U.S. abortion clinics closing after Supreme Court ruling

Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling reversing American women’ right to abortion on Friday, abortion clinics in the country are said to be closing down.

“Clinics have begun closing in some US states,” BBC reported on Saturday. “13 states have so-called trigger laws in place that will see abortion banned within 30 days.”

“At an abortion clinic in Little Rock, Arkansas – a state with a so-called trigger law allowing an instant ban – the doors to the patient area shut as soon as the court’s opinion was posted online.”

On Friday, the U.S. apex court overturned Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), a U.S. Supreme Court judgement that ruled that women are constitutionally at liberty to decide to have an abortion.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion that tossed out the case. Mr Alito was joined by the five other conservatives on the high court, including Chief Justice John Roberts.

“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 opinion said.

The case was met with a 6-3 decision, with the court’s three liberal justices filing a dissenting opinion to the ruling.

Speaking after the Supreme Court ruling on Friday, American President Joe Biden says the Supreme Court’s ruling “expressly took away a constitutional right from the American people that it had already recognized.”

Former President Barack Obama says the Supreme Court’s ruling “reverses 50 years precedent, attacking the essential freedoms of Americans.”

In a tweet on Friday, Mr Obama said: “Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues – attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans”