Roe v. Wade is overturned by Supreme Court | USA TODAY

The landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case established a constitutional right to abortion.

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The Supreme Court ruled Friday that Americans no longer have a constitutional right to abortion, a watershed decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and erased a reproductive right that had been in place for nearly five decades.

In the court's most closely watched and controversial case in years, a majority of the justices – all of whom were appointed by Republican presidents – held that the right to end a pregnancy was not found in the text of the Constitution nor the nation's history.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for a 6-3 majority, with the court's liberal justices in dissent. "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," Alito wrote for the majority. "Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences."

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