Live Updates
Our live coverage has ended. 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.
In his first public appearance since the Supreme Court’s historic reversal of Roe v. Wade, former President Donald Trump applauded the court’s six conservative justices for their “courage,” describing the ruling as “a victory for the Constitution, a victory for the rule of law and above all, a victory for life.”
“This breakthrough is the answer to the prayers of millions and millions of people. And these prayers have gone on for decades and decades,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Mendon, Illinois for GOP Rep. Mary Miller and gubernatorial hopeful Darren Bailey. “To the generations of Americans in the pro-life movement, as well as countless constitutional conservatives, your boundless love, sacrifice and devotion has finally been rewarded in full.”
Amid chants of “Thank you, Trump!” from the crowd, the former President also boasted about his role in establishing the court’s current conservative majority by appointing Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett during his four years in office.
“We got almost 300 federal judges and three great Supreme Court justices confirmed to do exactly that. And thanks to the courage found within the United States Supreme Court, this long divisive issue will be decided by the states and by the American people,” Trump said of the abortion rights decision that was handed down Friday.
The former President also weighed in on recent protests at the homes of the Court’s conservative justices and the arrest of a man earlier this month who was charged with attempted murder of Justice Kavanaugh.
“I especially want to commend the justices for standing strong in the face of outrageous threats and violence,” Trump said. “This was an organized and concentrated effort to threaten the court and interfere with their decisions, but the justices stood their ground against these extremists and terrorists.”
The U.S. Capitol Police arrested two people Saturday afternoon for “destruction of property” after “they were accused of throwing paint over the fence by the U.S. Supreme Court,” the department tweeted.
Demonstrators holding signs and chanting have been protesting outside of the Supreme Court for a second day, after Friday’s SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“We have seen a lot of chanting, a bit of confrontation because there have been people here on both sides of this issue, yelling at each other. It is largely peaceful,” CNN’s Joe Johns reported from the ground.
Women traveled to Washington, DC, from near and far – from Dallas, Texas to Sarasota, Florida, Johns said.
“We already walked this walk once and here we have to come back because of my daughter and all of the other people in the world this affects,” one woman told Johns.
Another woman, Develda Edgington, told him that she was “furious,” and she said while she usually only participates in her local demonstrations, she felt that she had to be at the Supreme Court today. “This one feels different … this is just the beginning,” she said.
“This is going to awaken the sleeping giant,” protester Cheryl Kelly told CNN.
The U.S. Capitol Police also tweeted Saturday it was working to “help demonstrators with heat issues” by bringing in cooling buses and additional resources.
CNN’s Sarah Fortinsky & Aileen Graef contributed to this report
An overnight fire at a Christian pregnancy clinic in Longmont, Colorado is being investigated as arson, according to public safety officials.
According to a release from the Longmont Public Safety Department, officers responded to a building fire Saturday morning at 3:17 a.m. local time.
The building houses offices for Life Choices, which, according to its website, is a “Christ-centered ministry providing education, support, healing, and limited medical services for sexual life choices.”
Longmont Public Safety said the building sustained fire and heavy smoke damage.
The front of the property was also vandalized with black paint. In photographs shared by Longmont Public Safety, the phrases, “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you,” and “Bans off our bodies” can be seen spray-painted on the facility’s exterior wall and entrance way.
Investigators have asked area residents to check their surveillance videos as they attempt to identify those responsible, according to the release.
Longmont is a municipality approximately 15 miles northeast of Boulder.
The sole abortion clinic in North Dakota is now preparing to move across state lines following the recent Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade.
North Dakota is one of many states with trigger laws intended to ban abortion now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. The state’s law will go into effect 30 days after it is certified by the state’s attorney general.
The Red River Women’s Clinic, located in Fargo, has been the only provider in the state for 20 years. The clinic’s director, Tammi Kromenaker, told CNN Saturday they are still open – for now. “The plan is to provide service as long as we legally can,” Kromenaker said. And once that is no longer possible in North Dakota, the clinic intends to move across state lines to Moorhead, Minnesota, according to Kromenaker.
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley’s office is still “evaluating the Dobbs opinion in every detail and will give careful consideration to its impact on North Dakota’s abortion laws,” according to a June 24 statement.
The Supreme Court’s Friday ruling overturning Roe v. Wade means an 1849 state law banning abortion in Wisconsin takes effect again. During a special session called by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, the Republican-controlled state legislature declined on Wednesday to repeal the law—which Evers described as providing “no exceptions for abortion in the cases of rape or incest” in a June 8 statement.
“This is an absolutely disastrous and unconscionable decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, the consequences of which I hoped to never see again in my lifetime,” Evers said in a statement Friday. “We will fight this decision in every way we can with every power we have.”
Wisconsin Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul told CNN affiliate WISN before the court’s decision came down that he did not intend to enforce the abortion ban at the state level. However, following the decision Friday, his office issued a statement stopping short of that, saying, “Our office is reviewing today’s decision and will be providing further information about how we intend to move forward next week.”
Meanwhile, the neighboring state of Minnesota is preparing for a potential influx of women seeking abortions as bans in other states go into effect. Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order Saturday that is designed to shield women seeking abortions there from being subject to legal consequences in other states.
“To the maximum extent of the law, it prohibits state agencies from using any resources to help in any investigation that would impose sanctions for providing or attempting to get reproductive health care services that are legal in Minnesota,” Walz said in a news conference.
Planned Parenthood of Utah filed a lawsuit Saturday seeking to block the state’s abortion ban that went into effect following the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
The so-called “trigger law,” passed by Utah in 2020, went into effect late Friday, according to a letter sent by John L. Fellows, the general counsel for the Utah Legislature, which was provided to CNN by KUTV.
Exceptions to Utah’s abortion ban include cases of rape or incest, detection of severe birth defects, or prevention of the death of serious injury of the person giving birth. Performing an abortion in violation of the law is a second-degree felony.
In the lawsuit cited by Planned Parenthood of Utah, the organization argued that the abortion ban violates the state constitution and that the Utah Supreme Court “has made clear that state constitutional guarantees may be more expansive than those under federal law.” The organization is seeking a temporary restraining order and injunctive relief to prevent enforcement of the law.
“Although Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization … has revoked the right to previability abortions under the U.S. Constitution, the Utah Constitution serves as an independent source of rights for Utahns,” the suit said.
The abortion rights group said in the suit that it had “no choice but to stop performing abortions” after the law took effect and that it canceled appointments on Saturday for about a dozen patients who had procedures scheduled.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office told CNN Saturday it had “no comment at this time” when asked for its response to the suit.
CNN’s Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.
Saturday is the first full day for outright bans on abortion in some states after the Supreme Court overturned the nearly half-century-old Roe v. Wade decision.
Three states – Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota – have so-called “trigger bans” that went into effect automatically. Ten other states have trigger bans with implementation mechanisms that occur after a set period or after a step taken by a state government entity.
Yesterday, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to explicitly call for other rulings to be revisited.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote, referring to decisions on contraception, sodomy and same-sex marriage. Liberals said that those rulings are now at risk.
Here are the latest developments:
Biden says SCOTUS decision is “devastating:” President Joe Biden acknowledged his administration’s frustration with Friday’s ruling, calling this week’s Supreme Court decisions “terrible.”
“Jill and I know how painful and devastating a decision it is for so many Americans, and I mean so many Americans. The decision is implemented by states. My administration is going to focus on how they administer it, and whether or not they violate other laws, like deciding not to allow people across state lines to get public health services, and we’re going to take actions to protect women’s rights and reproductive health,” he said before departing for the G7 summit in Germany.
The White House said Biden “is going to continue to find solutions” to ensure abortion rights, but did not offer details on potential executive actions the administration is weighing to do so.
Protests largely peaceful, with some arrests: Demonstrators gathered in front of the Supreme Court and in cities around the US again to protest the decision. While the protests were largely peaceful, there were a few incidents Friday and early Saturday, including a tense situation with anti-abortion activists at the only Mississippi abortion clinic, tear gas used to disperse a crowd in front of the state capitol, and abortion rights supporters in Los Angeles marching onto a freeway.
Governors shore up resources: Minnesota’s governor issued an executive order Saturday providing protections for people coming to Minnesota for reproductive healthcare from states where abortion is illegal or criminalized, according to a release from Gov. Tim Walz’s office.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee vowed to make his state a “sanctuary state” for reproductive choice for people across the country, regardless of abortion bans existing in other states. He pledged a $1 million down payment to start subsidizing reproductive healthcare networks across the state ahead of an anticipated influx of patients.
Just after 10 a.m. ET, on Friday morning, a man at the National Right to Life Convention in Atlanta shouted, “Roe’s been overturned!”
Inside the room, some started clapping, while others checked their phones in the minutes after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had made access to abortion a federal constitutional right. The session was derailed. Convention-goers hugged one another, and some were visibly emotional.
The moment at the National Right to Life’s annual convention was a win that advocates had fought for decades through organizing, lobbying and voting.
Many convention attendees told CNN after the ruling that they had been involved with the anti-abortion movement for years.
Jessica Rodgers, 33, was speaking to a group of teens attending the convention, explaining just “how historic today might be” as the ruling came in. As a former intern with National Right to Life who is now the vice president of DC Metro Life Alliance, Rodgers said the ruling moved her to tears.
“To see this barrier put up for all of these decades that have prevented states from taking necessary steps to protect human life at every level, to see that barrier fall and crash was just kind of euphoric. It was joyous,” she told CNN on Friday.
Read more from the ground in Atlanta.
Ten people were arrested Friday night in Eugene, Oregon, during a demonstration dubbed a “Night of Rage” in response to the US Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade, according to a release from Eugene Police Department.
Those arrested ranged in age from 18-to-29 years old, according to the release. Nine people were charged with disorderly conduct, one of whom was also charged with resisting arrest. Another demonstrator was charged with harassment, police said.
Police said demonstrators started gathering Friday night just before 9:30 p.m. local time in front of a medical building in the city’s downtown. Police said the protesters wore black clothing, masks and hoods, and they appeared to have backpacks as well.
Police said the crowd grew to more than 75 people who blocked roadways and vehicles. According to the release, protesters at one point were seen throwing rocks or other objects. An unknown individual also threw smoke bombs at police officers, according to the release.
Police said the crowd became rowdy and hostile after not complying with orders to clear the roadway.
The department called in additional resources, including the Springfield Police Department and Department of Homeland Security, according to police.
Officers deployed chemical-free pepperballs — a pepper-spray projectile — at the crowd when it blocked the roadway of an essential route for first responders. At that point, the crowd size decreased, according to the release.
Police have not said if any injuries were sustained during this time, and it is unknown if those arrested remain in custody as of Saturday afternoon.
Protests across the US surrounding the SCOTUS decision have been largely peaceful.
During a news conference Saturday afternoon on the steps of Washington state’s capitol building, Gov. Jay Inslee vowed to make Washington a “sanctuary state” for reproductive choice for people across the country, regardless of abortion bans existing in other states.
Inslee announced an upcoming executive order that will direct state police not to comply with any possible extradition efforts from other states seeking to penalize those who travel to Washington to receive an abortion.
Inslee also called for legislation to codify the right to abortion into state law as an amendment to Washington’s constitution.
Inslee said he is promising a $1 million down payment to start subsidizing reproductive healthcare networks across the state ahead of an anticipated influx of patients.
Personnel and medical equipment will need to be “amped up,” he said, adding that he’s “relatively confident” these resources will be available.
Inslee, as well as Dr. Erin Berry, Washington’s medical director for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest – were questioned about how Washington’s healthcare infrastructure will withstand the strain of possible patient overload.
“We will continue to learn how to do things more efficiently and more effectively,” Berry said during the news conference.
Inslee did not specify when the executive order will be released.
Health care experts fear that with Roe v. Wade overturned, potential widespread abortion bans will deepen the United States’ maternal mortality crisis. Providers told CNN they worry that reducing access to abortion — by closing clinics, setting early gestational limits or outlawing the procedure altogether — may lead to more pregnancy-related deaths in the United States.
Rates of pregnancy-related deaths in the US are the highest in the developed world and have risen steadily over time, with Black women three times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than White women. The CDC recently reported that the rate of pregnancy-related deaths increased from 20.1 in 2019 to 23.8 in 2020, continuing a worrying trend of worsening maternal health outcomes for people in the United States.
Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, 26 states are poised to ban abortion through pre-existing bans or “trigger laws” that will now go into effect without the landmark ruling no longer in place. As a result, more than 10 million people of reproductive age would have to cross state lines to access the procedure in the nearest state where it is legal, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy institute that supports legal abortion rights.
“[People] may seek unsafe ways of terminating a pregnancy and could have harmful consequences,” said Whitney Rice, the director of the Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast at Emory University. “You also have people who may sort of be forced to continue pregnancies to term and could have a risk of infant health outcomes that include low birth weight, preterm birth, or may have a risk of maternal mortality.”
Maternal mortality rates are already high in those states certain or likely to ban abortion — 47% higher than the national rate, according to a CNN analysis of 2018 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most recent available.
Overall, states with the most restrictive abortion laws had a 7% higher maternal mortality rate than states with fewer restrictions, according to a 2021 study in the American Journal of Public Health.
States that restricted abortion based on gestational limits saw a steep rise in the maternal mortality rate by 38%, according to a 2020 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. A 20% reduction in Planned Parenthood clinics in a state between 2007-2015 resulted, on average, in an increase in the state’s maternal mortality rates by 8%.
Read more here:
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, some have pointed to past statements justices have made while nominees regarding abortion during their confirmation hearings.
In 2020, then-SCOTUS nominee Amy Coney Barrett was asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar about an article in which she referred to “super precedent.”
“The way that it’s used in the scholarship and the way that I was using it in the article … was to define cases that are so well-settled that no political actors and no people seriously push for their overruling,” she said. “And I’m answering a lot of questions about Roe, which I think indicates that Roe doesn’t fall in that category. And scholars across the spectrum say that doesn’t mean that Roe should be overruled.”
Then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 also said Roe v. Wade was an “important precedent.”
In 2017, Neil Gorsuch said that “it has been reaffirmed many times.”
“Part of being a good judge is coming in and taking precedent as it stands. And your personal views about the precedent have absolutely nothing to do with the good job of a judge,” he said.
In 2006, nominee Samuel Alito called Roe v. Wade “a precedent that has now been on the books for several decades.”
Back in 1991, Clarence Thomas said, “I have no reason or agenda to prejudge the issue or … predisposed to rule one way or the another on the issue of abortion.”
Watch here:
Minnesota’s governor issued an executive order Saturday providing protections for people coming to Minnesota for reproductive healthcare from states where abortion is illegal or criminalized, according to a release from Gov. Tim Walz’s office.
With the executive order, Walz joined fellow Democratic governors who hurriedly took legislative or legal action in response to the US Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade, CNN has reported.
Several other states also had “trigger bans,” which either totally or partially restricted abortion access automatically with the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
In the release, Walz said his office will protect people from such states who are traveling to Minnesota for an abortion “to the fullest extent of their lawful authority.”
Walz’s executive order also directs state agencies to work to protect Minnesotans providing, seeking or obtaining lawful reproductive health care services, according to the release.
“My office has been and will continue to be a firewall against legislation that would reverse reproductive freedom,” said Walz. “This order shows our administration’s commitment to protecting patients and health care providers. Our administration is doing everything we can to protect individuals’ right to make their own health care decisions.”
According to the release, the order is effective immediately.
CNN’s Kate Conerly contributed to this report
President Biden does not favor expanding the Supreme Court and hasn’t changed his stance on eliminating the filibuster, the White House said Saturday, throwing cold water on steps some liberal Democrats have called for in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling stripping the nationwide right to abortion.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden does not agree with calls for court expansion, affirming the stance the President held as a candidate remains in place, even as he’s skirted the issue more recently.
“That is something that the President does not agree with. That is not something that he wants to do,” Jean-Pierre said. “There was a commission that was put together about how to potentially move forward with the court, reform the court. I don’t have anything more to share from any final decision that the President has made.”
While running for president, Biden said he was “not a fan” of expanding the court. Later, he deferred to a commission he established to examine various options for court reform.
The commission issued a final report in December, but it doesn’t contain any recommendations, only analysis of various options. And Biden has not signaled any intent to act on the ideas since then.
That will prove disappointing to activists, who have renewed calls for expanding the court in the wake of Friday’s decision.
Similarly, Jean-Pierre offered little indication Biden had altered his stance on eliminating the filibuster — even if the Senate gained more Democrats who favor those steps.
“I don’t think the filibuster will play a role there,” she said, suggesting instead that electing more Democratic members to Congress was the principal objective.
“I hear your point about the filibuster, but if we’re able to, if Americans are able to use their voice at the ballot box, bring in more members into Congress that support this issue, then there is movement that we can make. There is a way that we can restore Roe and that is the most important thing that we can do,” she said.
Biden has opposed an outright elimination of the legislative filibuster, but has backed certain reforms. But even some Democrats have opposed changes, making any type of reform unlikely.
President Joe Biden “is going to continue to find solutions” to ensure abortion rights, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Saturday, though she declined to offer details on potential executive actions the administration is weighing to do so.
“There’s been a lot of urgency from this President and from this White House on the next steps of this, especially now that we know that the decision was made yesterday,” Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling on Air Force One Saturday, highlighting “powerful, passionate remarks” from Biden at the White House Friday.
The press secretary cited two “concrete steps” from the White House immediately following Friday’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, highlighting the administration’s move to guarantee access to abortion pills and defend the right of a woman to travel to another state to receive an abortion if the procedure is outlawed in her home state.
“Those two are very concrete, big steps. I know that’s using his executive authority, I know people are asking about executive actions,” Jean Pierre said. “The President is going to continue to find solutions, he’s going to continue to talk to leading groups, he’s going to continue to talk to legal experts on what he can do from his own executive perch, if you will, and so that conversation’s going to continue to happen; that’s not going to stop.”
Biden earlier Saturday called the SCOTUS decision “painful and devastating,” adding that the Supreme Court has made “some terrible decisions.”
A pedestrian was injured by a truck while trying to legally cross the street in front of the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during Friday evening’s Roe v. Wade protests in the city, according to Cedar Rapids Police.
Video of the incident shows a truck appearing to push through a group of protesters, with one person falling to the ground after making contact with the vehicle.
Police said a preliminary investigation showed a group of protesters was “attempting to legally cross the street” in front of the courthouse around 7:17 p.m. local time, when the traffic light changed, giving the intersection’s right of way to vehicles.
Police said “verbal confrontations” took place between the protesters and a driver, and “contact was made” between the vehicle and one of the protesters. Cedar Rapids Police responded to the scene.
The injured pedestrian was interviewed by officers on-scene and then taken to a local hospital for evaluation in a private car. According to police, the protester appeared to have minor injuries.
The driver of the vehicle was also “voluntarily interviewed” by law enforcement, police said.
Cedar Rapids police are working to obtain any potential surveillance video of the incident, and more information will be made available when possible, the release said. So far, no one has been arrested in connection with this incident.
“Cedar Rapids is a city with a diverse population and many viewpoints. Today’s Supreme Court decision is likely to elicit strong opinions. What we must do as a city is come together, especially in times like these,” Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said in a statement provided to CNN affiliate KCRG in response to the incident. “The Cedar Rapids Police Department is conducting a thorough investigation into tonight’s incident. We all have a right to our opinions, but we must act in a peaceful and respectful manner.”
Protests surrounding the SCOTUS decision have been largely peaceful.
Here’s a look at how news organizations across the US covered the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade — including those from states with immediate “trigger bans” like Kentucky and Louisiana — as seen on front pages this morning.
Several abortion providers in Arizona — Family Planning Associates, Planned Parenthood Arizona, and Tucson Choices — said they have preemptively paused abortion services due to a lack of legal clarity, according to posts on their websites.
Dr. DeShawn Taylor, who operates Desert Star Family Planning in Phoenix, said her clinic had to cancel about 20 abortion appointments originally scheduled for today through next week.
“We’re committed to keeping our doors open if we can, to be able to provide abortion care, once it’s safe to do so. I believe we’ll be in some dark times for a while, hopefully for not too long, but I do believe the pendulum will swing back,” she said.
Arizona does not have a “trigger ban” but does have a ban on abortions past 15 weeks set to take effect in approximately 90 days. Meanwhile, the Arizona State Senate Republican Caucus issued a memo today, stating effective immediately, Arizona is to enforce “pre-Roe law. The law, already on the books, bans most abortions, unless the procedure is necessary to save the life of a mother.”
This pre-Roe law was first created in 1901 before Arizona statehood and was updated last year. It states anyone with intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman, “unless it is necessary to save her life, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than two years nor more than five years.”
Brittni Thomason, spokesperson for the Arizona Attorney General’s office, gave CNN a statement, saying: “We understand this is an important issue for so many people, and they are seeking clarity.”
The Arizona governor’s office declined to comment.
“I’m surprised at how heartbroken I feel when I knew it in my bones” the ruling would be coming, Taylor said.
She said she hopes not only to secure women’s right to an abortion but to secure real and meaningful access to abortions in Arizona, where there are a handful of clinics providing such services, mostly in urban areas.
The owner of the only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi vowed at a news conference Friday afternoon to stay open and continue providing services for women for the following 10 days, hours after the US Supreme Court issued a ruling eliminating the constitutional right to abortion nationwide.
“We are continuing to provide services, and women like me, and there are many throughout this country, will be doing the same thing. And I tell you today we’re not laying down. We’re not giving up,” said Diane Derzis, owner of Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Under the laws of Mississippi, the abortion ban triggered by today’s Supreme Court decision will go into effect 10 days after Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch certifies the decision. Fitch has not announced plans for certification.
“So that means that we will be open for the next 10 days and we’ll be seeing patients for the next 10 days. Even if they have to do what they’ve done so often and that’s come through this kind of terrorism,” said Derzis, referring to anti-abortion activists who have frequently gathered near the clinic.
“I will tell you that any patient who contacts us, we’ll see them. We’ll make sure we see them during that 10 days,” said Derzis. “A woman should not have to leave the state to obtain medical care.”
Starting at about 4 a.m. local time on Saturday, anti-abortion activists started showing up at the clinic, according to CNN’s Nadia Romero.
“Things got really loud, really got carried away. The police were called,” she reported, adding that the situation has since calmed down.
“They let women inside of the facility hours before they technically opened because there was so much chaos going on outside,” she reported.
Clinic volunteer Kim Gibson told Romero that the staff will continue to “put the patient first … in the face of some really monstrous protesters.”
Romero said the lobby inside was packed on Saturday.
Once the Mississippi clinic is forced to close its doors, Derzis said they plan to continue to help women find the services they need.
“It’s funding all over the country. So we know how to put her in touch with those individuals and figure out which is the closest clinic you know, there’ll be women who are able to afford a plane ticket and if they can hop on a plane and get into Las Cruces, or Baltimore, Maryland or wherever, Chicago, Illinois, then that wherever is the easiest to get her in because her needs have to come first,” Derzis said.
Derzis and her team have begun plans to open a new clinic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where they will continue to provide services.
Watch what happened outside the Mississippi clinic on Saturday morning.
Now that the Supreme Court has given the green light for lawmakers to prohibit abortion, several states, most of them Republican-led, have taken quick steps to do so. In at least seven states, state officials say that abortion bans can now be enforced.
Three states – Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota – have so-called “trigger bans” that went into effect automatically with the Supreme Court’s reversal Friday of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that had established a constitutional right to an abortion. Ten other states have trigger bans with implementation mechanisms that occur after a set period or after a step taken by a state government entity.
Among the trigger-ban states in the latter category, Missouri has already made the move required to implement its ban on abortion, with state Attorney General Eric Schmitt announcing Friday that he had taken the step of certification laid out by Missouri law.
Oklahoma, which had recently put in place a law banning most abortions, has also taken the step of implementing its trigger ban, according to the state attorney general’s office. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge also certified the state’s trigger ban, allowing it take effect on Friday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced.
In Texas, where the trigger ban is to be implemented on the 30th day after the Supreme Court issues its judgment (a court move that will happen in the coming weeks), Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced that local prosecutors may now begin enforcing an abortion ban passed by the state before the Roe ruling.
Read more here.
Now that we have the final ruling in the most consequential Supreme Court decision in decades — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — one big question is: How has Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion changed compared to the leaked draft published by Politico?
CNN ran a character-by-character comparison between the final ruling and Alito’s leaked draft version, which was dated Feb. 10. Overall, most of the leaked draft remained as written in the final ruling. While some parts were taken out, Alito’s opinion added more to the final ruling — including a critique of the dissenting opinions — than he removed.
View what was added and deleted here:
Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota on Saturday urged President Biden to declare a public health emergency and take other actions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, writing in an op-ed: “We need action, and we need it now.”
“On Friday, with the release of the Dobbs decision, we entered a perilous time that threatens millions of women across this nation,” the Democratic senators wrote in the op-ed published Saturday in The New York Times.
“We urge the president to declare a public health emergency to protect abortion access for all Americans, unlocking critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services,” they continued. “The danger is real, and Democrats must meet it with the urgency it deserves.”
The two Democrats also pointed to a letter they had issued earlier this month as a part of group of more than 20 senators who urged the White House to take executive action to protect abortion rights, listing several routes they say Biden could take.
The senators also urged voters to press candidates on their stances over reproductive rights and for their commitment to changing the filibuster in the Senate ultimately needed to pass most legislation, alluding to the expected uphill battle facing Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.
“We can’t undo in five months the damage it took Republicans five decades to accomplish, but we can immediately start repairing our democracy,” they wrote.
President Joe Biden acknowledged his administration’s frustration with Friday’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade as he signed bipartisan gun safety legislation that he called “a historic achievement” on Saturday morning.
Biden said the Supreme Court has made certain “terrible decisions” after a week in which the court expanded gun ownership rights while stripping the nationwide right to abortion.
“I think the Supreme Court has made some terrible decisions,” Biden said when questioned whether the court was broken.
Biden has inveighed against the court’s decisions this week on guns and abortion, and has called on voters to respond at the ballot box.
“Yesterday, I spoke about the Supreme Court’s shocking decision striking down Roe v. Wade—we had a lot of discussion in that in our own household,” Biden said. “Jill and I know how painful and devastating a decision it is for so many Americans, and I mean so many Americans. The decision is implemented by states. My administration is going to focus on how they administer it, and whether or not they violate other laws, like deciding not to allow people across state lines to get public health services, and we’re going to take actions to protect women’s rights and reproductive health.”
Biden is set to depart the White House for the G7 summit in Germany.
While protests on Friday and overnight against the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade were largely peaceful, law enforcement used tear gas on a crowd in Arizona and there were some arrests in New York.
In Arizona, tear gas was used to disperse a crowd protesting the Supreme Court ruling in front of the state capitol late Friday, authorities said.
“Troopers deployed tear gas after a crowd of protesters repeatedly pounded on the glass doors of the State Senate Building,” Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bart Graves told CNN.
“The crowd moved across the street to the Wesley Bolin Plaza where tear gas was deployed after a monument was vandalized,” he said.
Arizona State Rep. Sarah Liguori tweeted from inside the building, “while working inside we were interrupted by the sound of bangs and smell of tear gas. Protestors cleared from the Capitol.”
Arizona State Rep. Justin Wilmeth also tweeted late Friday, writing: “We are still at work finishing a couple of policy items, including a big water bill. We’ve had protestors here for a few hours now. As I heard it, some either banged on Senate windows or broke them and then DPS launched smoke bombs to disperse the crowds. Pure chaos for a bit.”
Wilmeth shared a photo of a “palm tree apparently on fire after the ‘mostly peaceful’ protests at the Capitol tonight.”
In New York, at least 20 people were “taken into custody with charges pending,” after demonstrators marched through New York City streets in protest of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to police.
New York Police Department officers apprehended the individuals “within the vicinity of Bryant Park, West 42 Street and 6th Avenue,” a NYPD spokesperson told CNN Saturday morning. No further details were provided on the arrests.
In Los Angeles, abortion rights supporters in Los Angeles marched on the 110 Freeway and stopped traffic as they protested the Supreme Court decision on Friday.
In Washington, DC, hundreds of people on both sides of the issue gathered outside the Supreme Court on Friday to react to the ruling. One abortion rights advocate climbed to the top of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge on Friday. 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. “I climbed up the top of the Frederick Douglas Memorial bridge this morning because the Supreme Court is engaged in an unconstitutional treasonous attack on the rights of women in this country,” Reichstadter said in a TikTok video he posted from the top of the bridge.
Additional protests are expected this weekend.
CNN’s Camila Bernal, Sarah Moon and Zach Reed contributed to this post.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade Friday, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion. Going forward, abortion rights will be determined by states, unless Congress acts.
Here are the answers to some of the most common questions about what this ruling means.
Will women get arrested for having an abortion?
An abortion-seeker’s criminal liability will depend on the abortion policies that her state put into place.
Leaders of the anti-abortion movement have said in the past that women shouldn’t be prosecuted for obtaining an abortion and that criminal laws prohibiting it should be aimed at abortion providers or others who facilitate the procedure. Several states with abortion prohibitions that could go into effect with Roe’s reversal have language exempting from prosecution the woman who obtained the abortion.
There’s also nothing to stop lawmakers from passing the laws calling for the prosecution of the people who sought the abortion.
In the event of rape or incest or even underage pregnancy, where does the law lie for these individuals?
Exemptions in abortion bans for rape, incest or the health of the mother will now vary state by state. In the wave of abortion limits that have been passed by state legislatures recently in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s ruling, only a few of the proposals included exemptions for rape and incest.
It’s a question lawmakers will likely revisit now that the opinion has been handed down. While previewing plans to call a special legislative session once the opinion is issued, Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said he opposed rape or incest exemptions. On the flip side, Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson told CNN this May that he supported adding rape and incest exemptions in the trigger law currently on the books in the state.
How are in vitro fertilizations defined? If a state defines the fertilized egg as a human with rights, then if a doctor fertilizes four eggs, but does [not] implant all four in a woman, is that homicide?
What this opinion means for fertility treatments is still uncertain. Some state laws have language that would appear to exempt the disposal of unused embryos created for IVF, but that language doesn’t necessarily exempt the process of selective reduction — when a woman whose fertility treatments lead to multiple pregnancies has one or more of those fetuses terminated to protect the viability of the other fetuses and/or the health of the mother. More broadly, fertility law experts raise concerns about how Roe’s reversal will embolden lawmakers to regulate IVF procedures — which have been largely shielded from the abortion debate because of the protections of Roe.
Why does the currently Democrat-controlled legislature not pass a federal law making abortion legal?
Democrats currently lack the votes to dismantle the Senate filibuster, a 60-vote procedural mechanism that Republicans can use to block federal abortion rights legislation — so as long as 40 senators oppose abortion rights. But it’s worth noting that the Women’s Health Protection Act — a bill that would codify and expand upon Roe — failed 49-51 when it was voted on in May in the Senate, meaning that, even without the filibuster, it would have not become law.
There are also legal questions about whether it would be constitutional for federal lawmakers to enact a nationwide ban. The late Justice Antonin Scalia stressed in his legal writings about abortion that the policy decisions belonged in the hands of individual states, while expressing skepticism that Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate the procedure.
Get more answers to common questions here.
O Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion.
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.
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