‘A Direct Attack On Women’: McCollum Vows To Fight For Abortion Rights

WASHINGTON COUNTY, MN — Moments after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down abortion rights protected by Roe v. Wade for the past five decades, U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum slammed the court’s decision, calling it “a direct attack on women.”

Friday’s ruling “overturns a fundamental right to make our own health care choices,” McCollum tweeted. “Abortion remains legal in Minnesota, but we are now in a nationwide battle — and I will never stop fighting for our rights.”

The court's ruling to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and a subsequent case on fetal liability — Planned Parenthood v. Casey — was expected. Justice Samuel Alito Jr.'s majority opinion draft was leaked in May to Politico, signaling a seismic shift in abortion rights was coming.

RELATED: Roe V. Wade Overturned: What It Means In Minnesota

Read the full Supreme Court decision here.

At least 26 states are certain or likely to make it nearly impossible for a woman to get a procedure that was legal for her mother, grandmother or even great-grandmother, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research and policy group.

With the decision, abortion will be illegal or a nearly impossible procedure to get in about half of U.S. states, including large swaths of the South, Midwest and Northern Plains.

The state of Minnesota has the most liberal abortion laws in the region. Under Minnesota law, abortions are allowed up to 20 weeks during pregnancy.

Abortion is already illegal or will be illegal soon in 13 states with pre-existing abortion-banning "trigger" laws, which are set to take effect with the dismantling of Roe and Casey.

RELATED: Roe V. Wade Overturned: Abortion Rights Left To States To Decide

Another four states are poised to ban abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Nine have so-called fetal-heartbeat laws that make the procedure illegal before many women know they are pregnant.

U.S. Rep. Angie Craig called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade a “calamitous decision that upends decades of precedent and rolls back fundamental rights for millions of Americans.”

Craig, who represents Minnesota's Second Congressional District, warned Friday’s ruling “is just the beginning of government overreach into the private, personal decisions of American families.”

"The federal government has no place interfering in the decisions between a woman and her doctor, criminalizing abortion or enacting arbitrary laws that undermine women's reproductive freedoms,” Craig said.

RELATED: Protesters Gather After Supreme Court Strikes Down Roe V. Wade

Planned Parenthood Minnesota Advocate — the action fund for the organization's work in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota — said it will hold a vigil at 5:30 p.m. Friday in Minneapolis to "grieve and process this monumental reversal of our rights and what this will mean."

"Every person deserves the fundamental right to control their own body," Planned Parenthood Minnesota Advocate wrote on Facebook. "We must march, mobilize, organize, text, call, write, shout — do everything we possibly can to show support for safe, legal abortion."

Planned Parenthood's Woodbury clinic is reminding anyone who calls that "no matter what you’re hearing, abortion is still legal in our region.”

"Planned Parenthood’s doors are open. We are providing abortion care and all other services," the clinic's website says.

Planned Parenthood locations in Wisconsin were forced to temporarily suspend all abortion services due to Friday's Supreme Court ruling, according to Tanya Atkinson, president of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.

"Today, our daughters have less rights than their mothers, less rights than their grandmothers. This is absolutely unconscionable," Atkinson said.

Planned Parenthood's Wisconsin clinics are still working to serve people seeking abortions, Atkinson said.

Wisconsin clinics "can help people navigate to a state where abortion remains safe and legal, where people's healthcare decisions are respected," Atkinson said.

Clinics can also provide aftercare to people who are returning home to Wisconsin after receiving an abortion, Atkinson said.