US supreme court abortion reversal would be global ‘catastrophe’ for women

If Roe v Wade is overturned, it will encourage anti-choice groups - particularly in the developing world, activists warn

The probable demise of abortion as a federal right in the US will be a catastrophe" for women in low and middle-income countries, with an emboldened anti-choice movement likely to raise renewed pressure on hard-won gains, doctors and activists have warned.

The leak this month of the US supreme court's draft majority opinion, which argued that the 1973 ruling effectively legalising abortion had been egregiously wrong from the start", stunned and enraged many in America.