The Supreme Court upheld the historic “Roe v. Wade’ judgment overturned. The US Supreme Court is thus clearing the way for stricter abortion laws – even including complete bans in individual states.
For almost five decades, the United States had a nationwide right to abortion – now the Supreme Court has thrown it out. Six of the nine Supreme Court justices voted in favor of the decision. This had already become apparent after a draft judgment had been pushed through in early May.
In a landmark decision in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade allows abortions nationwide until the fetus is viable, i.e. up to about 24 weeks gestation. At the time, the court derived a federal right to abortion from women’s right to privacy. This decision had been confirmed several times.
“The constitution does not grant the right to an abortion,” it says in the verdict. The US Constitution does not mention abortion, nor is the right to abortion implied by other rules.
The new Supreme Court ruling allows the 50 states to decide on abortion rights at the state level. Several of them have already enacted laws that severely restrict abortion now that the federal regulation has been removed. It is expected that about half of all states will follow this path.
According to its Attorney General, Missouri has already taken a corresponding step. The state in the Midwest was “just the first in the country to effectively end abortion,” said Eric Schmitt on Twitter shortly after the decision.
President Joe Biden ‘s Democrats wanted to enshrine the right to abortion in federal law across the country. However, a corresponding bill failed in the Senate in mid-May .
Abortion rights have been the subject of heated debates in the United States. Opponents have been trying to overturn the liberal rules for decades – Christian conservatives and many Republicans are celebrating the decision as a great victory.