What the liberal justices’ scorching dissent reveals about the US supreme court

Opinions from Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor send stark warning about increasingly radical court abandoning long-held principles

The US supreme court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federal protections for abortion access, was catastrophic". The ruling amounted to a curtailment of women's rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens". The drastic decision undermines the court's legitimacy", and the consequences of it will set off an upheaval in ... society".

Those are voices from the supreme court itself: the words of its three liberal justices - Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor - in their scorching and thorough joint dissenting opinion on a decision by their body which has fundamentally altered the lives of millions of Americans.