Lousiana's law banning abortion has been triggered by the Supreme Court's decision, Republican state attorney general Jeff Landry has announced.

Landry said that he is "rejoicing" with millions of people across the US.

Because of the court's ruling in the Mississippi case, Lousiana's own trigger law "is now in effect", Landry added.

"My office and I will do everything in our power to ensure the laws of Louisiana that have been passed to protect the unborn are enforceable, even if we have to go back to court," he said.

Thirteen US states have so-called "trigger" laws banning abortions that can immediately go back on the books following today's decision., external

US President Joe Biden will speak from the White House at 12:30 local time (17:30 BST) to comment on the ruling.

The three liberal Supreme Court Justices - Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer - joined together in their dissent, saying that the majority's decision is certain to lead to the "curtailment of women's rights".

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams has said that the city is open to women across the country in search of abortion care.

In a statement following the Supreme Court ruling, Adams said the decision is an "affront to basic human rights" that puts lives at risk.

“To those seeking abortions around the country: Know that you are welcome here and that we will make every effort to ensure our reproductive services are available and readily accessible to you,” he added.

With today's decision, the US is poised to be divided between states and municipalities with liberal versus restrictive abortion policies.

Nomia Iqbal
BBC News, Washington

Image source, Getty Images

Protestors from both sides have been congregating outside the Supreme Court here, nearly every day in anticipation of this ruling. A line of more than a dozen police tried to separate the two groups.

As the ruling was announced, there were cheers from anti-abortion activists which rippled through the crowd. These were met with cries from pro-choice protesters saying the decision was illegitimate.

American flags are waving as the pro-choice camp denounced this decision as "fascism". A group of young women in red t-shirts - who are anti-abortion activists, marched past where the media is set up.

"We are the pro-life generation and we just abolished abortion," they shout.

March for Life, the anti-abortion group that hosts an annual gathering in Washington DC around the anniversary of the Roe v Wade ruling, has issued a statement celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the 1973 decision.

Friday’s ruling is “just the beginning of our work to advance policies that protect life”, President Jeanne Mancini wrote.

“We will continue to march until abortion is unthinkable because equality begins in the womb.”

Chelsea Bailey
Digital producer, BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade means access to abortion will be determined by individual states. Some states have already passed laws that make performing an abortion a felony, while others have banned the procedure without exceptions for rape or incest.

Michele Goodwin, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, said she believes the Court’s decision will usher in a new period of “involuntary servitude” in the United States because people with unplanned pregnancies will be forced to give birth.

Goodwin, who was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, has previously said, external that she believed having an abortion saved her life. Courts and legislatures made up primarily of men are making these decisions, she pointed out.

“You can’t help but think that that resembles the period of human enslavement in our country which we got rid of in 1865, but unfortunately has crawled back,” she said.

The Supreme Court ruling means there will no longer be a nationwide guarantee to the right to abortion.

In many states, it's already very difficult to obtain one, particularly in the American South and Midwest.

The Guttmacher Institute - a pro-choice research institute - says it expects 26 of America’s 50 states to move immediately to crack down on clinics providing abortions.

Studies predict the average driving distance to abortion providers will increase by up to 791 miles.

And so even though many states will still provide abortions, the distance needed to travel to one could put the procedure out of reach for millions of women.

You can read more detail here.

Samantha Granville
BBC News, Arkansas

There was a palpable change in the atmosphere at an abortion clinic in Little Rock, Arkansas this morning even before the ruling.

Arkansas is a key state at the centre of this debate because it has a so-called "trigger" law set to ban abortion in the wake of the decision.

We've spent the last three weeks at the clinic and every morning we've been greeted with joyful hellos and the women chatting and having fun with each other. But this morning, it was like they knew it was coming.

As we sat in the back office refreshing the Supreme Court page opinion website one nurse came in to say hello and tell us a story, not realising the decision had been posted just ten seconds before.

The doors at the end of the hallway that leads to the patient area were instantly shut and the distant sound of sobs started. The staff gathered together behind closed doors to comfort each other.

We were asked to leave immediately so they could have time alone to process.

Outside the clinic, protestors were shouting at the cars still coming into the clinic. Patients didn't realise that the opinion had been handed down.

One protestor was taking pictures of licence plates, shouting that being there was now illegal and that he would report all cars to authorities.

The escorts at the clinic, who stand in the Arkansas heat day in and day out to accompany patients in, were in a group hug. Through their tears, they told us today they are sad.

Tomorrow they get back to work to fight for women's rights.

Image source, Getty Images

Justice Clarence Thomas - widely regarded as the Supreme Court's most conservative member - has written a concurring opinion alongside his vote to overturn Roe.

In it, Thomas goes beyond affirming today's ruling to ask the court to "reconsider" past Supreme Court decisions.

He asks to re-evaluate Griswold, which safeguards the right to contraception, Lawrence, which invalidated anti-sodomy laws, and Obergefell, which legalised same-sex marriage nationwide.

In essence, Clarence writes that all three of these rulings - major progressive victories - are now also up for re-examination.

Following today's decision, the right to abortion has been returned to individual US states to determine.

There are 13 states that have so-called trigger laws in place, which will lead to an almost immediate ban.

They are Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

These states are mostly in the south and west, which means some women may have to travel long distances to find a clinic.

You can find out more here.

Image source, Getty Images

Today's ruling came down along ideological lines, matching the court's split between conservative and liberal justices.

The court's conservative justices - Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Neil Gorsuch, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted together to overturn Roe and Casey.

Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion, while Justice Roberts issued a separate opinion concurring with the majority decision on the Mississippi ban, though giving his own judicial reasoning and saying he would not have overturned Roe.

The three liberal justices - Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan dissented.

Image source, Reuters

The Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called today's decision the achievement of the Republican party's "dark and extreme goal of ripping away women’s right to make their own reproductive health decisions".

Pelosi blamed “Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party and their supermajority on the Supreme Court" for giving American women "less freedom than their mothers".

She described the ruling as "cruel... outrageous and heart-wrenching" and said Democrats would "keep fighting ferociously to enshrine Roe v. Wade into law".

Image source, Getty Images

Former US Vice-President Mike Pence has praised today's decision, saying that "life won" and that the Supreme Court has "righted a historic wrong" with its ruling gutting Roe v Wade.

In comments published by the conservative news outlet Breitbart, Pence said that "by returning the question of abortion to the states and to the people, this Supreme Court has...reaffirmed the right of the American people to govern themselves at the state level."

Pence - a long-standing anti-abortion advocate - added that he believes the effort to end abortions should continue across the country.

"Having been given this second chance for life, we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land," he said.

More from the Supreme Court's conservative majority, which says in its ruling that Roe ignored the history that came before - decades of legislation criminalising abortion.

Read the full ruling here, external

Former US President Barack Obama has slammed the Supreme Court for reversing the 50-year precedent set by Roe v Wade.

The court has "relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues", he wrote on Twitter.

In a lengthier statement on Medium, external, he said that Friday's ruling is "a blow not just to women, but to all of us who believe that in a free society, there are limits to how much the government can encroach on our personal lives".

Noting that a clear majority of Americans supported Roe, he wrote that the decision would not significantly reduce abortions, but make illegal and dangerous procedures more likely.

"That's a result none of us should want," he wrote.

Moments after the decision, Missouri's Republican Attorney General has issued an opinion triggering the state's anti-abortion law, which bans the procedure except in cases of a medical emergency.

The opinion "immediately restores Missouri's deeply rooted history and proud tradition of respecting, protecting and promoting the life of the unborn."

On Twitter, Attorney General Eric Schmitt noted that this makes Missouri the first state in the country "to effectively end abortion".

"This is a monumental day for the sanctity of life," he added.

Missouri is one of 13 states with similar "trigger" laws in place.

More from the Supreme Court's ruling, which has found that the Constitution does not protect the right to abortion.

Read the full ruling here., external

Tara McKelvey
BBC News, Washington

With a soul-gospel song called "Freedom" playing in the background, anti-abortion activists outside the Supreme Court are rejoicing.

But the work is not done, as one activist, Rebecca Oas, 41, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, says.

“I am elated,” she tells me.

But her expression changing, she says that the decision announced today is only one step in the direction she and her colleagues want the US and the world to go on: “It’s not enough just to make this the law of the land. To be pro-life is to make this [abortion] unthinkable.”

Behind her, friends and colleagues in her activist group explode in regular cheers.

Tara McKelvey
Reporting from Washington

As the announcement was made, Macy Petty, 20, of Rock Hill, South Carolina, burst into sobs.

"I’ve [been] praying for these Supreme Court justices to do the right action," she tells me.

Her friends gather around and they hug and cheer the decision.

Pro-choice and anti-abortion activists have been gathering outside the Supreme Court almost daily in anticipation of today's decision.