagreement, the liberal judges of the courts criticized the majority for a decision which “states that from the moment of fertilization the woman has no right to speak.
“A country can force it to have a pregnancy, even at the highest personal and family cost,” the dissidents said.
“Restricting abortion, the majority believes, is permissible when it is rational, the lowest level of control known to the law. And because, as the Court has often stated, the protection of the life of the fetus is rational, States will feel free to impose any restrictions. “
Protesters marched in front of the Supreme Court building amid a ruling that could overturn Rowe v. Wade on June 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Roberto Schmid | AFP | Getty Images
The case that caused Rowe’s death nearly half a century later, known as the Dobbs Women’s Health Organization v. Jackson, is related to a Mississippi law that prohibits almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Dobbs was the most significant and controversial dispute over the court’s mandate. This is also the most serious threat to abortion rights since Planned Parenthood against Casey, in which the Supreme Court upheld Rowe.
Dobbs deepened the guerrilla divisions in a period of already intense political tribalism.
The expiration in early May of a draft majority opinion that completely repealed Rowe shocked the country and stimulated activists on both sides of the debate. It also threw ashes on the nation’s highest court, which immediately launched an investigation to find the source of the leak.
The publication of the court’s draft opinion, written by Alito, sparked protests from abortion advocates, who were outraged and frightened by how the decision would affect both patients and providers as 22 states prepared to limit abortion or to ban them outright.
Leaked opinion marks a major victory for conservatives and abortion advocates, who have worked for decades to undermine Rowe and Casey, whom the majority of Americans support.
But Republican lawmakers in Washington, hoping to win a big victory in the November midterm elections, initially focused more on the leak itself than on what it revealed. They also condemned protests outside the homes of some conservative judges, accusing activists of trying to intimidate the court.
The unprecedented leak of Alito’s draft opinion opened a hole in the cloak of secrecy that usually covers the interior of the court. It drew harsh criticism from critics of the court, many of whom were already concerned about the politicization of the country’s most powerful advisory body, where judges are appointed for life.
Roberts promised that the court’s work “would not be affected in any way” by the leak, which he described as a “betrayal” designed to “undermine the integrity of our operations”.
However, the leak clearly had an impact. A high fence was then erected around the courthouse, and Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to “help ensure the safety of judges.”
Alito, in his first reported remarks after the leak, spoke remotely from the courthouse with a crowd attending a forum at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, instead of making the six-mile trip to the school. The Washington Post reported that when asked during this event how he and the other judges were behaving, Alito replied: “This is a topic I told myself I would not talk about today, you know – given all the circumstances.”
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