Abortion rights were hard-won in Australia – the Roe v Wade ruling shows how easily they could be taken away

‘The anti-abortion cause in the United States worked out long ago they didn’t need a popular majority to deliver their agenda. They just needed majorities in the places where the decision would be made.’ Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters

The US supreme court has overturned Roe v Wade and, with it, nearly 50 years of women’s abortion rights in America.

The activism of the six ultraconservative justices – three of whom were appointed by former US president Donald Trump – shreds precedent in more ways than one. It is the first time in their history that Americans have woken up in the “land of the free” with fewer rights than they had the night before.