‘A Woman Has No Rights to Speak Of’: Read Liberals’ Supreme Court Dissent

On Friday morning, the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, which protected a woman’s right to have an abortion for nearly 50 years.

The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines, with Justice Samuel Alito authoring the main opinion.

The three liberals on the court, Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, issued a joint dissent. They wrote that the court had long held a balance between the many differing opinions of Americans on abortion, issuing a variety of decisions that allowed some limits to be set on the procedure but not allowing an undue burden to be placed upon a woman who might seek it.

“Today, the Court discards that balance. It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of,” the justices wrote.

The justices lamented the wide-ranging impact the decision will have on American women. Many states are now free to impose draconian bans on abortion with no exceptions, such as rape or incest.

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

Read their full dissent below: