The US Supreme Court strikes down the right to abortion

• Rights Abortion, about to be illegal in the US

The Supreme Court of the United States annulled this Friday the protection of the right to abortion in force in this country since 1973, in

whether to maintain or prohibit this reproductive right.

The ruling

and returns the authority to legislate on abortion to the elected representatives of the states.

This decision does not make terminations of pregnancy illegal, but rather takes the United States back to the situation that prevailed before the

, when each state was free to authorize them or not.

The conservative-majority court first upheld a Republican-backed Mississippi law that

voted (5-4) to overturn Roe v. Wade and Chief Justice John Roberts, a statement that would have upheld the Mississippi law but would not have gone the extra step of erasing precedent entirely.

The justices held that the Roe v.

Wade that allowed abortion before the fetus was viable outside the womb (between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy) was incorrect because the US Constitution does not specifically mention the right to abortion.

A preliminary version of the ruling, written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, was leaked in May indicating the court was likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, causing much controversy.

Today's ruling confirms the leaked draft. "The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision," Alito wrote in the ruling.

Roe v.

Wade recognized that the right to personal privacy under the Constitution protects a woman's ability to freely terminate her pregnancy.

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