Follow the latest news on the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling here and read more about today’s developments in the posts below.
On Friday, from Washington Square Park up to Union Square, past Madison Square Park and the outdoor diners in the Flatiron — some whooping encouragement; some gazing in bafflement — New Yorkers marched.
The air was filled with chants of “Illegitimate Court” and “Pro-Life? It’s a lie, people die!” Cyclists dressed in black blocked off the cross streets, frustrating some drivers.
Watching from the sidewalk, cheering on the protesters, were 17-year-old Eden Kaplan and 16-year-old Sophie Kirk. The two high school students had found out about the Supreme Court’s decision this morning, through a barrage of posts on friends’ Instagram stories.
“I would want to say I was surprised, but I don’t really feel like I was,” Kaplan said. “My (20-year-old) sister also came in the room screaming and crying about what was happening.”
Already, the future looks more limited. A rising senior, Kaplan has yet to settle on a college, and is pondering which state to spend the next years of her life. After today, the range of options has been severely curtailed, she said.
“That’s really upsetting to think about that.”
As they spoke, Kaplan and Kirk passed a hand-drawn sign back and forth: “My body is not a political battleground.”
They saw it — for real, for the first time, on Instagram and on Twitter, in emails and from links and texts from family.
They knew it was coming, but for many of the women protesting in New York City on Friday afternoon and evening, some sitting and watching, others marching, prepared with scrawled-over t-shirts — “Bans off my body” — and an array of furious, witty and acerbic signs, the simple fact of it was almost too much to bear: Roe v. Wade had been overturned. Abortion, safe and legal, is now or will imminently be banned for millions across the country.
Kaluta was in Washington Square Park as the city’s protest hub filled up a little before 6:30 p.m. No one was quite sure where the march was heading — they just wanted to be there, to be together. Even if it changed nothing. Hoping it would change something, if only a little, for someone who could not be there.
Mia Khatcherian, 32, felt a pang of guilt at her first reaction to the court’s decision: She was happy to live in New York state, where abortion is expected to remain a protected right under state law. “It felt selfish,” she said.
The daughter of a Filipina mother and Armenian father, Khatcherian knew that people would be watching. “Knowing that women of color are going to bear the brunt of this decision” made sitting home, raging on social media, an impossibility, she said — so she joined those on the street.
Protests outside the Supreme Court on Friday have been peaceful so far, according to CNN correspondents on the scene. People are speaking out against the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The opinion is the most consequential Supreme Court decision in decades and will transform the landscape of women’s reproductive health in America.
Going forward, abortion rights will be determined by states, unless Congress acts. Already, nearly half of the states have or will pass laws that ban abortion while others have enacted strict measures regulating the procedure.
Hundreds of people on both sides of the issue are outside the building in Washington, DC, to make their voices heard. CNN Correspondent Donie O’Sullivan said some are activists who have been working on this issue while others are tourists from states who are already implementing abortion restrictions.
Many of the protesters are expressing concern not just about abortion, but also about what comes next — including possible changes to other issues like same-sex marriage that also hinge on the right to privacy, O’Sullivan reported.
CNN Law Enforcement Correspondent Whitney Wild said demonstrations at the Supreme Court have been peaceful. There has not been a reason for Capitol Police or any other agencies to intervene with the crowd, Wild said, and there have not been any arrests. She said law enforcement is still concerned about domestic violent extremists who may see the large crowds as an opportunity for violence.
Groups like Planned Parenthood, Bans Off Our Bodies, and Women’s March are among the activist groups organizing the events across the country, including in Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and Houston.
After news broke that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, activist groups began organizing protests for Friday.
CNN has found that at least 70 protests have been planned.
Groups like Planned Parenthood, Bans Off Our Bodies, and Women’s March are among the activist groups organizing the events.
Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, New York and Houston are among the cities where protests will occur or are already underway.
An abortion rights advocate climbed to the top of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC, Friday to protest the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The bridge is currently shut down, according to the District’s Department of Transportation, who said in a statement the closure is due to “safety concerns involved with protest activity and will remain in effect until further notice.”
Guido Reichstadter posted videos and photos of himself on social media from the top of the bridge where he unfurled a large green banner. Green is recognized as a symbol of abortion rights. Reichstadter also planted a flag on the bridge that reads: “Don’t tread on my uterus.”
Reichstadter told CNN on the phone that he intends to stay on top of the bridge for as long as he physically can. Reichstadter is without water after his bottle fell out of his bag when he arrived to the top, he said.
He told CNN that while many people in the US oppose the Supreme Court’s decision, their support is largely passive, which he says is not enough to ensure that women have access to abortions across the country.
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine urged Ohioans on Friday to have a “civil debate” in a message that was both televised and posted on the governor’s Twitter account, in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.
DeWine said he would be working with the General Assembly and local communities to improve the quality of pre- and post-natal care, mental care for mothers and children, among other measures.
“I believe that all Ohioans want this state to be the most pro-family, pro-child state in the country, and we are making great progress in creating an environment here in Ohio where families and children can thrive and live up to their full potential,” DeWine said.
Some context: Republican Ohio Attorney General David Yost filed an “emergency” motion in federal court on Friday to dissolve the injunction against the state’s Heartbeat Law, he said in a post on his Twitter account. The bill would have banned abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy.
Paxton Smith, the Texas teen who went viral after changing her valedictorian speech to speak out against the state’s abortion law last year, told CNN the energy at the Supreme Court Friday “was high and it was angry,” following the Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Smith has been in Washington, DC, since last Friday in anticipation of the decision, she told CNN.
“A lot of people are just really, really angry and kind of coping with this feeling of disbelief that in America, the so-called ‘land of the free’ and ‘land of the equal,’ a human right has been taken away from so many people,” she said.
“I’m feeling fairly disappointed, and I guess, I mean, the main feeling is fear,” she described.
Smith, who is now 19 years old and just finished her first year at the University of Texas at Austin, has been advocating for abortion access since her viral speech last year. She is on the board of an abortion fund and abortion advocacy organization and just attended a human rights conference in Switzerland, she said.
“Don’t let that fear kind of just sit on the side. Use it and use it as motivation for your work,” Smith said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a new law strengthening abortion rights in the state, following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
As he signed the bill, Newsom described feeling “pissed, resolved and angry.”
California’s new law, passed by the state legislature on Thursday, will create a protective shield against any potential civil action originating outside the state for anyone performing, assisting, or receiving an abortion in the state. AB 1666 will protect not just California residents but anyone visiting the state seeking reproductive health care.
The new law is just one of more than a dozen bills making their way through the legislature, aiming to strengthen and protect abortion access. Other proposed bills would seek to focus on root causes of reproductive health inequities, enhance privacy protections, and allow qualified nurse practitioners to provide first-trimester abortions.
Anger over the court’s opinion was not limited to Newsom.
Bonta and Newsom were joined by other lawmakers determined to strengthen the state’s laws and ensure women in other states with more restrictive laws know they can come to California to seek health care.
“California is a safe haven for those who seek abortion care. Abortion remains fully legal in California. Today’s decision does not impact our state’s laws. You have the right to an abortion here,” Bonta said. “In California, we refuse to turn back the clock and let radical ideologies exert control over your body.”
California has also introduced an amendment adding reproductive health care as a fundamental right to the state’s constitution, which will go before voters in November.
The amendment reads: “The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives. This section is intended to further the constitutional right to privacy guaranteed by Section 1, and the constitutional right to not be denied equal protection guaranteed by Section 7. Nothing herein narrows or limits the right to privacy or equal protection.”
“This is not just about choice, it is not just about reproductive freedom,” Newsom insisted, mentioning marriage equality, interracial marriage, and transgender rights. “They’re coming after you next,” he warned.
Performing abortions in Kentucky is now considered a felony after the state’s Human Life Protection Act, which prohibits the willful “termination of the life of an unborn human being,” went into effect Friday, Attorney General Daniel Cameron said.
“Today is a day that many have hoped for — the issue of abortion has been returned to the people and to the states, where it belongs,” Cameron said in a statement. “This moment deserves to be celebrated, but it also calls for renewed commitment. Renewed commitment to life-affirming care for the unborn, for mothers, and for Kentucky families.”
The ACLU of Kentucky said it is prepared to file a lawsuit in state court arguing against SCOTUS’s opinion citing that “the Kentucky Constitution allows for the legal right to access abortion.”
They issued a statement Friday saying that their clients have stopped providing care while their legal team assesses the court’s opinion in how it relates to laws in Kentucky.
“We will aggressively litigate this claim on behalf of our Louisville-based client, EMW Women’s Surgical Center, seeking relief from the courts that will allow all providers to resume providing abortions as soon as possible,” the statement said.
With the Supreme Court deciding there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion, the baby formula shortage and effects of the pandemic on careers and home life, women are carrying the weight of the world.
At the same time, online hatred is running rampant and some fear the impact an Elon Musk-run Twitter and his push for free, less-moderated speech could have on women, especially women of color. Life can be mentally exhausting, especially in 2022.
What struggles are you facing and what do you want the world to know? Women are always juggling, but this moment seems uniquely hard with new challenges piling up. How are you handling 2022? What do you hope for? Share your thoughts with us and we may follow up for a CNN story.
Many Americans don’t remember what it was like before 1973, when the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade — but California Rep. Barbara Lee does.
She said she remembers the fear of getting an abortion at that time: Terrified she might die, and terrified because she knew the abortion she was getting in Mexico was illegal.
“Coming back across the border, I didn’t know if I was going to get stopped. I didn’t know, getting into California, if I was going to get stopped and arrested — Back in the days now where abortions and abortion providers are going to be criminalized. That is horrific,” Lee said.
“We cannot let this happen,” she added. “We cannot go back.”
She said one of her main concerns is that the restriction on abortion rights will disproportionately impact people of color and people living in rural and low-income areas. These people don’t have the money or resources to be able to travel for services like she did or pay for child care, she said.
“The ballot box — we have got to elect state and local officials who trust women and who know that a personal decision about their own reproductive decisions is personal, it’s private, just like it was with me,” Lee said.
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Dr. Janet Cathey, physician provider at the Little Rock Planned Parenthood office, told CNN that they had to cancel between “60 and 100” appointments for people who had abortion procedures scheduled or were in the process of scheduling.
The total includes about “30 patients today, another 20 tomorrow and then there were patients next week,” Cathey said.
Cathey told CNN that in Arkansas, patients seeking abortion procedures must wait 72 hours before being able to receive medications for termination, which is why those appointments that were canceled for “some who were doing first-day consultation, and some were following up to get their medications.”
Cathey said all patients were given contact information to the Planned Parenthood office in Overland Park, Kansas, office to get help with their abortion procedures there. She said that the Little Rock office “made arrangements for some to be transferred there.”
Little Rock is roughly seven hours from Overland Park, but for those patients in southern Arkansas, the travel time is closer to 10 hours, Cathey said.
Speaking about the impact on Arkansas by today’s SCOTUS ruling, Cathey said it’s not just local residents who will be impacted.
“We were seeing people from Louisiana and Texas who came to see us too. Some called from Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. They’re going to be impacted as well,” she added.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge earlier on Friday signed a certification that prohibits abortions in the state.
Media giants have become the latest corporate titans to reaffirm financial support for abortion-seekers following Friday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The entertainment goliath Disney assured employees Friday they would be able to afford a similar level of health care outside of their home area if they needed to travel to access health services, including family planning and pregnancy-related services, a Disney spokesperson told CNN.
Meanwhile, the cable and media giant Comcast said Friday that travel for abortion services is covered under a company-wide employee benefit. Under the policy, Comcast may pay each employee up to $4,000 per trip if the employee needs to travel to access a covered health care service. The coverage is capped at three trips and $10,000 per year, whichever comes first, but the benefit resets each year, meaning that employees who require follow-up health visits out-of-state could benefit substantially from the policy over multiple years, Comcast told CNN. The benefit applies to all Comcast and NBCUniversal employees, the company said, and the amount paid typically depends on the type of expense incurred.
And Warner Bros. Discovery — which owns CNN — said in a statement that it “immediately” expanded its benefits program on Friday following the court’s ruling to cover abortion-related travel expenses.
“Warner Bros. Discovery is committed to offering our employees across the country access to consistent and comprehensive healthcare services,” a company spokesperson told CNN. “In light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, we immediately expanded our healthcare benefits options to cover transportation expenses for employees and their covered family members who need to travel to access abortion and reproductive care.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she is trying to stop a nearly-century-old law that restricts abortions from going into effect, now that the US Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.
If the proposed law does go into effect, it would make Michigan one of the most restrictive states on abortion access.
The 1931 law that’s still included in Michigan’s penal code states: “Any person who shall wilfully (sic) administer to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, substance or thing whatever, or shall employ any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of any such woman” … is guilty of a felony.
It has an exception to “preserve the life” of the woman, but it does not exclude for rape or incest. The law also threatens abortion providers with prison time, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.
In response, Whitmer filed a lawsuit to try to block it from going into effect, before Roe was overturned. Now, she said she is hoping the court takes action soon.
“I filed this lawsuit a couple of months ago. People thought that it was too early, or maybe it wasn’t going to be necessary, obviously, it was both timely and absolutely necessary,” Whitmer told CNN on Friday.
The lawsuit argues that under the Michigan constitution, “women have due process and equal protection right to privacy and bodily autonomy and I’m hoping that our judges move swiftly to recognize that right here,” she said.
Whitmer said restricting abortion rights in Michigan would not just hurt those who live in the state, but would also restrict care for women who come from neighboring states like Indiana and Ohio — both states whose legislatures are poised to ban abortion.
CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.
Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor has certified banning abortion in the state, according to Gov. Kevin Stitt, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday.
“John O’Connor wasted no time. His swift action to certify section 861 banned abortion in our state immediately,” Stitt said. “It is my hope that the rest of America will follow Oklahoma’s lead.”
O’Connor said during a Friday news conference with the governor that “the people of Oklahoma have decided through their elected leaders, and the governor signed legislation making abortion illegal in the state of Oklahoma from the moment of conception, except in the instance of saving the life of the mother.”
“And remember that in the Oklahoma law, there is no punishment for the mother. There is no criminal punishment. There is no civil exposure for the mother. It is for the people who aid or abet or solicit abortion,” he added.
“Oklahoma’s law is very clear now. And so, law enforcement is now activated with respect to any efforts to aid, abet or solicit abortions,” he added.
Some background: Stitt signed a bill last month that would make performing abortions illegal in the state, only allowing exceptions to save the life of the pregnant person. The measure makes performing an abortion or attempting to perform one a felony punishable by a maximum fine of $100,000 or a maximum of 10 years in state prison, or both.
A second bill signed into law last week set a timeline for provisions to go into effect, and it was dependent on how the Supreme Court ruled.
A coalition of 83 prosecutors collectively representing 87 million people from 28 states and territories have publicly vowed not to prosecute those seeking and performing abortions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s opinion clearing the way for bans and legal action.
The joint statement asserts that criminalizing abortion will not end the practice, but will inhibit safe procedures and inhibit those needing medical, social, and law enforcement help from seeking it.
“We are horrified that some states have failed to carve out exceptions for victims of sexual violence and incest in their abortion restrictions; this is unconscionable,” the statement said. “And, even where such exceptions do exist, abortion bans still threaten the autonomy, dignity, and safety of survivors, forcing them to choose between reporting their abuse or being connected to their abuser for life.”
The prosecutors are comprised from states that plan to protect reproductive rights like California and Illinois, but also include those from 11 states that plan to implement stricter restrictions like Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama.
“This is a sad day in America,” said Gascón, who is one of the 83 elected prosecutors who signed the pledge. “The Supreme Court has told half the population that it has no right to bodily autonomy. One Justice said out loud that we should reconsider even more rights, including the right of everyone to love and marry who they choose. I grieve for all those women who have lost so much today, and for all those people who live in fear that they will lose more tomorrow.”
The represented states and territories include Georgia, California, Missouri, Virginia, New York, Maryland, Alabama, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Mississippi, Texas, Vermont, Oregon, Illinois, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Maine, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Hawaii, Indiana, Illinois, Washington, Mississippi, New Mexico, Kansas, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, the District of Columbia, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Republican Ohio Attorney General David Yost filed an “emergency” motion in federal court on Friday to dissolve the injunction against the state’s Heartbeat Law, he said in a post on his Twitter account.
“We filed a motion in federal court moments ago to dissolve the injunction against Ohio’s Heartbeat Law, which had been based on the now-overruled precedents of Roe and Casey,” he said in the tweet.
The injunction was filed on July 2019 according to the motion.
In Georgia, Attorney General Chris Carr has filed notice with the 11th Circuit requesting it reverse the District Court’s decision and allow the state’s Heartbeat Law to take effect, according to a press release from his office.
“I believe in the dignity, value and worth of every human being, both born and unborn. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs is constitutionally correct and rightfully returns the issue of abortion to the states and to the people – where it belongs,” Carr said.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed a restrictive abortion bill into law in 2019, but it was blocked by a federal judge later that year.
Sisters Jeanne, a Florida Republican, and Joni, a Minnesota Democrat, are divided by geography and political party.
But when they landed — together — on a flight into New York this morning, getting the news from their seatback televisions, they shared the same “disappointment” with the court’s decision.
Jeanne, who did not want to give her last name, described herself as a “financial conservative” and said she was puzzled by the intense focus on abortion by some in her party.
Joni, who also did not want to provide her surname, is a Democrat and practicing nurse. She said she expected her home state to become a magnet for women seeking legal abortions.
“I never advocate for someone to use abortion as a form of birth control,” she said. “But everyone should be able to decide for themselves. … I don’t walk in someone else’s shoes. How do I know — maybe (giving birth) is going to be tough on their mental health? It’s not such a black-and-white issue.”
Another point they agreed on: Decision-makers in Washington — from the Supreme Court to Capitol Hill — were the last people they wanted rendering such a convulsive judgment.
Despite their shared frustration with the ruling and “big gridlock” in federal government, neither sister said the overturning of Roe v. Wade was going to set them on a new path of activism.
They won’t be attending any protests tonight — instead, it’s on to Broadway with tickets to see “Company,” the award-winning revival of a production that debuted in 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade was decided.
The five-justice Supreme Court bloc that overturned a half century of women’s abortion rights on Friday had coalesced less than two years. But they had found their moment and they seized it.
This is America’s new Supreme Court, moving swiftly, rejecting the incrementalism of Chief Justice John Roberts, and upsetting individual privacy rights in an epic decision that will reverberate for decades.
No matter how much of a preview the country received when an early draft was leaked in May, the sweep and audacious tone of the final ruling still breathtaking.
The court rejected that landmark and a series of abortion rights decisions that followed, including the 1992 decision that reaffirmed Roe as key justices then in the majority declared they might not have voted for Roe but accepted the decision that had become ingrained in society.
Their sentiment and that of most of the justices who have joined the high court since 1973 was that neither the country nor the court itself could go backward. Institutional integrity and the revered principle of stare decisis, adherence to precedent, demanded that.
But that is not this court. Today’s justices on the right wing are unlike the Republican-appointed conservatives who first voted for Roe and then upheld it, joined by justices on the left. The three Donald Trump appointees, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the bench in October 2020 and anchored the Friday decision, have not hedged on abortion rights.
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