Roe v Wade: US top court ends 50 yrs of federal abortion rights

WASHINGTON: In a judgment that will transform America’s political, legal and social landscape, the United States’ (US) Supreme Court, on Friday, struck down the historic Roe v Wade judgment that had institutionalised abortion-related protections in the country.

Women in America no longer have the fundamental right to seek an abortion, with the verdict opening the doors for states to impose an outright ban on abortion or severely curtail it. Minutes after the judgment, Missouri became the first American state to ban abortion.

The SC verdict drew widespread criticism, from dissenters on the bench, the President, Democrats, and a wide constellation of women, reproductive health, privacy, civil liberties, and human rights groups who framed it as an unprecedented attack on a woman’s right to choose, exercise autonomy and control over her own body, women’s health, and the broader right to privacy.

Three dissenting judges on the bench said the decision took away the woman’s right to be an

Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority but said he would have taken ‘a more measured course’, stopping short of overruling Roe outright

THE MAJORITY:

equal and free citizen in the country.

Terming the verdict a “tragic error”, President Joe Biden said the court had expressly taken away a fundamental right. He said this would have “real and immediate consequences”, jeopardising the women’s right to health and forcing her to have children even in cases of rape and incest. “It just stuns me..it is cruel…the court is taking America back 150 years.”

Biden, however, said the fight was not over; he would do all that was possible within the sphere of executive action to protect women’s rights, including the right to travel to states where abortion was legal; and urged voters to turn out in elections this November to ensure a