The Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion and made it legal nationally, was dramatically overturned by the US Supreme Court on Friday, giving a significant triumph to Republicans and religious conservatives who want to restrict or outlaw the operation.
The Mississippi statute that forbids abortion beyond 15 weeks was maintained by the court in a 6-3 decision driven by its conservative majority. The Supreme Court ruled that the Roe v. Wade judgement, which permitted abortions between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy before a foetus would be viable outside the womb, was incorrect because the Constitution of the United States does not specifically include the right to an abortion.
In May, a draught of the decision that suggested the court was likely to reverse Roe was leaked, sparking a political uproar.
Because it contravened a Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights, lower courts had already rejected Mississippi’s statute.
The sole remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, contested the 2018 legislation in court with the backing of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. The legislation does not make an exemption for pregnancies brought on by rape or incest but does permit abortions in cases of “medical urgency” or “severe foetal abnormalities.”
In 2018, a federal judge invalidated the statute under the Roe precedent. In 2019, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans came to the same decision.
In Roe v. Wade, it was acknowledged that a woman’s ability to end her pregnancy is safeguarded by the right to privacy guaranteed by the US Constitution. In the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the Supreme Court upheld the right to an abortion and barred legislation that placed a “undue barrier” on obtaining one.
Justice Samuel Alito’s draught decision in the case was leaked on May 2, and Chief Justice John Roberts condemned the act and said it will be looked into. Leaks from the Supreme Court are incredibly uncommon, especially when they include internal discussions before a decision is made. After the information leaked, Biden called the overturning of Roe v. Wade a “radical” move and asked Congress to adopt laws securing universal access to abortion.
Following the leak, thousands of people demonstrated in support of abortion rights in Washington and other places, including some to the residences of prominent conservative justices. Near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland residence on June 8, a California man was detained and charged with attempted murder. He was carrying a revolver, ammo, a crow bar, and pepper spray.
According to data released on June 15 by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organisation that supports abortion rights, the number of abortions in the United States climbed by 8% for the three years ending in 2020, reversing a 30-year pattern of dropping numbers.
The number of abortions performed in the United States per 1,000 women of childbearing age (15–44) peaked in 1980, seven years after the Roe decision, at 29.3. It was 13.5 per 1,000 in 2017 and will rise to 14.4 per 1,000 by 2020. There were 930,160 abortions performed in the United States in 2020, an increase from 18.4% in 2017 and a rate of 20.6 percent of pregnancies that ended in abortion. Abortions conducted in Mississippi increased by 40% between 2017 and 2020.
Abortion rights have usually grown around the world. According to the U.N. World Health Organization, 29 percent of all pregnancies result in an estimated 73 million abortions worldwide each year.
