What happens next? The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday it would strike down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States. The highest court in the land announced the ruling on a case brought by Mississippi that seeks to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Some 13 U.S. states have “trigger laws” to immediately ban abortion in those states following Roe’s reversal, and a similar number are moving to restrict or ban access to abortion in their states, which will lead to an estimated 40 million women losing access to abortion in their states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a public-health think tank that supports abortion access. “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” the court wrote. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade. The court vot …