The Supreme Court's fractured 5-4 decision to ban an abortion procedure with no exception for a mother's health is "frightening," said ACLU/SC Executive Director Ramona Ripston. "The high court has made a ruling severely limiting a woman's right to choose and this is the most damaging attack on this fundamental right in 30 years," she stated.
The ACLU had filed an amicus brief on behalf of the National Abortion Federation and medical doctors who opposed the 2003 federal ban.
This was the first abortion decision since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, which left only one woman on the Court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision an "alarming" departure from the precedent set by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
"For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health," she wrote in a sharp dissent.
