Well, They Did It. The Supreme Court Just Overturned Roe v. Wade

It’s been nearly two months since we saw a leaked draft of the Supreme Court decision in the case of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Despite the public outcry, the nationwide protests, and even the opposition from Democratic lawmakers, we knew there was little chance any of the six ultra-conservative justices on the court would change the opinion they’d already laid down. Every day since has been excruciatingly nerve-wracking as we wait for the decision to be made official, but every day has also been important because it’s been one more day that people across the country still had access to safe and legal abortion services.

Well, that day has come. The official decision has been handed down and we’ll be looking through it more closely but at first glance, it looks like not much has changed since the leaked draft. In a 5-4 decision, the court has upheld Dobbs, overturning existing constitutional abortion protections, including Roe v. Wade.

With Roe overturned, abortion is still legal in most states at the moment, although 13 states have trigger laws that will take effect soon. (In my own state of Missouri, our terrible attorney general waited mere minutes before signing an order implementing our abortion trigger ban.) Other states are likely to follow suit soon after. In about half the states in the country, abortion is legal and likely to remain that way.

INeedanA.com is a great resource for those seeking abortion care anywhere in the U.S., and there are amazing advocates doing essential work at abortion funds nationwide.

(image: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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