Right to abortion

US Supreme Court strips away women’s constitutional protections

CLINICS have already begun closing in some US states after a Supreme Court ruling removed the constitutional right to abortion.

About half of the states are expected to introduce new restrictions or bans after the court overturned its 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision. Of these 13 have outlawed abortion instantly.

President Joe Biden has described the ruling as “a tragic error” and protests are underway in cities across the US.

At an abortion clinic in Little Rock, Arkansas — a state with a so-called trigger law allowing an instant ban — the doors to the patient area shut as soon as the court’s opinion was posted online and sobbing could be heard. Staff made calls to tell women that their appointments were cancelled.

“No matter how hard we prepare for bad news, when it finally hits, it hits hard. Having to call these patients and tell them Roe v Wade was overturned is heartbreaking,” nurse Ashli Hunt told the BBC.

President Mr Biden who said it would dramatically change life for millions of women in America and was expected to exacerbate growing tensions in a deeply polarised country.

The court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative majority, upheld a Republican-backed Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The vote was 5-4 to overturn Roe, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts writing separately to say he would have upheld the Mississippi law without taking the additional step of erasing the Roe precedent altogether.

The reverberations of the ruling will be felt far beyond the court’s high-security confines - potentially reshaping the battlefield in November’s elections to determine whether Mr Biden’s fellow Democrats retain control of Congress and signalling a new openness by the justices to change other long-recognised rights.