
On Friday morning, the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, which protected a woman’s right to have an abortion for nearly 50 years.
The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines, with Justice Samuel Alito authoring the main opinion.
The three liberals on the court, Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, issued a joint dissent. They wrote that the court had long held a balance between the many differing opinions of Americans on abortion, issuing a variety of decisions that allowed some limits to be set on the procedure but not allowing an undue burden to be placed upon a woman who might seek it.
“Today, the Court discards that balance. It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of,” the justices wrote.
The justices lamented the wide-ranging impact the decision will have on American women. Many states are now free to impose draconian bans on abortion with no exceptions, such as rape or incest.
“With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent,” they said.
Read their full dissent below:
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