The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade making abortion a federal right has been under threat since the moment it was decided. From literal attacks on abortion clinics to state politicians drafting so-called trigger laws, the path of Roe’s overturn has been long. And when conservatives took control of the Supreme Court in late 2020, most people knew that Roe’s days were numbered — even before the leak last month of a hateful draft majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, that foretold the court’s decision.
But on June 24, the Supreme Court made it all official. In a case out of Mississippi known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court decided that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” Now, as outlined by the Guttmacher Institute, more than half of the states are likely to ban abortion.
