Roe v Wade

Seána Glennon: Ireland’s past paints a bleak picture for America’s future on abortion rights

The likely unravelling of the historic Roe v Wade decision by the US Supreme Court means women there will face traumas all too familiar here

‘For a glimpse of a future in which lawmakers are unwilling or unable to provide for safe abortion access, and in which the judiciary places unborn life on a higher constitutional plain than the lives of women, America need look no further than Ireland.’ Picture: Getty

In the draft of the US Supreme Court’s opinion on the landmark Roe v Wade case which was leaked earlier this month – and which was subsequently confirmed to be authentic – Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” .

The time had come, he said, “to heed the constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives”. The draft opinion states that the effect of the ...