Roe v Wade overturned: Northumbria's Police and Crime Commissioner condemns Supreme Court decision to restrict abortion rights in the US

It was announced on Friday, June 24 that the US Supreme Court’s Conservative majority voted to overturn a landmark ruling from 1973 – named Roe v Wade – which protected a woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion.

The decision is now expected to lead to abortion bans in a number of US states.

As reaction from across the globe, and all sides of the political spectrum, flooded in, Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness shared her devastation at the loss of “women’s rights and freedoms”.

There will no longer be a nationwide guarantee to the right to an abortion in the US, after the Supreme Court ruling on Friday.

Tweeting as news broke Friday afternoon, Ms McGuinness said: “Devastating that on the whim of Conservative ideologues women’s rights and freedoms can just be taken.

"And they know it’s poor women that will suffer, will be forced to risk their lives on unsafe abortions. Solidarity with our sisters in the states.”

As it stands, abortion rights in the US vary from state to state – with very strict limits already in place for some locations.

Roe being overturned means that some states will now be able to further restrict, or ban, abortion procedures.

As the news broke, former President of the United States Barack Obama said: “Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.”