Irish Examiner view: Legal right to abortion in the US faces challenge

Overturning Roe vs Wade — the landmark ruling that gave women abortion rights — will set the clock back 50 years

A crowd of people gather outside the US Supreme Court on Monday night in Washington to protest against overturning Roe v Wade. Picture: AP Photo/Anna Johnson

What is happening in the US, where a widely-leaked Supreme Court draft judgment seems destined to turn the clock back 50 years by overturning Roe vs Wade, the landmark ruling that gave women abortion rights?

If Margaret Attwood wanted an example of life imitating art for her dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, she could look no further.