Roe v. Wade Overturned by Supreme Court: Taylor Swift and More Celebrities React
In breaking news, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade — the landmark ruling that made abortion a constitutional and federally protected right back in 1973 — in a 6-3 decision Friday (June 24).
The controversial ruling returns power to the states to decide and set their own abortion laws without concern of running afoul of Roe, which had permitted abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion that tossed out the former Roe v. Wade ruling. The court also overturned a 1992 Supreme Court decision upholding abortion rights in a case known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
In the court's official opinion, Alito wrote:
"We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives."
Alito was joined by four other conservative justices on the Supreme Court: Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The latter three were appointed by former president Donald Trump.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented to the controversial court ruling, which has led many to speak out about the decision on social media, including countless celebrities.
On Twitter, Taylor Swift wrote that the ruling "terrified" her.
"After so many decades of people fighting for women's rights to their own bodies, today's decision has stripped us of that," she tweeted.
Swift's tweet came in the form of a quote-tweet of former first lady Michelle Obama's statement on the ruling.
"This is what our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers lived through, and now here we are again," she wrote.
See her full statement below:
Other stars who have also spoken out include Cher, Hillary Clinton and more.
See what they and many others had to say about the ruling, below: