The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling which legalized abortions.
The decision came in a case about Mississippi’s abortion law, Dobbs v. Jackson, which sought to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
"Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided," wrote Justice Samuel Alito.
With Friday’s decision, states can now make their own laws regarding whether a woman can have an abortion.
The conservative justices voted in favor of overturning Roe. However, Chief Justice John Robert said he would have stopped short of overturning Roe, but would have ruled in favor of the Mississippi law.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
"With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent," the justices wrote.
President Joe Biden called on Congress to codify abortion rights into federal law.
"The only way we can secure women's right to choose, the balance that existed, is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v Wade as federal law," Biden said. "No executive action from the president can do that."
Thirteen states have so-called trigger laws, which ban abortions following the overturning of Roe.
The decision to overturn Roe was telegraphed in a leaked draft opinion. At the time of the leak, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the draft opinion was not necessarily the court’s final ruling.
Roe had been on the books since 1973.
