WASHINGTON D.C., DC — Five of the high court's nine justices issued the majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, including the court's three newest members Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barret.
Samuel Alito wrote the 108-page opinion reversing an almost 50-year-old precedent protecting a woman's right to abortion.
"The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitution provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely - the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," Alito wrote.
That's the amendment that protects your right to privacy. The second amendment was used by the court Thursday to overturn a New York law requiring people to explain why they want a concealed carry license.
Here's how the court decided that the right to privacy when owning a gun is protected, but not the right to privacy of what happens in your doctor's office.
"Any such right must be 'deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition' and 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty when the 14th amendment was adopted, three-quarters of the states made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy."
For evidence, Alito cites an 1881 law from North Carolina that any person who administers, prescribes, or even advises a woman on how to get an abortion should serve up to 10 years in prison.
It's also important to note Alito considers abortion separate from other rights protected by the 14th amendment like "intimate sexual relations, contraception and marriage." Writing: "abortion is fundamentally different" because it destroys fetal life and does not protect liberty.