Former President Barack Obama took to his Twitter accounts just minutes after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the nation in 1973.

“For more than a month, we’ve known this day was coming—but that doesn’t make it any less devastating,” Obama wrote along with a link to his and Michelle Obama’s statement from when they first saw the draft ruling.

In the May statement, Obama said that in case Roe v. Wade is overturned, “it will not only reverse nearly 50 years of precedent — it will relegate the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues.”

Also Read | Roe v Wade overturned: How the US Supreme Court voted

“Few, if any, women make the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually — and people of goodwill, across the political spectrum, can hold different views on the subject. But what Roe recognized is that the freedom enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution requires all of us to enjoy a sphere of our lives that isn’t subject to meddling from the state — a sphere that includes personal decisions involving who we sleep with, who we marry, whether or not to use contraception, and whether or not to bear children.”

On Friday, the conservative-dominated court ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years. 

Also Read | United States Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade

“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” the court said.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion that tossed out Roe.

“That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ’implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” Alito wrote.

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”