Special Edition: Roe v. Wade Is Overturned

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/briefing/roe-v-wade-abortion-supreme-court-guns.html

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Good evening. The Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion today. We unpack the landmark decision in a special edition of this newsletter.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade ended the constitutionally protected right to abortion after nearly 50 years. It will lead to bans on the procedure in about half of the states.

All three of former President Trump’s appointees were in the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling. The decision vindicated a decades-long Republican campaign to install conservative judges and justices. It also reversed Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a Supreme Court case that reaffirmed Roe in 1992.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, echoed much of what was leaked in a draft opinion in May.

“Abortion presents a profound moral question,” Alito wrote. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.” Our reporters annotated the full opinion.

Thirteen states have trigger laws that will ban the procedure either immediately or in the coming days. Abortion bans went into effect today in nine states — Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin — in response to the court decision. The procedure is likely to be banned in another 11 states. Abortion clinics in Montgomery, Ala. and Sioux Falls shut down immediately.

We’re tracking abortion laws in each state. Follow our updates here.

Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority but said he would have taken “a more measured course” and stopped short of overruling Roe outright.

In an anguished joint dissent, the three liberal justices — Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — wrote that the court had done grave damage to women’s equality and to its own legitimacy.

“With sorrow — for this court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent.”

The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, concerned a 2018 law that banned abortions in Mississippi at 15 weeks. That law was a calculated challenge to Roe, which prohibited states from banning abortions before fetal viability, currently around 23 weeks.

Alito used a legal philosophy known as “original intent,” which involves scrutinizing the founding document’s language for direction on contemporary issue, to argue that the right to an abortion could not be found in the Constitution.

“Today the Supreme Court of the United States expressly took away a constitutional right for the American people,” President Biden said from the White House. “They didn’t limit it, they simply took it away.”

Biden said his administration would defend women who chose to travel to other states that allowed abortions. “This decision must not be the final word,” he said.

Abortion-rights supporters and anti-abortion activists across the country absorbed the news. Many took to the streets to celebrate the decision or voice their anger. Roe v. Wade is one of the only decisions Americans know by name — and one of the only, if not one of the most significant, decisions to be struck down in their lifetimes.

“The Supreme Court has now officially given politicians permission to control what we do with our bodies, deciding that we can no longer be trusted to determine the course for our own lives,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood.

James Bopp Jr., general counsel to the National Right to Life Committee, called the ruling “a total victory for the pro-life movement and for America.”

“I’m thrilled that the carnage will be abated,” he said.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, celebrated the ruling as “courageous and correct.”

Trump, who tipped the balance of the court, has privately called the reversal “bad” for his party.

The decision to overturn Roe clashes with the views of a majority of Americans.

“I do believe this is the American way. I don’t think us women have ever mattered,” one woman from Mississippi told The Times. “I have been trying to figure out a way to process my anger, process my fear.”

In response to the ruling, the governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced a joint commitment to maintain access to abortion and contraception and to protect providers and patients from the legal reach of other states. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York declared her state a “safe harbor” for those seeking abortions.

The U.S. now joins a handful of countries, like Poland, Russia and Nicaragua, that have rolled back access to the procedure in the last few decades, while more of the world has gone in the other direction.

Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion overturning Roe raised questions about other rights that could disappear. Thomas said that the same rationale that the Supreme Court used to declare there was no right to abortion should be used to overturn cases establishing the rights to contraception, same-sex consensual relations and same-sex marriage.

Thomas wrote that the court “should reconsider” all three decisions, saying it had a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents. Defenders of the right to abortion have repeatedly warned that if Roe fell, the right to contraception and same-sex marriage would be next.

At the start of June, nearly all women in America lived within a few hours’ drive of an abortion clinic. But with Roe v. Wade’s overturning, clinics will quickly close in huge swaths of the country.

The Times estimates that a quarter of U.S. women of reproductive age would have to travel more than 200 miles to obtain a legal abortion should political fights play out as expected.

Abortion providers in states that have protected access to abortion are preparing not only for a surge of out-of-state patients but also for cascading effects to women’s health.

“We’ve already seen patients from Texas in our clinic,” one doctor in Massachusetts said. A Texas law banning abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest is expected to go in effect in 30 days. “Appointments for abortions are to be highly prized,” the doctor said.

Birth control remains legal everywhere in the U.S., as do two “morning-after pills,” Plan B and Ella. Here is a comprehensive guide to birth control.

Taking pills to end a pregnancy accounts for a majority of abortions in the U.S. Here’s what to know about medication abortion.

The House gave final approval to bipartisan gun legislation, ending nearly three decades of congressional inaction over how to counter gun violence.

The measure now heads to President Biden, who is expected to sign it. The legislation will enhance background checks for potential gun buyers under the age of 21 and provide millions of dollars for states to put red flag laws in place to allow officials to temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed in court to be too dangerous to own them.

The legislation also pours more federal money into shoring up mental health programs and tightens a federal ban on the purchase of by domestic abusers.

Ukraine will withdraw its forces from Sievierodonetsk, the local governor said.

After weeks of Russian bombardment and fighting, the eastern city fell. Russia can now concentrate its forces on taking Lysychansk, the city across the river that is the last pocket in Luhansk Province under the control of the Ukrainian government.

To take Sievierodonetsk, Russia had to devastate it with artillery strikes. About 90 percent of the buildings are destroyed and only 8,000 civilians remain in the city, according to Ukrainian officials.

Large, simultaneous heat waves have struck parts of the U.S., China, Europe and India. These four powerhouse economies also happen to be the top emitters of heat-trapping gases.

It’s too soon to say whether climate change is directly to blame for causing severe heat waves at roughly the same time. These waves seem to be attributable reasons related to the jet stream and other rivers of air that influence weather systems worldwide. But, for now, simultaneous heat extremes will probably continue affecting the places where so much of the world’s economic activity is concentrated.

Looking ahead to next week, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision that could severely limit the federal government’s authority to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants.

Hiroko Masuike compiled photos for this briefing.

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