The 1973 decision that made abortion a legally protected right, now sends the question back to the states.
The court’s decision upheld a law from Mississippi that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In doing so, the court’s conservative majority said the Roe decision was egregiously wrong in recognizing a constitutional right to an abortion, an error the court perpetuated in the decades since.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court, “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
The ruling, one of the most consequential in modern memory, marked a rare instance in which the court reversed itself to eliminate a constitutional right that it had previously recognized.
However the reversal is not unprecedented. Throughout history, the court has reversed itself hundreds of times in other landmark decisions.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined the Alito opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts, in a concurring opinion, agreed that the Mississippi law should stand, but didn’t support rescinding the right to an abortion altogether.
The decision sparked a wave of violence across the country as abortion advocates have burned and vandalized dozens of pro-life pregnancy resource centers and churches.
The ruling also resulted in several states immediately banning abortion and causing planned parenthood abortion facilities in those states to shutter.