Supreme court overturns Roe v Wade
The supreme court has overturned Roe v Wade, ending nearly a half-century of abortion rights in the United States.
The decision split along ideological lines, with the six conservative justices voting for it and the three liberals dissenting.
Missouri is claiming to be the first state in the country to end abortion entirely, with an opinion from attorney general Eric Schmitt:
🚨 BREAKING 🚨 Following the SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Missouri has just become the first in the country to effectively end abortion with our AG opinion signed moments ago. This is a monumental day for the sanctity of life. pic.twitter.com/Jphy72R4rq
— Attorney General Eric Schmitt (@AGEricSchmitt) June 24, 2022
Schmitt, a Republican, has also made a lengthy post about his efforts to stop the procedure:
THREAD: Today is a historic day, but we also remember over 60 million innocent lives lost. There was a lot of work behind the scenes before we achieved this incredible victory. Here are some of our efforts to protect all, including the unborn. pic.twitter.com/rI8GTLgr5r
— Attorney General Eric Schmitt (@AGEricSchmitt) June 24, 2022
Conservative groups are cheering the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade as the successful culmination of decades of work to restrict abortion access.
Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, put it:
For nearly fifty years, the Supreme Court has imposed an unpopular and extreme abortion policy on our nation, but as the annual March for Life gives witness to, Roe’s allowance of abortion-on-demand, up-until-birth has never represented where most Americans stand on life! Today, the ability to determine whether and when to limit abortion was returned to the American people who have every right to enact laws like Mississippi’s which protect mothers and unborn babies after 15 weeks – when they have fully formed noses, can suck their thumb, and feel pain.
President and CEO Brooke Rollins of the America First Policy Institute noted the role of Donald Trump, who appointed three of the conservative justices whose votes were crucial in the ruling:
It should also be noted that this historic day for democracy, nearly 50 years in the making, would not have been possible without the leadership and commitment to life of President Donald J. Trump. Thank you, Mr. President!
Another key player in laying the groundwork for Roe to fall was Mitch McConnell, who as top Senate Republican in 2016 stopped then-president Barack Obama from installing a justice of his choosing for a vacant seat on the supreme court. Trump ended up filling that opening with Neil Gorsuch, who voted to strike down Roe.
Here’s what McConnell had to say about the ruling:
The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Dobbs is courageous and correct. This is an historic victory for the Constitution and for the most vulnerable in our society.
For 50 years, states have been unable to enact even modest protections for unborn children. More than 90% of Europe restricts abortion on demand after 15 weeks, but every state in America has been forced to allow it more than a month past that, after a baby can feel pain, yawn, stretch, and suck his or her thumb. Judicial activists declared that every state had to handle abortion like China and North Korea and no state could handle it like France or Germany.
Not anymore. Now the American people get their voice back.
Former president Barack Obama has condemned the supreme court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade, calling it an attack on “the essential freedoms of millions of Americans”:
Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 24, 2022
Across the country, states have already passed bills restricting choice. If you’re looking for ways to respond, @PPFA, @USOWomen, and many other groups have been sounding the alarm on this issue for years—and will continue to be on the front lines of this fight. pic.twitter.com/PpXBEcbL2S
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 24, 2022
For more than a month, we’ve known this day was coming—but that doesn’t make it any less devastating. Here are my thoughts from when we first saw the draft ruling: https://t.co/aegHc7AoTm
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 24, 2022
President Joe Biden is expected to address the nation:
President Biden has been prepared to address the nation when the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade came down. It remains to be seen when he’ll do so but the White House has been bracing for this decision, meeting with stakeholders and preparing their own actions.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 24, 2022
Jessica Glenza
The ruling overturning Roe v Wade is the culmination of decades of work by conservatives – assisted by a president named Donald Trump, Jessica Glenza reports:
The short version of how Americans lost their right to terminate a pregnancy might be summed up in one name: Trump.
The real estate tycoon and reality-TV star first shocked the world by winning the US presidency, then rewarded his base by confirming three supreme court justices to a nine-member bench, thus rebalancing the court to lean conservative for a generation to come.
That short road led to Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an opinion released this week in which supreme court justices voted 6-3 to overturn the landmark case Roe v Wade, which in 1973 granted a constitutional right to abortion.
Jessica Glenza
With the supreme court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade, conservatives have struck a major blow against abortion access in the United States. The Guardian’s Jessica Glenza breaks down what it means:
The supreme court has ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States, upending a precedent set nearly 50 years ago in the landmark Roe v Wade case – a rare reversal of long-settled law that will fracture the foundations of modern reproductive rights in America.
The court’s ruling came in the pivotal case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the last abortion clinic in Mississippi opposed the state’s efforts to ban abortion after 15 weeks and overturn Roe in the process.
The reversal of the 1973 opinion will again allow individual US states to ban abortion. At least 26 states are expected to do so immediately or as soon as practicable.
Supreme court overturns Roe v Wade
The supreme court has overturned Roe v Wade, ending nearly a half-century of abortion rights in the United States.
The decision split along ideological lines, with the six conservative justices voting for it and the three liberals dissenting.
The supreme court will issue its first opinion of the day in one minute, at 10am eastern time. Assuming there’s more than one, subsequent decisions will come in 10-minute intervals.
Follow the US politics live blog for updates, or check out the opinions on the court’s website.
Nina Lakhani
If the supreme court issues a ruling today that weakens the government’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one wonders what that would mean for places like Phoenix. As Nina Lakhani reports, the city is struggling with the opioid epidemic, and extreme heat is making it worse:
Andy Brack was out cold with his head slumped back on the driver’s seat of a white pickup truck, a faint blue tinge around his lips. His friend, Ellen, had called 911 after the 50-year-old lost consciousness while driving to the store.
Brack had been smoking fentanyl for two days straight, according to Ellen, who managed to stop the vehicle from crashing. It was around 4.30pm and boiling outside, almost 108F (42C), and the pickup didn’t have air conditioning. She was doing CPR compressions when the paramedics arrived.
Unable to rouse him, the paramedics administered the drug naloxone via an injection into his upper left arm. The drug, widely known by the brand name Narcan, is an emergency treatment for opioid overdose that temporarily reverses the depressive and potentially fatal effects on the cardiovascular and respiratory systems.
Brack came to abruptly. He refused to be taken to hospital and became angry as the opioid withdrawals set-in. “I’m sober, I need a cigarette,” he said to Ellen as they drove off.
Martin Pengelly
Another takeaway from the January 6 hearings is that a number of Republicans were worried enough about their conduct after the 2020 election to ask for pardons from Trump before he left office, as Martin Pengelly reports:
The Republicans Matt Gaetz and Mo Brooks sought a blanket pardon of members of Congress involved in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden through lies about electoral fraud, the House January 6 committee revealed on Thursday.
A witness said Andy Biggs of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania also contacted the White House about securing pardons. The same witness, former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, said she heard Marjorie Taylor Greene, an extremist from Georgia, wanted a pardon too.
The committee displayed an email written by Brooks, of Alabama, on 11 January 2021, five days after the deadly attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
David Smith
The January 6 committee won’t meet for another few weeks but it’s worth reading this story of the hearing’s revelations and what we know about Donald Trump’s reaction, from the Guardian’s David Smith:
Somewhere in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday afternoon, it seems quite possible that an elderly man was sitting in front of a television howling with rage.
Donald Trump, who spends summers at his Bedminster golf club, is a TV guy, a ratings guy. So the widely televised hearings of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol hit him where it hurts.
The former US president has reportedly been glued to them – and has not liked what he’s seen. As the panel has presented a carefully crafted case against Trump as the leader of a failed coup, he is said to be livid that there is no one in the room to speak up for him.
Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case in which the supreme court could overturn abortion rights, is not the only one in which the justices could make a ruling that touches on a contentious issue in American society.
There’s also Kennedy v Bremerton School District, which deals with a football coach’s practice of praying after games and could end up expanding the types of religious activities allowed at public schools. A ruling in that direction would come just days after the court opened the door to religious schools receiving public funds in a decision that liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor warned weakened the separation between church and state.
Then there’s West Virginia v EPA. The justices are considering a plan announced by former president Barack Obama to lower power plants’ emissions — but which never took effect. The fear is that the conservative majority will use the case as an opportunity to take away major regulatory powers from the government.
Finally, there’s a case that doesn’t affect Americans but rather people on its borders. Biden v. Texas represents the sitting president’s attempt to end the “remain in Mexico” policy implemented by his predecessor Donald Trump, which forced many asylum seekers to stay south of the border while their cases were heard.
The supreme court could today release their opinions on all of these, or none, or some combination in between.
America braces for more conservative rulings from supreme court
Good morning, US politics blog reader. Today could be one for the history books. The supreme court will announce more rulings at 10am eastern time, and among the cases outstanding is one in which the conservative majority is widely expected to strike down the nationwide right to abortion established by the Roe v Wade decision. A draft opinion that leaked last month showed the court prepared to overturn it and yesterday, the conservative bloc ruled against a New York law regulating concealed weapons in a decision expected to make it more difficult to control guns nationwide – a sign of the court’s pronounced rightward drift.
Here’s what else is going on today:
- The House of Representatives is expected to take up a bipartisan gun control compromise that passed the Senate last night, and will probably approve it. President Joe Biden has said he is ready to sign it.
- White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters at 2pm eastern time, though Biden has nothing public on his scheduled today.
- A campaign has kicked off to deprive Fox News of ad revenue over claims that the network is “working overtime to fuel the next insurrection”.
