Supreme Court Rules on AbortionThousands Protest End of Constitutional Right to Abortion

The Supreme Court decision on Friday was immediately met with celebration and anger. Crowds gathered in cities like Washington, New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles as many states enacted abortion bans and clinics stopped offering the procedure.

Follow our live updates on the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

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Abortion rights protesters voice their anger in cities across the country.

As the Supreme Court’s reversal of abortion rights sank in among Americans on Friday, protests swelled in Washington, D.C., and in city centers, town plazas and parks across the United States.

Some were coordinated, some less so. Outside the Supreme Court, a divided crowd that had begun gathering early in the day had swelled to thousands of mostly outraged abortion rights demonstrators by evening, clashing with small groups of joyful anti-abortion activists who blew bubbles and celebrated the end of the federal guarantee of access to a safe and legal means of ending a pregnancy.

“All these males out here who are chanting against abortion and are enthused and happy — smiling, singing songs and laughing — it’s just really disgusting,” Victoria Larsen, a protester, said, trying to contain her emotions as an anti-abortion group chanted around her.

“We won, they lost, you win some you lose some, it happens,” a young man in a suit, tie and aviator sunglasses cried out, brandishing a sign that said “I am a Pro-Life Feminist.”

  1. By Reuters
  2. By Reuters
  3. By The Associated Press
  4. By The Associated Press
  5. By Sam Dolnick

Roughly eight Americans in 10 support abortion rights and opposed the reversal of Roe v. Wade before the Friday ruling, a sentiment that intensified after a draft of the opinion leaked in May. Still, many who took to the streets said the ruling had left them initially stunned as they realized the sweeping change that is about to overtake much of the nation.

Victoria Varga, a 28-year-old logistics worker, drove to downtown Chicago, joining a crowd of some 3,000 marchers with her fiancé, Rob Fishman, a 30-year-old sales professional. Carrying a sign that read “Seriously, My Mom Already Marched For This,” Ms. Varga said her first response to the news of the ruling was to call her mother.

“We were both devastated,” she added. “I immediately went to Walgreens to make a sign about this.”

In Massachusetts, crowds denouncing the court marched in a Boston heat wave, drawing applause from outdoor diners at Boylston Street restaurants. In Tennessee, couples with babies, college students, mothers and daughters headed to Nashville’s public square with signs after the electricity was disconnected at the site of their planned protest, an organizer, Julie Edwards, said.

In Florida, a 5 p.m. rally outside Tallahassee’s Historic Capitol swelled in a half-hour to several hundred people expressing their outrage at the ruling. In Philadelphia, a throng outside City Hall spilled into a nearby plaza of municipal buildings, then grew to a river of thousands flowing onto John F. Kennedy Boulevard.

In Washington State, some 500 abortion rights demonstrators occupied a city block in Seattle, disrupting traffic, and in Oregon, another 1,500 converged on downtown Portland. In New York City, crowds flooded Union Square and Washington Square Park.

In Los Angeles, a crowd outside the downtown federal courthouse gathered at noon and grew by rush hour into a sea of hundreds, weaving past high-rises and stopping traffic. A rainbow convertible brought up the rear of the march. A man standing on a seat of the slow-moving vehicle held a bright green sign: “Overturn Roe? Hell no.”

Rally leaders read the names of women who had died from illegal abortions and lifted black-and-white photographs of them into the air. Commuters honked at the placards: “End the Patriarchy.” “Abort the Court.” “Abortion Is Healthcare.”

The famed women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred addressed the crowd, standing in front of a display of metallic hangers. She said she had an illegal abortion in Los Angeles in the 1960s that landed her in the hospital where a nurse told her she hoped she had learned her lesson, presumably about not seeking abortions.

“It did teach me a lesson: Abortion must be safe and legal and affordable,” Ms. Allred said, her last few words drowned out by cheers from the crowd.

In Little Rock, Ark., crowds chanting “my body, my choice” shouted down men who were loudly reading Bible verses at the edge of a peaceful protest. Natalie Huckabay, 19, a Little Rock native who attends college in Tennessee, said she had registered to vote in response to the decision, which she called “terrifying.”

“This is only the beginning,” she said. “These are more than baby steps to something. These are strides.”

In Kentucky, where a “trigger law” abruptly ended abortion access with the release of Friday’s ruling, a sidewalk rally in the 92-degree Louisville heat drew hundreds of people who sweated through more than an hour of speeches. One carried a white wire hanger with a sign reading, “We Will Not Go Back.”

Speakers exhorted them to remember their fury in the November elections.

“This is only the first thing they’re coming for,” Keturah Herron, a Democratic state representative, told the crowd, reminding that reproductive rights would be on the fall ballot in the form of a state constitutional amendment to enshrine a sweeping ban.

“No one is coming to save us,” added Nima Kulkarni, a Democratic legislator whose district includes part of the city.

“Kentucky has got to save itself.”

Reporting was contributed by Robert Chiarito, Alexandra Glorioso, Austyn Gaffney, Catherine McGloin, Joel Wolfram, Soumya Karlamangla, Erica Sweeney and Brent McDonald.

Victoria Kim
June 25, 2022, 3:46 a.m. ET

The Arizona Senate calls a recess with protesters gathered at the entrance.

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Protesters marching near downtown Phoenix on Friday.Credit...Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

The police deployed tear gas and Arizona state senators called a recess late Friday after protesters amassed outside the State Capitol with some banging on the glass, according to senators and the state’s Republican Party.

Hours earlier, crowds of abortion rights advocates had gathered in front of the building in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

As the State Senate was voting on an unrelated education matter, the Senate president, Karen Fann, called a recess and said that there was a “security problem outside.” The state’s Republican Party later said in a statement that the Senate chamber was evacuated after protesters tried to enter and that the police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Representative Sarah Liguori, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter that she had been working in the building shortly before 9 p.m. when lawmakers were “interrupted by the sound of bangs and smell of tear gas.”

A video posted on social media by Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a Republican, showed at least one protester repeatedly kicking an entrance to the Capitol as others held up signs against the glass. Police officers in riot gear were seen lined up inside the building.

Across the country, thousands of protesters gathered in cities big and small to voice their outrage at the court’s decision, largely without reports of clashes.

The Supreme Court ruling means that an Arizona law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which was passed this year, is set to go into effect in 90 days. Republicans control both of the state’s legislative chambers, and Gov. Doug Ducey is a Republican.

The State Senate issued a statement on Friday saying that a separate abortion ban, which is more than 100 years old and had been rendered unconstitutional by Roe v. Wade, was the law of the land, “effective immediately.”

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The Arizona State Capitol on Friday.Credit...Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

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Jimmie E. Gates
June 25, 2022, 12:10 a.m. ET

The Mississippi clinic at the center of the case has plans to open elsewhere.

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transcript

Scene Outside Mississippi Abortion Clinic After Roe Is Overturned

Clinic escorts directed traffic outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a small group of anti-abortion demonstrators gathered outside after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.

WEBVTT 00:00:03.830 —> 00:00:06.410 “I turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.” 00:00:06.410 —> 00:00:08.660 “We walk with patients every day, 00:00:08.660 —> 00:00:10.970 and we know exactly what’s going on here. 00:00:12.070 —> 00:00:13.905 People will be suffering. 00:00:13.905 —> 00:00:15.870 Those with means, they’ll get what they need. 00:00:15.870 —> 00:00:17.750 Those without it, they’ll suffer. 00:00:17.750 —> 00:00:19.670 America is not ready for what’s 00:00:19.670 —> 00:00:22.320 about to happen with the fall of Roe. 00:00:22.320 —> 00:00:23.780 They’re not. 00:00:23.780 —> 00:00:25.850 Women are going to be criminalized. 00:00:25.850 —> 00:00:28.640 People who seek abortions will be criminalized. 00:00:28.640 —> 00:00:31.352 And they’ve literally trashed the Constitution 00:00:31.352 —> 00:00:32.762 because of abortion. 00:00:32.762 —> 00:00:35.030 But hey, is anybody waking up yet? 00:00:35.030 —> 00:00:37.810 Because they’re not stopping here.” 00:00:38.027 —> 00:00:41.457 “So now abortion is illegal, and yet every individual here 00:00:41.457 —> 00:00:42.908 will still stand before God. 00:00:42.908 —> 00:00:44.780 The women in here right at this moment are 00:00:44.780 —> 00:00:46.540 murdering their babies by the Constitution, 00:00:46.540 —> 00:00:47.750 But guess what? 00:00:47.750 —> 00:00:50.440 All along they’ve been murdering their babies 00:00:50.440 —> 00:00:53.360 by the living God, the word of the living God. 00:00:53.360 —> 00:00:54.976 They’ve been murdering his babies, 00:00:54.976 —> 00:01:00.273 these babies all along.”

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Clinic escorts directed traffic outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a small group of anti-abortion demonstrators gathered outside after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.CreditCredit...Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. — Outside the pink building that houses the clinic at the center of the case that resulted in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the people who run Mississippi’s last abortion clinic were discussing plans to open elsewhere.

Diane Derzis, owner of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said the clinic would probably remain open for 10 days. Under what is known as Mississippi’s trigger law, it will have to close 10 business days after the state’s attorney general certifies the Supreme Court decision.

“We are not laying down,” she said Friday afternoon.

Ms. Derzis said the plan was to open a clinic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, soon, and that others would be opened in states that allow them. She said she hoped that Mississippi women would visit the other clinics and that funding would be available to help women afford travel for abortions.

Shannon Brewer, executive director of the clinic, said that Friday was a tough day for everyone at the Jackson clinic, which provides other medical care in addition to abortions.

“Nothing that went on today can convince me that this is right,” Ms. Brewer said.

Early Friday, after the Supreme Court decision came down, protesters on both sides of the abortion issue gathered outside the clinic. Clinic personnel said some anti-abortion protesters had prevented cars from going into the parking lot, telling occupants that abortions were illegal, though the clinic is not yet required to close.

Aishvarya Kavi
June 25, 2022, 12:07 a.m. ET

The crowd of protesters outside the Supreme Court began to dissipate around 11 p.m. “We need to use our voices immediately and not just wait to vote,” said Rebecca Alvarado, one of the hundreds still there. “It’s not enough; it’s never enough.”

The New York Times
June 24, 2022, 9:03 p.m. ET

Demonstrators gathered in major cities across America to protest the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

  1. By Reuters
  2. By Reuters
  3. By The Associated Press
  4. By The Associated Press
  5. By Sam Dolnick

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Brent McDonald
June 24, 2022, 8:17 p.m. ET

Victoria Larsen, 24, stood facing the Supreme Court, which was cordoned off by metal police fencing, wearing a sweatshirt with “1973” on the front, watching anti-abortion activists celebrating.

She said she felt sadness for women whose “lives will be destroyed” by the decision, and reflected on the impact an unwanted pregnancy had on her birth mother.

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Stephanie Lai
June 24, 2022, 8:09 p.m. ET

No protests have materialized outside the home of Justice Alito, the author of the opinion, which is guarded by several police vans. The police said there have been protesters at the justice’s home about once a week in the past month.

Elizabeth Dias
June 24, 2022, 7:45 p.m. ET

Going into the evening, anti-abortion leaders are actively tracking the status of abortion bans in every state, counting as injunctions are lifted and bans on abortion go into effect.

June 24, 2022, 7:27 p.m. ET

Chelsia Rose MarciusTéa Kvetenadze and

Thousands gather in New York to protest the ruling.

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Protestors gathered at Washington Square Park in New York City on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Hours after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, thousands gathered in New York City to voice their fears and anger over the historic decision to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion.

The protesters, many of whom had first gathered in Manhattan’s Union Square before marching along Fifth Avenue and merging with a growing crowd in Washington Square Park, cried out against the ruling.

Some chanted through bull horns while others held up signs, including one large banner that read, “Unjust decisions will not be obeyed.”

Emma Handler, 27, a theater worker who lives in Kensington, Brooklyn, said that for a few unelected justices to have the power to “make these decisions about our lives and our health and our well-being is deeply dystopian.”

“People will die from this choice, and I hope that people in power have this on their conscience,” Ms. Handler added. “I’m just sad.”

Among the throng that had amassed in Washington Square Park were a few familiar faces, including the state attorney general, Letitia James, who previously spoke out about her own abortion, and Representative Carolyn B. Maloney.

Earlier, other New York officials, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams, had voiced their support of abortion rights.

For Hope Kostmayer, 84, who was at the park with her granddaughter Jessica Maffia, 39, the court decision hit hard. Both have had abortions.

“I knew it was coming but I got hysterical,” said Ms. Kostmayer, of the Upper West Side. “It’s just a real hard time, it’s a real hard time in this country. This country is going downhill.”

Nearby, sitting in a tree above the crowd, Kate Coiro, 23, held a sign that read, “You can’t be pro-gun and pro-life,” in reference to a Supreme Court decision on Thursday that struck down a New York gun control law.

“This was the first time I personally felt attacked by a government decision,” said Ms. Coiro, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I want people to know that no one likes abortion, including people who get it. It’s no one’s plan A. But if you’re not in a place to raise a child you shouldn’t have to.”

By the evening, the crowds in the park had begun to disperse, and a few hundred made their way south toward Lower Manhattan, stopping traffic and eliciting cheers from outdoor diners who snapped photos.

As the march wound down in Foley Square, Maya Vargas worried about her family in Florida, which had passed a law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that is set to take place on July 1.

“I worried a lot for my family because they live in the South,” said Ms. Vargas, 21, of Astoria, Queens. “We’re relatively privileged here in New York, we don’t have to really worry about that at the moment.”

“My younger cousins are scared,” she added.

Back at the corner of West Fourth Street and LaGuardia Place, Sophie Apple, 26, of Harlem, wondered what she could to do help those in other states.

“In some way my goal is to help supply donations where I can, volunteer where I can, help women travel to New York or other states,” she said, “because that appears to be the way forward.”

Hurubie Meko and Julianne McShane contributed reporting.

A correction was made on 
June 27, 2022

An earlier version of this article misstated that Florida had passed a so-called trigger law, which allows for the swift ban of most or all abortions. The state did not, but it did pass a law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that is set to take place on July 1.

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Jack HealyCampbell Robertson
June 24, 2022, 7:17 p.m. ET

Friday’s ruling prompts confusion and closures at abortion clinics.

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Libby Spence, a clinic escort, outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic in Jackson, Miss., who called out to incoming patients that the clinic was still open, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was issued on Friday. The clinic is the only facility that performs abortions in Mississippi.Credit...Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

The Supreme Court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion unleashed waves of confusion, panic and resignation for doctors and women across the country as they tried to understand a legal landscape that was changing by the hour.

Some clinics vowed to carry on providing abortions in states with limits or outright bans, only to reverse course midday and halt procedures over concerns about whether their actions were suddenly illegal.

Doctors and clinic owners were calling lawyers and looking for guidance from state attorneys general. Women showed up at clinics on Friday not knowing whether they would be turned away or receive treatment. Abortion providers scrambled to understand when state bans triggered by the Supreme Court’s ruling would take effect. In 30 days? Immediately?

“We’ve stopped,” said Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick, owner of Camelback Family Planning in Phoenix. There were 40 people lined up on Friday morning when the Supreme Court’s decision landed, sending the staff scrambling for answers about whether they were still allowed to perform abortions.

“We sent a bunch of people home, and they were hysterical,” Dr. Goodrick said.

Arizona’s Republican-controlled state government passed a ban on abortions after 15 weeks earlier this year — a law that is now set to go into effect in 90 days, according to Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

But Arizona is one of a handful of states, including Michigan and West Virginia, with a pre-Roe abortion ban still on the books.

Arizona’s law, which is more than 100 years old, was ruled unconstitutional after Roe v. Wade was handed down and has not been enforced in decades. It bans all abortions except to save the life of the patient and punishes abortion providers with two to five years in prison.

Amid the confusion on Friday, Arizona’s Republican-run State Senate issued a statement calling the state’s older abortion ban the law of the land, “effective immediately.”

On Friday afternoon, Planned Parenthood Arizona said it would stop providing abortion services because of the “state of Arizona’s complex abortion laws.” Other independent clinics around Phoenix said they were temporarily halting abortion services until they had a clearer idea of whether — and when — abortion was illegal in Arizona.

In West Virginia, which also has a century-old law criminalizing abortion, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he would soon “be providing a legal opinion to the Legislature about how it should proceed to save as many babies’ lives as humanly and legally possible.”

That was enough to halt abortions at the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, the only clinic in the state that performs abortions.

On Friday morning, the clinic announced in a statement that it would continue to provide birth control, cancer screening and pregnancy and parenting support. But, Katie Quinonez, the center’s executive director, said, “Due to the inaction of our lawmakers to repeal the crime of abortion in our state code, it is impossible for our clinic to provide abortion.”

In the run-up to the Supreme Court’s decision, abortion providers struggled to understand which state bans would apply and at what stage of pregnancy. Some abortion providers did not know whether local prosecutors and state officials would enforce different laws or ignore them altogether.

An 1849 ban on abortion quickly took effect in Wisconsin, but the district attorney in Dane County, which includes the liberal college town of Madison, indicated he would not prosecute cases under what he called an “archaic” law.

“If the voters want a district attorney who prosecutes women for seeking an abortion or licensed providers who are acting in the best interest of their patients, they will need to elect someone else,” the district attorney, Ismael Ozanne, said in a statement.

In Phoenix, as calls poured in from patients, Dr. Goodrick huddled with her staff on Friday to talk through the court’s ruling, and the uncertain days ahead.

“This is life-altering for many, many women and families,” she said. “It’s going to be devastating.”

Kenny Holston
June 24, 2022, 7:12 p.m. ET

A group of abortion rights activists gathered for a protest outside Justice Clarence Thomas’s home in Fairfax County, Va. These protesters have been gathering at a local store near Thomas’s house weekly since the Supreme Court leak. After gathering, they carpool to Thomas’s neighborhood where they hold up signs and protest for abortion rights. Emotions were high after the news of the Supreme Court decision.

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Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times
Linda Qiu
June 24, 2022, 7:11 p.m. ET

Just a handful of protesters have gathered outside of Justice Kavanaugh’s home after the ruling. Police outnumber protesters at this point.

Brent McDonald
June 24, 2022, 6:50 p.m. ET

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Supreme Court to condemn the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and permit states to criminalize abortion. Next to the protesters, and occasionally clashing with them, dozens of anti-abortion activists blew bubbles, chanted, and celebrated the end of the federal law that ensured women across the country access to a safe and legal abortion.

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Sam Dolnick
June 24, 2022, 6:44 p.m. ET

At a protest at City Hall in Portland, Maine, much of the crowd’s anger was directed at their own representative: Senator Susan Collins.

“Shocked Susan? You voted for this” read one sign.

Others used harsher language. Ms. Collins, a Republican, voted to confirm Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, who signed the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. On Friday, she released a statement saying that she felt the justices misrepresented their views on abortion in private meetings with her. Adeline Ray, a recent college graduate who attended the protest, wasn’t buying it. “She knew they were Trump approved. She knew they would try to control our bodies,” said Ms. Ray, 22.

“We tried to get her out once, and we’ll try again.”

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Credit...Sam Dolnick/The New York.Times
Sam Dolnick
June 24, 2022, 6:23 p.m. ET

Standing before hundreds of protesters gathered around City Hall in Portland, Maine, Gov. Janet Mills called the Supreme Court decision “a radical extremist decision” and vowed to fight to protect women’s access to abortion. The ruling “will do nothing to stop abortion,” she said. “It will only make abortion less safe and turn back the clock.”

“As long as I am governor of this state you can be damn sure I will stand in the way of any efforts to undermine —” The crowd’s cheers drowned out the rest of her sentence.

Hurubie Meko
June 24, 2022, 6:22 p.m. ET

The protest crowd at Washington Square Park in New York City is growing as people continue to join ahead of the 6:30 start time.

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Zach Montague
June 24, 2022, 6:03 p.m. ET

The crowd outside the court is now absorbed by a speech by Mckayla Wilkes, a congressional candidate trying to unseat Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland. Mr. Hoyer drew criticism among some Democrats this year over his support for Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, a rare anti-abortion Democrat.

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Catherine McGloin
June 24, 2022, 6:03 p.m. ET

Reporting from Boston

Among the thousands of protesters at an abortion rights rally on the Boston Common are Cheryl Smith, 66, and Deb Frew, 70, who drove 40 miles to be here.

“I’m just shocked we lived to see this,” Ms. Smith said of the court’s decision.

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Credit...Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Brent McDonald
June 24, 2022, 6:03 p.m. ET

Emily Fowler, 19, from Mt. Carmel, Ill., came to the Supreme Court from her summer internship at the Leadership Institute, an organization that trains conservative activists and students. She was among a group of people chanting toward abortion rights protesters and brandishing a yellow sign with a picture of a fetus and the words, “Don’t Tread on Me.”

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Kalley Huang
June 24, 2022, 5:36 p.m. ET

Abortion funds raise millions in donations to help people seeking the procedure.

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Kelley Robinson, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, last month in Washington.Credit...Shuran Huang for The New York Times

Abortion funds, the local organizations that provide financial and logistical support for people seeking abortions, have received millions of dollars in new funding after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on Friday.

As of Friday afternoon, the National Network of Abortion Funds, which has 97 member organizations, had received more than $3 million from about 33,000 new donations — more than 4,500 of which were recurring — since the Supreme Court’s decision became public this morning, said Debasri Ghosh, the fund’s managing director. In May, when a draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion on Roe v. Wade leaked, the fund received about $1.5 million in donations over a week.

“It’s an incredible outpouring of support,” Ms. Ghosh said.

The fund had not actively sought these donations, Ms. Ghosh said, because its website temporarily crashed Friday morning due to “an unprecedented, massive spike in traffic that we just couldn’t prepare for.” She said the donations were “entirely organic.”

Founded in 1993, the fund will split the donations among its member organizations. In states where abortion remains legal, the donations will fund the procedure, medication and costs such as travel, lodging and child care. But it is less clear how the money will be used in states where abortion has become illegal.

Some abortion funds are anticipating an increase in people seeking abortions from out-of-state.

“The numbers may increase, but our strategies and the network that we’ve built won’t,” said Liz Goodfellow, the vice president of the Jane Fund of Central Massachusetts, a member organization of the national network.

Other abortion funds have paused activity for fear of legal consequences.

“We’re mostly just waiting to get with our lawyer and see what our options are,” said Sam Robertson, a board member of the Roe Fund, an abortion fund based in Tulsa, Okla. “But at this point, we’re essentially in a freeze.”

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Mike IsaacRyan Mac
June 24, 2022, 5:33 p.m. ET

Meta clamps down on internal discussion of Roe v. Wade’s overturning.

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Managers at Meta reaffirmed a May memo that said that “discussing abortion openly at work has a heightened risk of creating a hostile work environment.”Credit...Benoit Tessier/Reuters

Meta told its workers on Friday not to openly discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion on wide-reaching communication channels inside the company, people with knowledge of the situation said.

Managers at Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, cited a company policy that put “strong guardrails around social, political and sensitive conversations” in the workplace, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. They said managers had pointed employees to a May 12 company memo, which was issued after a draft opinion on potentially overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked from the Supreme Court.

In the May 12 memo, which was obtained by The New York Times, Meta said that “discussing abortion openly at work has a heightened risk of creating a hostile work environment,” so it had taken “the position that we would not allow open discussion.”

The policy has led to frustration and anger, the people said. On Friday, some contacted colleagues and managers to express their dissent with the company’s stance. Managers were advised to be empathetic but neutral on the topic, while messages that violated the policy in team chats were removed, two people said. In the past, Meta employees often used internal communication forums to discuss sociopolitical issues and current events.

Ambroos Vaes, a Meta software engineer, said in a post on LinkedIn that he was saddened that employees were “not allowed” to widely discuss the Supreme Court ruling. On the company’s internal communication platform, “moderators swiftly remove posts or comments mentioning abortion,” he wrote. “Limited discussion can only happen in groups of up to 20 employees who follow a set playbook, but not out in the open.”

A Meta spokesman declined to comment. The Washington Post earlier reported on the company’s policy regarding sensitive conversations.

Friday’s action was the latest attempt by Meta to clamp down on contentious internal debates after years of employee unrest and leaks to media outlets. In 2020, the company updated its Respectful Communication Policy to limit certain discussions at work, according to the May 12 memo.

The changes followed internal strife over the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis two years ago. Meta employees were told that they were no longer allowed to discuss political or social issues in companywide channels on Workplace, the company’s employee message board.

In October, Meta also made some Workplace groups private after Frances Haugen, a former employee, leaked thousands of internal research documents to the media. Employees bemoaned the loss of openness and collaboration, according to comments seen by The Times.

In the May 12 memo, Meta said it had previously allowed open discussion of abortion at work but later recognized that it had led to “significant disruptions in the workplace given unique legal complexities and the number of people affected by the issue.” The policy had led to a high volume of complaints to the human resources department, and many internal posts regarding abortion were taken down for violating the company’s harassment policy, the memo said.

Employees struggling with the Supreme Court’s ruling were directed to support one another in one-to-one conversations or in small groups of “like-minded colleagues,” the memo said.

On Friday, to address employee concerns about the Supreme Court ruling, Meta said it would reimburse travel expenses “to the extent permitted by law” for employees who needed “to access out-of-state health care and reproductive services.”

Sheryl Sandberg, Meta’s chief operating officer, who is leaving the company this fall, said in a Facebook post on Friday that “the Supreme Court’s ruling jeopardizes the health and the lives of millions of girls and women across the country.”

“It threatens to undo the progress women have made in the workplace and to strip women of economic power,” she wrote. “It will make it harder for women to achieve their dreams.”

Emma Goldberg
June 24, 2022, 5:32 p.m. ET

Executives are building an economic argument for companies to take a stance on abortion.

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Workers at Yelp headquarters in San Francisco in 2019.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Ever since a leaked draft opinion revealed the Supreme Court’s intent to overturn Roe v. Wade, more than a dozen female business leaders have been meeting to discuss how to pressure corporations to take a stance on abortion and how to calculate the potential risks, such as losing contracts or facing boycotts.

Melissa Hobley, the chief marketing officer of OkCupid, who has been helping to lead these efforts, argues that companies that speak out in support of abortion access stand to reap a marketing and recruiting benefit.

“How can this not be an issue for corporate America?” Ms. Hobley said on Friday. “This is an economic problem — this is a marketing problem. If you’re in highly visible, highly competitive industries like tech, law, consulting, finance, you are all fighting after female talent.”

But Ms. Hobley conceded that OkCupid took a risk for being so vocal: “I’m sure we lost daters,” she said.

Consumers increasingly expect companies to stake out positions on sensitive issues, according to a survey of social media users by Sprout Social, which sells software that makes it easier for companies to manage their social media accounts. Younger generations are even more likely to expect brands to take a stand.

Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief executive of Yelp, which has said it will cover travel expenses for employees who have to go out of state to get abortions, said he had also been urging other business leaders to be more vocal about abortion access.

Corporate leaders have seen ample examples of the difficulties of political engagement in the past year. Disney, for example, faced internal backlash when it didn’t take a strong stance against Florida education legislation that opponents call the “Don’t Say Gay” law, but then Florida’s lawmakers revoked Disney’s special tax benefits when it did.

Mr. Stoppelman said Yelp’s actions in support of abortion access had gotten an “overwhelmingly positive” response.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that lots of dollars flow from businesses into politics,” he said. “Business leaders expressing their viewpoint really can move the needle.”

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Jazmine UlloaStephanie Lai
June 24, 2022, 5:31 p.m. ET

Jim Obergefell and L.G.B.T.Q. groups warn that abortion ruling could impact other rights.

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James Obergefell, center, walking out of the Supreme Court on June 26, 2015, in Washington. He was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. rights on Friday sounded the alarm over Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, calling it a potential assault on the legal doctrine protecting a wide array of Americans’ civil rights.

In his opinion, Justice Thomas argued that the court should reconsider and overturn cases guaranteeing the rights to same-sex marriage, same-sex consensual relations and contraception, saying the foundational legal theory on which they are based lacks constitutional grounding.

Justice Thomas said, however, that he agreed with the majority that the decision striking down Roe should not “cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

Policy advocates and lawyers with some of the nation’s leading L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organizations expressed dismay and called his words a warning shot against any fundamental rights not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, including protections for interracial marriage and how parents raise their children.

“When one right is taken away, every other right we’ve come to rely on in this country is at risk. It’s a dark day for civil rights in our nation,” said Jim Obergefell, the main plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage under the 14th Amendment.

Shannon Minter, the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the opinion put the nation “on notice.”

“We are going to look back on this day as a turning point in the history of our nation, and this is a wake-up call for anyone who cares about individual freedom,” he said.

None of Justice Thomas’s colleagues signed his concurring opinion, and some lawyers urged caution about reading too much into it.

“The majority opinion is crystal clear that ‘nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,’” said John J. Bursch, a Republican former solicitor general of Michigan, who was on the losing side of the 2015 Supreme Court case that established a right to same-sex marriage.

Still, many supporters of L.G.B.T.Q. rights saw Justice Thomas’s words as a call to jettison modern constitutional jurisprudence. “The court has moved a lot of times in recent history to extend rights to people — not to take them away — and so this is a startling and shocking and dangerous ruling today,” said Gary Buseck, a senior adviser with the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders organization.

In his opinion, Justice Thomas agreed with the majority’s ruling that the right to abortion was not a form of “liberty” protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

He then argued that the court should revisit three landmark cases that have also relied on such legal reasoning: Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 decision declaring that married couples had a right to contraception; Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 case overturning sodomy laws and legalizing same-sex sexual activity nationwide; and Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case establishing the right of gay couples to marry.

For any of those cases to be overturned, litigation would have to work its way up to the Supreme Court, and four justices would have to sign on to a petition to hear the case. The rights established in those cases could still be affirmed on similar or other legal grounds.

Mr. Obergefell said the Thomas concurrence distressed him.

“Justice Thomas makes it clear, once again, that he does believe some of us are more equal than others — that some of us don’t deserve to commit to the person we love,” he said.

L.G.B.T.Q. advocates warned that Justice Thomas had issued broadsides against the 2015 same-sex marriage case before.

In 2020, when the Supreme Court declined to take up the case of a Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, he and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. issued a statement saying Obergefell threatened “the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman.”

Justice Thomas’s opinion on Friday “would be profoundly shocking if it were coming from anyone other than Justice Thomas,” said Jennifer Pizer, the acting chief legal officer for Lambda Legal, which focuses on protecting the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“It is simply bizarre and jurisprudentially mistaken to read the Constitution as if it were a catalog,” she added. “The Constitution does not say we have an explicit right to breathe or eat, but of course the government can’t deprive us of the right to breathe simply because the phrase is not in the Constitution.”

Zach Montague
June 24, 2022, 5:28 p.m. ET

By now, a number of advocacy groups have had time to organize members and join the crowd outside the court in Washington. Several women wearing shirts that read “I had an abortion” have come from a group called We Testify, which attends rallies and protests in order for some members who have had the procedure to share their story. Another Black-led group called Harriet’s Wildest Dreams assembled a drum line that marched into the center of the crowd and one member is giving an address about abortion in the larger context of Black liberation.

Shawn Hubler
June 24, 2022, 5:27 p.m. ET

Reporting from Sacramento

California Democrats vowed to put a constitutional amendment on the fall ballot to enshrine the right to abortion. “Let me be crystal clear,” says Toni G. Atkins, who leads the Senate. “In November, California voters will be able to have the final say at the ballot box.”

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Shawn Hubler
June 24, 2022, 5:18 p.m. ET

Reporting from Sacramento

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, signing a bill to protect abortion providers in his state from bans elsewhere, said Republicans “are just winding up,” and if they take the House in November, they will seek to restrict abortion rights nationally. “They’re coming after you next.”

Emma Goldberg
June 24, 2022, 5:13 p.m. ET

Though corporate America doesn’t often speak out about abortion, more companies came forward today to say they will cover travel expenses for employees to get abortions, including Macy’s, Snap, Vox Media and Goldman Sachs.

Emily Cochrane
June 24, 2022, 5:10 p.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of two Senate Republicans who supports abortion rights, said she was “continuing to work with a broader group to restore women’s freedom to control their own health decisions wherever they live. Legislation to accomplish that must be a priority.”

But it’s unlikely that measure would secure enough support in the evenly divided Senate.

Elena Bergeron
June 24, 2022, 5:07 p.m. ET

Megan Rapinoe and others in sports criticized the abortion ruling.

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Megan Rapinoe during a match last month for OL Reign in Seattle.Credit...(Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

Megan Rapinoe, the outspoken star of the U.S. women’s soccer team, was among several professional athletes on Friday to criticize the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. She had not originally been scheduled to appear at a news conference ahead of the team’s friendly against Colombia but spent nearly 30 minutes addressing the ruling, which ends the constitutional right to an abortion.

“Frankly, the majority male court making decisions about my body or any other woman’s body is completely misguided and wildly out of touch with the desires of the country,” Rapinoe said, adding that it was “oddly cruel” timing for the announcement to arrive as women celebrate the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX legislation, which guaranteed access for women and girls to resources in education, including sports.

Rapinoe was among 500 current and former athletes who last year signed an amicus brief supporting abortion rights for the Supreme Court case, including Layshia Clarendon, the former W.N.B.A. All-Star. The brief argued in part that a woman’s ability to make decisions about her own body supported the success of the United States women at the Olympics.

The W.N.B.A. players’ union said in a statement on Friday that the ruling could “reinforce economic, social and political inequalities and could lead to higher rates of maternal mortality while eviscerating rights to reproductive freedom for everyone.” An N.W.S.L. statement called it a denial of “full liberty and equality.”

A number of athletes posted their opposition to the ruling on their social media accounts, with the N.B.A. star LeBron James writing, “It’s absolutely about power & control” in an all-caps post to Twitter, and Coco Gauff, the world No. 12-ranked women’s tennis player, posting that she was “incredibly disappointed by the decision made today.”

Two league commissioners, Adam Silver of the N.B.A. and Cathy Engelbert of the W.N.B.A., said in a joint statement that the leagues “believe that women should be able to make their own decisions concerning their health and future.” They added that they would work among other things to ensure that employees “have access to reproductive health care, regardless of their location.”

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Maggie HabermanMichael C. Bender
June 24, 2022, 5:03 p.m. ET

Maggie Haberman and

Trump, the man most responsible for ending Roe, worries that it could hurt his party.

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Former President Donald J. Trump has expressed different thoughts publicly and privately about overturning Roe v. Wade.Credit...Natalie Behring for The New York Times

The end of the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling was the culmination of decades of work by Republicans and social conservatives — one that came to pass only after a former Democrat from New York who had once supported abortion rights helped muscle through three Supreme Court justices.

Publicly, former President Donald J. Trump heralded the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday ending federal abortion protections as a victory. Yet, as he faces possible prosecution over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election and prepares for a likely 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has privately told friends and advisers the ruling will be “bad for Republicans.”

When a draft copy of the decision leaked in May, Mr. Trump began telling friends and advisers that it would anger suburban women, a group who helped tilt the 2020 race to President Biden, and would lead to a backlash against Republicans in the November midterm elections.

In other conversations, Mr. Trump has told people that measures like the Texas state law banning most abortions after six weeks and allowing citizens to file lawsuits against people who enable abortions are “so stupid,” according to a person with direct knowledge of the discussions. The Supreme Court let the measure stand in December 2021.

For the first hours after the decision was made public on Friday, Mr. Trump was muted in response, a striking contrast to the conservatives who worked in his administration, including former Vice President Mike Pence. Mr. Pence issued a statement saying, “Life won,” as he called for abortion opponents to keep fighting “in every state in the land.”

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Former Vice President Mike Pence called for abortion opponents to keep fighting “in every state in the land.”Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

For weeks in advance of the ruling, Mr. Trump had been just as muted. In an interview with The New York Times in May, Mr. Trump uttered an eyebrow-raising demurral in response to a question about the central role he had played in paving the way for the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

“I never like to take credit for anything,” said Mr. Trump, who has spent his career affixing his name to almost anything he could.

Pressed to describe his feelings about having helped assemble a court that was on the verge of erasing the 1973 ruling, Mr. Trump refused to engage the question and instead focused on the leak of the draft opinion.

“I don’t know what the decision is,” he said. “We’ve been reading about something that was drawn months ago. Nobody knows what that decision is. A draft is a draft.”

By early afternoon on Friday, Mr. Trump put out a statement taking a victory lap, including applauding himself for sticking by his choice of nominees. All three of Mr. Trump’s appointees to the court — whom he pushed through with help from Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader — were in the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling. He left unspoken the fact that he repeatedly attacked the court for not interceding on his behalf after he lost the 2020 election.

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Mr. Trump with the newest of his three Supreme Court nominees, Amy Coney Barrett, at the White House in 2020.Credit...Oliver Contreras for The New York Times

“Today’s decision, which is the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation, along with other decisions that have been announced recently, were only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court,” Mr. Trump said.

The former president also told Fox News, in an interview published after the decision on Friday, that the court was “following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago.” He added, “I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody.”

Republicans are bracing for a fight: A memo in May from the National Republican Senate Committee, first reported by Axios, suggested that G.O.P. candidates deal with criticism from Democrats by highlighting “extreme and radical views” in support of late-term abortions and government funding for abortions, and suggesting that their own views are based “in compassion and reason.”

While Mr. Trump had stayed quiet on the issue in recent weeks, people close to him anticipate he will become more vocal as he watches how clearly his right-wing base responds and how easily he can point to it as something that he made happen. His advisers believe he can highlight the issue as he faces potential Republican challengers and sees signs that his own political base has moved further to the right on vaccines and other issues.

Other potential candidates have been far more vocal. Mr. Pence has spent months talking about his desire to see Roe v. Wade end and visiting pregnancy centers. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, another evangelical Christian considering a presidential campaign, wrote on Twitter after the draft opinion emerged: “I pray for the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Every human being, born and unborn, has a fundamental right to life, and it is our calling to guard and secure it.”

Most significantly from Mr. Trump’s perspective, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the Republican whom a number of Mr. Trump’s former supporters have expressed interest in seeing as a 2024 candidate, signed a bill this spring banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader, a socially conservative political group based in Iowa, praised Mr. Trump before the ruling came down. “What he did as president is, he followed through on what he said he was going to do and appoint Supreme Court justices that were faithful to the Constitution,” Mr. Vander Plaats said.

Asked about Mr. Trump’s private remarks that the ruling would hurt Republicans, Mr. Vander Plaats responded, “I would just vehemently disagree with that.”

Indeed, while Republicans in competitive states and congressional districts have expressed some anxiousness about the sort of blowback Mr. Trump has told people he fears, many pollsters say it is too soon to tell how the issue will play out in the midterm elections.

A Gallup survey this month found that the share of Americans identifying as “pro-choice” had jumped to 55 percent after hovering between 45 percent and 50 percent for a decade. That sentiment was “the highest Gallup has measured since 1995,” while the 39 percent who identified as “pro-life” was “the lowest since 1996,” the polling firm said.

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Advocates for and against abortion rights outside the Supreme Court in Washington on Friday after Roe v. Wade was overturned.Credit...Shuran Huang for The New York Times

A May survey conducted for CNN found that 66 percent of the people questioned said they believed Roe v. Wade should not be overturned.

But anti-abortion activists who supported Mr. Trump as president insist the ruling will be a political boon to Republicans, and maintained that surveys in which voters are asked specific questions about the measure indicate that.

“When pro-life Republicans go on offense to expose the abortion extremism of their opponents, life is a proven winning issue for the G.O.P.,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which supports anti-abortion candidates.

Voluble as he is, Mr. Trump has long seemed to have a special difficulty in grappling with the subject of abortion, which he supported for years as a right but said he personally abhorred. In 2011, as he considered a presidential campaign as a Republican, he announced he did not support abortion rights, but struggled to discuss the issue as a candidate four years later.

“I know you’re opposed to abortion,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said to him in a June 2015 interview.

“Right,” Trump replied. “I’m pro-choice.”

Mr. Tapper furrowed a brow. “You’re pro-choice or pro-life?”

“I’m pro-life,” Mr. Trump quickly corrected himself. “I’m sorry.”

In March 2016, Mr. Trump said in an MSNBC town hall event that if the nation outlawed abortion — a change he supported — there would have to be “some form of punishment” for a woman seeking abortion. The remark set off a firestorm, which Mr. Trump tried to quell by issuing two statements that only added to the confusion.

Two days later, on CBS, Mr. Trump said that he wished abortion were left up to the states, but that the federal laws were “set, and I think we have to leave it that way.”

Officials with the Susan B. Anthony List said at the time that Mr. Trump had disqualified himself for the presidency. His campaign again issued a cleanup statement, saying he only meant that the laws must remain in place “until he is president.”

Yet in his third and final debate against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election, Mr. Trump laid out his belief that he would have two and as many as three Supreme Court seats to fill. And he explicitly promised, in a way other candidates never had, that when he chose jurists who shared his stated beliefs, Roe v. Wade would be overturned.

As president, however, Mr. Trump often wanted little to do with the issue.

Mr. Trump seemed to swing between fascination with and repulsion from the subject, remarking upon the thorniness of it and how divided the country was on abortion, and wringing his hands when it came time to make decisions.

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Participants in the March for Life in Washington in 2020 attended an address by Mr. Trump.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

And he often preferred to defer to Mr. Pence, even at one point expressing hope that Mr. Pence would cancel a trip to Rome, including an audience with the pope, and instead represent the administration at the March for Life in Washington.

One of Mr. Trump’s supporters, Robert Jeffress, a Texas pastor, recalled having discussions with the former president about the “political complexities” of the issue, describing Mr. Trump as an opponent of abortion but also a “realist.”

“I’ve heard him point out in the Oval Office that 60-plus percent of Americans are against a repeal of Roe, and that makes this a politically complex issue,” Mr. Jeffress said.

Zach Montague
June 24, 2022, 4:59 p.m. ET

Earlier today, the crowd outside the court was fairly split between people applauding and protesting the decision. The crowd is now bigger and overwhelmingly against the decision, and some people arriving at this hour have had time to digest President Biden’s remarks earlier, in which he urged people to vote.

“I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think ‘let’s wait and see what happens in November’ is going to cut it,” said Kevin Brunell, who lives in Washington.

Douglas Morino
June 24, 2022, 4:55 p.m. ET

Reporting from Los Angeles

A small group of protesters have gathered in front of the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. Becca Waite, 34, an emergency room nurse from Long Beach who helped organize the rally, said she believes the Supreme Court decision marked an inflection point in American society.

“Our goal is to call people into the streets, stand up and raise their voices and decide what side of history they will be on,” she said.

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WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 —> 00:00:04.640 “Supreme Court?” “Illegitimate!” “Abortion ban?” “Illegitimate!” 00:00:04.640 —> 00:00:07.290 “Abortion ban?” “Illegitimate!” 00:00:07.290 —> 00:00:11.730 “Forced motherhood?” “Illegitimate!” “Forced motherhood?” “Illegitimate!” 00:00:11.730 —> 00:00:14.160 “Illegitimate!” “Illegitimate!” 00:00:14.160 —> 00:00:18.030 “I refuse to accept a future where women and girls are 00:00:18.030 —> 00:00:22.380 stripped of their status as full human beings.” 00:00:22.380 —> 00:00:24.900 “And tell your friends, tell your brothers, your sisters, 00:00:24.900 —> 00:00:27.210 your parents. Get them out on the streets. 00:00:27.210 —> 00:00:29.850 Because we will not go back. We’ve got to take to the streets, 00:00:29.850 —> 00:00:32.090 and we got to fight this.”

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Sheryl Gay StolbergEmily Cochrane
June 24, 2022, 4:52 p.m. ET

Becerra was visiting a Planned Parenthood in Missouri when abortion suddenly became illegal.

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Abortion rights supporters stand outside of a Planned Parenthood on Friday in St. Louis. Credit...Jeff Roberson/Associated Press

Xavier Becerra, President Biden’s health secretary, was at a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis on Friday when the news broke that Roe v. Wade had been overturned. Missouri’s “trigger law” kicked in, making abortion illegal in the state.

The clinic immediately stopped booking appointments.

In the afternoon, Mr. Becerra crossed the Mississippi River and traveled 13 miles to another Planned Parenthood clinic in Illinois, where abortion is still legal. Dr. Colleen McNicholas, its chief medical officer, was suddenly swamped with requests from health providers in other states who were begging her to take their patients.

The disparity was not lost on the visitor from Washington. “It’s kind of embarrassing as an American,” Mr. Becerra said in a telephone interview, “to say that I was about to leave a site where, from one moment to the next, women had lost their rights, and to go just across state lines where a woman in the same circumstances would still have that right.”

Mr. Becerra’s experience points to the challenges ahead for the health secretary, who has been directed by Mr. Biden to use his authority to protect women’s rights to reproductive care, including abortion. Mr. Biden conceded on Friday that the administration’s authority is limited, and Mr. Becerra did not commit to any specific steps. But he did share his thinking about what actions he might take.

First, he said, he intends to make sure that medication abortion — a two-pill regimen that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the first 10 weeks of pregnancy — “are made available to Americans who need that particular prescription medication.” That includes making sure it can be mailed across state lines.

Some states may seek to outlaw abortion pills. The Biden administration could try to pre-empt those laws by insisting that, because the pills are F.D.A.-approved, any doctor, anywhere, can prescribe them. “That’s precisely the kind of authority that we’re going to try to enforce,” Mr. Becerra said.

He said the administration would also explore whether it can help with transportation for women who will now have to cross state lines to terminate their pregnancies. And while federal dollars cannot pay for abortions, he said the administration would look into using Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to help support pregnant women and new mothers and expand access to contraception.

In Missouri, state lawmakers who are opposed to abortion tried last year to bar funding for two particular types of birth control: intrauterine devices and emergency contraception, the so-called morning-after pill. The state has also excluded Planned Parenthood, a major provider of birth control, from its Medicaid family planning program.

Planned Parenthood says the exclusion violates state law and has asked Mr. Becerra to take action. Mr. Becerra said his agency is “on top of that and we will move as best we can.”

Representative Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, was at Mr. Becerra’s event in St. Louis on Friday, seated in the same Planned Parenthood where she chose to have an abortion after an assault, listening to providers and advocates talk about the challenges of their work when her chief of staff passed her a phone to deliver the news about Roe.

“Sitting in the same place where it was easy to access, and sitting in the same place where those rights were stripped away from people who right now are in the same situation that I was in,” she recalled in a telephone interview. “It broke me down. I was just in shock.”

In 2019, Planned Parenthood built the Illinois facility, across the river from St. Louis in Fairview Heights, in anticipation of Roe being overturned; its leaders refer to the clinic as its “post-Roe surge” facility. While Mr. Becerra was there, Dr. McNicholas told him about a woman who had driven nine hours from Houston to get an abortion.

“This is a public health emergency like this country has never seen before,” Dr. McNicholas said. “The legalization and accessibility of abortion was one of this country’s most defining important public health successes in history. And so we’re now in a position where we have turned the clock back.”

June 24, 2022, 4:33 p.m. ET

Kevin WilliamsJamie McGee and

How women who oppose abortion are reacting to the court’s decision.

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Abortion opponents celebrating the Supreme Court abortion decision on Friday.Credit...Shuran Huang for The New York Times

Our reporters are speaking with women across the United States as they react to Friday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Here is a selection of what they have heard from women who oppose abortion.

‘Finally we can save the babies’

Sherri Street, 67, who lives in Franklin, Tenn., a city south of Nashville, welcomed the decision, saying the issue of abortion had been on her mind for decades. A close family member had an abortion in 1972 as a teenager and later married the boyfriend who had also been the father. She said her relative had regretted the decision to have the abortion.

“It’s something she gets tearful about,” Ms. Street said. “So, we really were hoping that this would be overturned.”

Ms. Street said she approves of a Tennessee law that would make abortion illegal, with exceptions when a mother’s life or major bodily function is at risk.

“Finally, we can save babies,” she said.

Ms. Street said she had supported exceptions for rape in the past, but has since changed her mind.

“I used to think rape would be one, but I’m not really sure any more,” she said. “I just can’t imagine killing something that the Lord had planned.”

The culmination of an anti-abortion legislator’s career

Candice Keller, 63, a former Ohio state representative who co-sponsored restrictive abortion legislation that is expected to be signed into law within weeks, said Friday’s ruling was the culmination of her career.

“I just started to cry. It was a nine-year battle in Ohio,” Ms. Keller said of her efforts to make abortion illegal. “It has been a real battle. It felt like you are never going to win. But we did win,” Ms. Keller said, adding that she was grateful to former President Donald J. Trump for nominating three conservative justices.

‘When I heard the news, I leapt for joy’

At Ohio Right to Life, an anti-abortion organization, “the mood is completely overjoyed,” said Elizabeth Whitmarsh, the group’s communications director.

“When I heard the news, I leapt for joy,” she added. “I almost started crying. It is a historic moment. I cannot overstate how monumental this moment is in history.”

Despite the celebratory mood, Ms. Whitmarsh said the real work would begin now, adding that her organization expects the state to move swiftly to ban all abortions.

“This is uncharted territory,” she said. “This is just the first step. Our goal isn’t to just end abortion but to create a culture of life so that women don’t feel a need for abortions.”

‘It has been an issue that I’ve held very close to my heart’

Stephanie Meyer, who spent Friday at the Kansas City Zoo with her three children, said she was thrilled to hear the news of the Supreme Court decision. Ms. Meyer is part of a large Catholic family and said she has never doubted her opposition to abortion.

“I was brought up in the Catholic faith and it has been an issue that I’ve held very close to my heart,” Ms. Meyer said. “This is a big problem in our country, what we allow to happen to unborn babies.”

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Stephanie Lai
June 24, 2022, 4:22 p.m. ET

Members of Congress voice mixed opinions on the Roe ruling.

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Democratic leaders condemned the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, while some Republican lawmakers celebrated the ruling.CreditCredit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

As members of Congress flooded into the Capitol on Friday morning for a packed legislative day before a recess, news of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade reverberated through the building.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi was visibly shaken at her weekly news conference, saying, “It’s just stunning — and again as a woman, as a mother, as a grandmother, to see young girls now have fewer rights than their moms or even their grandmothers, is something very sad for our country.”

Separately, she described the ruling as “cruel,” “outrageous” and “heart-wrenching.”

But congressional action on abortion rights is unlikely given a lack of support in the Senate. A House bill that went beyond Roe and aimed to protect abortion access nationwide, the Women’s Health Protection Act, failed in the Senate last month with 51 senators opposed and 49 in support, well short of the 60 votes needed.

Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, said she thought any abortion rights bill was unlikely to pass in the Senate, adding that the next best action would be “organizing, mobilizing and turning it into a major election issue.”

Democrats would need the support of Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who has frequently opposed abortion rights, in addition to 10 Republicans for such a bill to pass.

“I have come to accept that my definition of pro-life may not be someone else’s definition of pro-life — I believe that exceptions should be made in instances of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in jeopardy,” Mr. Manchin said, adding, “I support legislation that would codify the rights Roe v. Wade previously protected.”

Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who was a key supporter of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in his 2018 confirmation, said in a statement that Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch had misrepresented their views on Roe in private meetings with her.

“Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative,” Ms. Collins said. “It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger and a further loss of confidence in our government.”

Ms. Collins is one of two Senate Republicans who have shown support for abortion rights bills; the other is Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The two voted in favor of the Women’s Health Protection Act.

Some lawmakers expressed satisfaction with the court’s ruling, including Representative Majorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, who walked into the House chamber with a smile and said the decision was “a blessing.”

“People need to understand this doesn’t end abortion and just simply gives it back to the states, allowing the states to make their own laws,” she said.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has played a major role in shaping the Supreme Court, said he shared the joy of those celebrating the ruling.

Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, declared on the House floor: “God bless the United States Supreme Court, and God bless President Trump for the people he selected for our highest court.”

With protesters gathering outside the Supreme Court, other congressional Republicans, like Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Rob Portman of Ohio, urged the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security in a letter to step up security for members of the Supreme Court and the court itself, escalating security measures from a bill that Congress cleared earlier this month, which extends police protection to the immediate family members of the justices.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who leads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the panel would convene a hearing on July 12, when the Senate returns from recess, on a post-Roe world.

“The court’s decision to erase the right to access an abortion will not only lead to the denial of critical health care services, but also criminal consequences for women and health care providers in states eager to embrace draconian restrictions,” he said.

Emily Cochrane and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

Emily Cochrane
June 24, 2022, 4:12 p.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that “It is clear that the path forward will depend on the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.”

“The contrast between our parties could not be clearer: While Democrats are the party of freedom and safety, Republicans are the party of punishment and control,” she said. “We must ‘Remember in November’ that the rights of women, and indeed all Americans, are on the ballot."

Brent McDonald
June 24, 2022, 4:06 p.m. ET

Claire Qian, 20, from Lexington, Ky., confronted a group of abortion opponents who were chanting and celebrating in front of the Supreme Court following the release of its decision to overturn Roe v Wade. She grew emotional as she recounted the story of how access to safe, legal abortion saved her mother’s life.

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Zach Montague
June 24, 2022, 4:04 p.m. ET

As multiple states have already acted on the decision by triggering new legal restrictions on abortions, demonstrators near the court have been swapping information to share with the public on ways to fight against new restrictions. Sarah Gilchrist, who was in Washington for a conference on Friday, held a box resembling a pack of abortion pills containing a QR code that directs to a website with information on how to obtain pills in an emergency by mail. “There’s a lot of work that we have to do to protect each other,” she said. “You know the things that I’ve taken for granted my whole life — having access to abortion, having access to health care — are under attack.”

Alexander Burns
June 24, 2022, 3:57 p.m. ET

Abortion could be a central issue in the midterm elections.

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Voting earlier this month in the Nevada primary election in Las Vegas.Credit...Bridget Bennett for The New York Times

Abortion rights groups conceded on Friday that the Supreme Court ruling striking down Roe v. Wade was a catastrophic defeat, while pointing to the 2022 midterm elections as the first chance to correct a grave judicial error.

Democratic candidates in a number of key states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, issued statements and held events on Friday, suggesting that they intended to make abortion rights a central focus of their campaigns.

Mini Timmaraju, the president of Naral Pro-Choice America, called the ruling “the worst case scenario,” but said that it was not “the end of this fight.”

“There is an election in November,” Ms. Timmaraju said, “and extremist politicians will learn: When you come for our rights, we come for your seats.”

Abortion rights have so far not been a central focus of the midterms in most states, with many candidates concentrating on economic issues like inflation and fuel prices. But Democrats and abortion-rights supporters have been anticipating an adverse Supreme Court ruling for months, and readying themselves to make the case to voters that they need to safeguard women’s rights at the ballot box.

The issue could be particularly salient in states that enacted stringent abortion restrictions ahead of the Dobbs decision, or those in which right-wing state legislators have proposed doing so.

Jenny Lawson, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes, a campaign committee of the national reproductive health organization, predicted that “shock waves from today’s devastating decision will ripple through to November.”

“Planned Parenthood Votes will ensure that outrage translates to massive voter turnout and victories for candidates who unapologetically support abortion rights,” Ms. Lawson said.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
June 24, 2022, 3:57 p.m. ET

Here are key passages from the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe.

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Protestors gather in front of the Supreme Court to demonstrate their support and opposition regarding the Court’s rulings on abortion rights, the ability to carry guns in public, the ability of federal agencies to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and religious freedom, among other issues, on Thursday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

The Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and ruled that states should be allowed to ban abortions was written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and joined by five other justices.

Below are key passages from Justice Alito’s majority opinion in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson, with analysis from New York Times reporters. The full, annotated opinion can be read here.

Then, in 1973, this Court decided Roe v. Wade. Even though the Constitution makes no mention of abortion, the Court held that it confers a broad right to obtain one.

Justice Alito’s guiding principle is that a right to an abortion cannot be found in the Constitution. He adheres to a legal philosophy known as “original intent,” which involves scrutinizing the founding document’s language to derive direction on contemporary issues. —Jan Hoffman

Stare decisis, the doctrine on which Casey’s controlling opinion was based, does not compel unending adherence to Roe’s abuse of judicial authority. Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.

Even if the arrival of new justices on the Supreme Court shifts its ideological balance, the court is not supposed to revisit and overturn every precedent with which a new majority disagrees. But as Justice Alito notes, the court nevertheless still does sometimes overturn precedents, and has developed a five-factor test. Each supports overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, he argues. —Charlie Savage

It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”

Here is Justice Alito’s bottom line: The Constitution does not prevent state legislatures from banning abortion. —Charlie Savage

Neither Roe nor Casey saw fit to invoke this theory, and it is squarely foreclosed by our precedents, which establish that a State’s regulation of abortion is not a sex-based classification and is thus not subject to the “heightened scrutiny” that applies to such classifications.

Many legal scholars have reasoned that Roe should have been argued as an equal-protection right for women, along the lines that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg would present as a lawyer before the Supreme Court shortly after Roe was decided. Justice Alito says that because the right to abortion was not based in such reasoning, judges who evaluate laws regulating it need not apply a level of scrutiny that extends to laws based on gender. —Jan Hoffman

The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions. On the contrary, an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.

Having listed numerous laws before and during the 19th century that banned abortions, he concludes that no one back then thought there was a right to abortion. —Charlie Savage

Some of our most important constitutional decisions have overruled prior precedents. We mention three. In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the Court repudiated the “separate but equal” doctrine, which had allowed States to maintain racially segregated schools and other facilities. Jd., at 488 (internal quotation marks omitted). In so doing, the Court overruled the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 587 (1896), along with six other Supreme Court precedents that had applied the separate-but-equal rule.

Arguing that respect for precedent does not preclude the Supreme Court from ever overturning one of its past rulings, Justice Alito points to a long line of rulings that did so — starting with the most venerated landmark civil rights decision in American history, the 1954 case striking down racial segregation in schools. —Charlie Savage

But even if one takes the view that “personhood” begins when a certain attribute or combination of attributes is acquired, it is very hard to see why viability should mark the point where “personhood” begins.

The most obvious problem with any such argument is that viability is heavily dependent on factors that have nothing to do with the characteristics of a fetus. One is the state of neonatal care at a particular point in time. Due to the development of new equipment and improved practices, the viability line has changed over the years.

For decades, the viability point was considered to be about 24 weeks into a pregnancy; now it can often be at 23 weeks’ gestation and occasionally as early as 22 weeks, with rare cases of babies surviving if delivered at 21 weeks’ gestation.

But the characteristics of a fetus still prevent viability much earlier than that because important phases of development of the brain and other organs don’t occur until well beyond the first trimester. There is no possibility of fetal viability at 15 weeks, the point at which the Mississippi law would outlaw most abortions in the state. Nor did Mississippi officials claim that a baby could survive at that stage. —Pam Belluck

And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.

The claim by Justice Alito that this ruling does not jeopardize other modern-era rights that derived from the same legal reasoning — like sex between consenting adults of the same sex and the right of same-sex couples to marry — has been widely criticized as unpersuasive since the time it appeared in the leaked draft. After all, matters like rights for same-sex couples have no deep historical basis and, in some people’s minds, also raise critical moral questions.

Justice Thomas, in his concurring opinion, took aim at three other landmark cases that relied on that same legal reasoning: Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 decision that declared married couples had a right to contraception; Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 case invalidating sodomy laws and making same-sex sexual activity legal across the country; and Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case establishing the right of gay couples to marry. —Charlie Savage and Sheryl Gay Stolberg

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