As conservative states moved forward with new abortion restrictions, some clinics ceased service, and proponents on both sides of the abortion debate braced for fresh state-level battles, the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade sparked instant responses across the US.
If Roe was reversed, more than 20 states would be ready to outlaw most abortions. While some of those restrictions went into effect immediately, others might take some time as state authorities work out the technical and legal issues.
Republican Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said he filed an opinion permitting enforcement of a state abortion ban that had previously been established by the legislature and was triggered once the court overturned Roe minutes after the Supreme Court announced its decision.
The state law makes conducting an abortion punishable by five to 15 years in prison and does not include an exception for pregnancies brought on by rape or incest.
He claimed on Twitter that Missouri had become the nation's most pro-life state.
As her state's trigger law went into effect, South Dakota's Republican governor, Kristi Noem, said that almost all abortions were now prohibited. The lone abortion facility in the state, a Planned Parenthood facility in Sioux Falls, ceased performing abortions prior to the ruling. The trigger law that forbids the majority of abortions in Louisiana, according to Attorney General Jeff Landry, is now in force.
13 states have trigger laws that, if the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, would immediately outlaw the majority of abortions.
There will be a lot of misunderstanding in the very near future, predicted Rachel Rebouché, interim dean of Temple University's Beasley School of Law.
Abortion clinics all around the nation hurried to comply with the new laws, seeking legal advice on their next moves. The number of facilities that ceased performing abortions on Friday was not immediately known.
According to Jay Thibodeau, the Abortion Care Network's director of communications, "We're all scurrying." "This is a mess."
US prepares for widespread protests
After the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973, the US is preparing for widespread protests.
President Joe Biden blasted the 5-4 decision, which overturns nearly 50 years of precedent in one of the 9-member court's most significant decisions in its history, as a "tragic error" that would severely harm poor American women, and vowed to work for national legislation to protect abortion rights in Congress.
With regard to the November midterm elections, where Democrats are expected to capitalize on the Supreme Court's decision, which is widely seen as a legacy of Donald Trump's appointment of three conservative justices—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—Biden said, speaking from the White House shortly after the decision, "Roe is on the ballot this fall."
"Personal liberties are up for vote. The right to liberty, equality, and privacy are all up for vote. In the meanwhile, I will do everything in my ability to defend a woman's right in states that will be affected by today's judgment, the President declared.
In Dobbs v. Jackson, the court upheld a Mississippi law that prohibited abortion beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy, much before the acceptable abortion period of about two trimesters that had been authorized by Roe v. Wade. This widely anticipated ruling had been leaked to a journalist in early May.
The majority opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito, who criticized the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to an abortion up to the third trimester as being "egregiously erroneous," "exceptionally weak," and “an abuse of judicial authority.”
The decision, a rare instance in which the Supreme Court overturned one of its earlier rulings, will polarize the country's public opinion, which has been sharply divided on the issue of abortion across party and state lines for decades, and it will highlight political fronts in the upcoming midterm congressional elections in November.
Most Americans support legal abortion, according to polls every time, yet attitudes on when in the pregnancy they should be allowed to occur differ.
Following increased worry for the judges' safety due to threats against their lives, crowds of hundreds rejoiced and wept in front of the sparkling white Supreme Court on Friday (Saturday AEST), where barricades had been put up to keep demonstrators at away.
The US constitution does not include abortions, thus the court had to balance the issue of precedent-setting with its belief that the right to an abortion was never included in the US constitution.
Although he voted in favor of the majority decision, Chief Justice John Roberts, who was nominated by George Bush in 2005 and is increasingly regarded as moderate on the court, stated in a consenting, separate opinion of his own that it had gone too far.
Regardless of your opinion of the Roe and Casey cases, he added, "the Court's decision to overrule them is a major jolt to the legal system."