Dr Erica Hofland is a clinician from the Red River Women's Clinic in North Dakota, one of the 13 states with a "trigger law" that will see a ban on abortions come into force soon.

She tells BBC Radio 4 she thinks women in the US are likely to face "additional legislation and hardships" over the next couple of decades and the law change will affect many women "in ways that are yet to be determined".

Women should not take second place to a pregnancy, Hofland says, and "shouldn't be seen as carriers of a pregnancy from the moment they conceive".

"That's doing a disservice to the women of this country, to see them only as a vessel at that point, and no longer their own independent person with the ability to make decisions over their own health, their own families and their own body."

She says she knows the clinic she works at will be closing because of North Dakota's trigger law, and while it may open a new location across a state border, staff anticipate more laws being forced that may affect even what they can discuss with patients.

She says women will face drives of six hours or more to access clinics in neighbouring states and women will find themselves in "a desert of information".

Rianna Croxford
Reporting from Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee, is considered the hen party capital of America, where women from across the country come to celebrate their last night of singledom.

Over the past 24 hours, the city has felt symbolic of the divided emotions over yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling.

While some were actively ignoring the news, for others the realisation dampened the mood. One woman said she was “disgusted” but another, who was pro-life, urged people to read up on the new rules before panicking.

“Before we freak out, we should all do some proper research and reading. Read the rules, read the laws," she said. "I personally believe that human life begins at conception but I know that, for pregnancies that would threaten the mother’s life, they [doctors] would still help the woman."

But just a few streets away, more than a thousand people had gathered to protest.

Tatiana Walton, a 30-year-old model, said: "I can’t imagine not having that avenue. I have experienced abortion before and have people come through for me."

She added: "It is going to have a large impact on minorities and women who don’t have financial means."

Dr Katrina Green, an emergency room physician and women’s health advocate, described the decision as "a gut punch" that will enable Tennessee's trigger law banning abortion - with no exceptions for foetal abnormalities, for rape or for incest - to go into effect.

Image source, Reuters

The Catholic Church as an institution has long held that abortion is a sin.

Pope Francis has said aborting an unwanted pregnancy is like “hiring a hit man”.

So it should come as no surprise that, officially at least, the Vatican praised the Supreme Court's decision.

On Friday, the Vatican's Academy for Life said the ruling "challenges the whole world" at a time Western society "is losing passion for life".

"By choosing life, our responsibility for the future of humanity is at stake," said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the head of the academy.

Yet many Catholics support the right for people to end their pregnancies. According to Pew Research Center, more than half (58%) of Catholics in the US think abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

US President Joe Biden is perhaps America's highest-profile Catholic - he is known to attend church regularly and carry a rosary. But he has also been a vocal advocate for women's right to choose.

The issue has run him afoul of some of the church's top clergy. Last year, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to amend the guidance on the eucharist to say that Catholics who oppose the church's teachings on abortion should not receive holy communion.

The guidance would be non-binding, and Biden says he's "not worried". He has continued to attend Mass every Sunday.

Nomia Iqbal
BBC News, Washington

It’s been more than 24 hours since the Supreme Court threw out Roe v Wade, and pro-choice protesters are still gathered in front of the heavy black fence that fortifies the court.

There are about a hundred people here this morning compared to the more than a thousand who showed up yesterday. They’re shouting “we have a choice, we have a choice!”

Two years ago, I was here reporting on the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Many were crying at the time, saying “we’ve lost a champion of women”.

It feels a bit different today. One woman tells me she has complicated feelings about Ginsberg. “She did so much for women but she should’ve retired during President Obama’s term. That way, her seat would’ve been given to a liberal.”

Ginsberg died in September 2020 during President Trump’s term enabling him to replace her with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of the justices that voted to strike down Roe.

However it’s likely that even if Ginsberg had retired, overturning Roe would have still passed in a 5-4 vote.

When I put that to some of the women here however, they say liberals wouldn’t have lost as much ground to conservatives in the Supreme Court as they now have.

Image source, Getty Images

We know that a handful of states have already imposed abortion bans since yesterday's ruling, because of their trigger laws - but what could happen to anyone breaking these new laws?

A Republican member of the Oklahoma State Senate, Julie Daniels, has confirmed to the BBC that performing an abortion in her state is now illegal, and anyone carrying one out could face five years in jail.

"Our attorney general issued an affirmation that Roe had been overturned and that triggered a bill we passed this session that puts back into our effect our original criminal homocide statute against abortion," she says.

"So as of today those who perform abortions are subject to prosecution and the penalty is two to five years in prison."

Abortion-rights activists are holding demonstrations across the US on Saturday and Sunday.

There are dozens of events across the country listed by Bans Off Our Bodies, external- a national campaign group led by rights groups including Planned Parenthood and Women's March.

They're planned in cities of various sizes across the nation, from the eastern states of New Jersey and New York, to southern states such as Texas, New Mexico, mid-western states like Illinois and California in the west.

The campaigners say they want to send a message that "all people deserve access to abortion when they need it and in the community they live in".

Image source, Bans Off Our Bodies

Robin Levinson King
BBC News, Toronto, Ontario

Image source, Reuters

Canada doesn’t often like to butt its nose in its neighbour’s – and largest trading partner’s – business.

But when the Supreme Court overruled Roe v Wade, Canada’s progressive-leaning prime minister, Justin Trudeau, did not mince words, calling it a “devastating setback” and “horrific” for women.

“Quite frankly, it’s an attack on everyone’s freedoms and rights,” Trudeau said from the Commonwealth summit in Kigali, Rwanda.

“It shows how much standing up and fighting for rights matters every day, that we can’t take anything for granted.”

Abortion has been de-criminalised in Canada since 1983, but access is not a guaranteed right. In one of the country’s provinces, New Brunswick, there are no abortion clinics, and in many rural areas, women have to drive for hours to get abortions.

There are many pro-life Canadians but the issue has not been politicised to the same degree as it has south of the border.

Trudeau has reiterated his commitment to abortion rights in Canada and around the world.

Last month, his public safety minister instructed border security that Americans are welcome in Canada if they want to get an abortion. Some clinics are expecting an influx of patients from the US, and abortion-access advocates have asked for more federal funding.

Read more: The world reacts to US ruling

Image source, Getty Images

The Supreme Court plays a key role in American life. It often has the final word on contentious laws, fundamental issues, and disputes between states and the federal government.

Each of its nine justices serves a lifetime appointment after being nominated by the president and approved by the Senate.

During his single term in office, former President Donald Trump appointed three conservative-leaning judges: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Those efforts have cemented a 6-3 conservative majority on the nation's high court, and Friday's abortion ruling played out along those ideological lines.

Read more: Who are the justices on the Supreme Court?

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Image source, Getty Images

Latin American media has reacted with shock and critical commentaries to the US Supreme Court decision.

Major dailies from Mexico to Argentina have put the ruling prominently on their front pages - and the coverage has generally presented the move as a major setback for women's rights.

Some see incongruity in the fact it came from the US - long held up as a beacon of human rights - at a time when pro-abortion campaigners in the rest of the world, including Latin America, are making inroads against often very conservative laws.

Mexican Senator Olga Sanchez Cordero, who has worked to decriminalise abortion, calls the move "an enormous step back in sexual and reproductive rights", in a comment headlined by leading Mexican daily El Universal.

Writing on Brazilian news website UOL, columnist Nina Lemos says it would be a "day of commemoration for the ultra-conservatives", including the government of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and describes it as "another sad day for women".

Top Argentinian newspaper Clarin calls the move a "transcendental and extremely controversial decision".

Bolivian daily El Deber notes the US decision "goes against the international tendency of legalising abortion".

Angelica Casas
Reporting from San Antonio

Tere Haring has been waiting for this moment for some 50 years.

Outside the crisis pregnancy centre she runs on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, the street was quiet.

But inside, she was trying to figure out a security plan in case protests targeted her organisation that helps expecting mothers with clothes, diapers, cribs and financial assistance to help convince them against getting an abortion.

"I'm happy," she told her staff this morning when she walked in to the office, shortly after the Supreme Court published its decision.

Haring opened the Allied Women's Center in the 1990s, but she's been an anti-abortion advocate most of her life, her conviction heavily founded on her faith.

"Every human life needs to be protected," she said, as she watched President Joe Biden describe the court's decision as a "tragic error".

"It represents that we acknowledge the humanity of the unborn," she said.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

As the dust settled on the Supreme Court's decision overruling Roe v Wade's constitutionally guaranteed abortion rights, politicians across the ideological spectrum stepped forward to outline how the political stakes have changed - and what comes next.

Former Vice-President Mike Pence, who has long been a leader in the evangelical Christian movement, said his side has to focus on passing abortion bans in state legislatures now unbounded by Supreme Court precedent.

President Joe Biden, in an address to the nation, said the only way Americans can protect abortion rights is to vote for Democrats in November's upcoming mid-term elections, which decide control of the US Congress.

In case it wasn't immediately clear, the central front in the battle over abortion rights in the US has moved from the courtroom to the ballot box.

There will still be plenty of legal fights as states pass new kinds of legislation protecting, or limiting, abortion rights for both their residents and those of other states. But these fights lie downstream from what happens in state legislatures, governor's mansions and Congress.

And control of many of those political offices are very much in play this November.

In the hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, several states made moves to immediately ban abortion:

• Utah
• South Dakota
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Oklahoma
• Missouri
• Arkansas

In Alabama, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Arizona, abortion clinics shut down because of pre-1973 abortion bans that were still on the books. With Roe gone, those laws are back in force.

In some states, "trigger laws" which were passed before the court's ruling are still waiting to take effect. These laws were designed to come into force once the court overruled Roe, but some have additional waiting periods.

• Wyoming - five days
• Mississippi - 10 days
• North Dakota - 30 days

Texas, Tennessee and Idaho have a 30-day period after the court issues its judgement, which will happen after it issued its opinion on Friday.

Elsewhere, states that had abortion bans struck down by judges are now heading back to court to get the laws reinstated.

Legal battles are brewing in:

• Michigan
• Ohio
• Georgia
• Iowa
• South Carolina

And the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice organisation, believes more restrictions could be passed in Florida, Nebraska, Montana, and Indiana.

Read more: What happens now?

Mark Lowen
Southern Europe correspondent for BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

In 1978, five years after Roe v Wade, Italy legalised abortion with Law 194. And while it is not the same lightning rod political issue here, the rise of a new hard-right conservative politics, ever closer to the Catholic church, has brought it back into focus - and the US Supreme Court's decision is reverberating in Italy too.

From the political left and centre, there's been a chorus of condemnation and alarm. Emma Bonino, a leftist former foreign minister who helped pass Law 194, said it showed the risk in Italy of moving backwards and of "losing achievements that had seemed permanent".

But on the right, some feel galvanised.

"A great victory", declared Simone Pillon from the far-right League, adding that he hoped Italy and Europe would follow suit.

However, his party leader, Matteo Salvini, was notably more nuanced, stating that he believes "in the value of life… but on pregnancy, the last word belongs to the woman" - perhaps a recognition that the majority of Italians say they still support the right to abort.

While it's unlikely abortion would be restricted here, Law 194 allowed for conscientious objection by doctors - and across the country, around 70% of medics now refuse to perform the procedure. In some regions, it's 90%.

With the Vatican in its backyard, Italy is often behind the curve on some social issues, such as LGBT rights. There is pride among many that abortion was fought for, and enshrined in law, decades ago. But it is for some a raw nerve - and the US decision will touch that.

Image source, Getty Images

At an event to sign the bipartisan gun control bill into law, President Joe Biden makes further remarks on the Supreme Court's seismic abortion ruling.

"I know how painful and devastating the decision is for so many Americans," he says.

Asked whether the court is a broken institution, Biden replies: "I think the Supreme Court has made some terrible decisions."

Earlier in the week, he criticised a separate ruling that would loosen gun restrictions in the state of New York.

The Biden administration is under pressure to act to protect abortion access, but there is little the president can unilaterally do.

"My administration is going to focus on how [states] administer [their abortion bans] and if they violate other laws by deciding not to allow people to cross state lines to get to public health services," he says.

Some 40 million women of child-bearing age will live in states where abortion will become more difficult to access, according to the Guttmacher Institute, external, a research organisation that supports abortion rights.

About 630,000 abortions were performed in the US in 2019, according to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), although Guttmacher's own research indicates it may be closer to 860,000.

Image source, .

The CDC says the vast majority of abortions, 92.8%, are performed during the first trimester. Most people who get abortions are unmarried, although they may be living with a partner at the time.

About one in 10 women who get an abortion are teenagers, with most being in their 20s. About 60% of people who get abortions have also given birth before, and nearly 60% had never had an abortion before.

Image source, .

Image source, Getty Images

The US Congress rarely acts in a bipartisan fashion.

And on the divisive issue of gun rights, it has taken no major action since 1994.

But, after mass shootings last month at a New York supermarket and a Texas primary school, a group of Democrats and Republicans worked together to craft the most significant firearms legislation in nearly 30 years.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act imposes tougher background checks on gun buyers below the age of 21, provides federal funding for mental health programs and school security upgrades, and encourages states to remove guns from people considered a threat.

A short while ago, it was signed into law by President Joe Biden.

In spite of its milestone passage however, the legislation has been completely eclipsed by news of the Supreme Court overturning the right to abortion.

Pop star Lizzo has said she will donate money from her upcoming tour to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the US, as well as to grassroots abortion funds around the country.

She tweeted that, with event promoter Live Nation matching the funds, the total pledge would reach $1m (£815,000).

The "Lizzo: The Special" tour begins this September.

Alina Salganicoff, a women's healthcare expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, non-profit organisation in the US focusing on national health issues, says the law change represent a "seismic shift"

"There were nine states with two or fewer abortion clinics, so abortion access in many states was already restricted," she tells BBC Radio 5 Live.

"Huge swathes of this country, particularly the south and in the central part of the country, the Mid West, are going to be without abortion providers.

"With all of these types of bans we expect that low income women, women of colour and young women are going to be disproportionally affected. So many of those women will have to travel out of state but many will not be able to travel out of state and will not be able to get the abortions that they seek."

Image source, .

Sagalnicoff says abortion "is one of the most profoundly personal decisions that women can make".

"It's very difficult to be pregnant when you don't want to be and one of the things that's so important for women is to have bodily autonomy, to be able to decide whether they want a child or not and when they want to do that.

"For women who live in these states that option is going to be taken away from them, so it's a very difficult day for a lot of women, I have been hearing from individuals who have been very distressed about this news."

Image source, .

Image source, Getty Images

President Joe Biden's administration has indicated it will aim to prevent states from banning a pill used for medical abortion in light of the Supreme Court's ruling.

The pill, mifepristone, in combination with a second drug called misoprostol, induces an abortion up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy and is only available in the US through a certified doctor's prescription.

The Biden administration could argue in court, Reuters reports, that the US Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone pre-empts state restrictions, meaning federal authority would outweigh any state action.

States that ban abortion could in any case face difficulties enforcing restrictions on pregnancy termination via medication because women may still be able to obtain the pills online or in other states.

Image source, EPA

The Supreme Court's decision has prompted reaction from leaders and notable figures around the world - much (but by no means all) of it negative.

Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, said the news was "horrific". Writing on Twitter , externalhe said his heart went out to the millions of American women who would lose the legal right to an abortion, and added: "I want women in Canada to know that we will always stand up for your right to choose."

Also on Twitter, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote, external: "Abortion is a fundamental right for all women. It must be protected."

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "I think it's a big step backwards. I've always believed in a woman's right to choose and I stick to that view, and that's why the UK has the laws that it does."

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wrote on Instagram, external: "People are absolutely entitled to have deeply held convictions on this issue. But those personal beliefs should never rob another from making their own decisions. To see that principle now lost in the United States feels like a loss for women everywhere."

The Vatican's Acadmy for Life praised the decision, however, saying abortion is a "matter of broad social significance". "The fact that a large country with a long democratic tradition has changed its position on this issue also challenges the whole world," it said.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tweeted: , external"May God continue to give strength and wisdom to those who protect the innocence and future of our children, in Brazil and in the world."