- Attorney General Merrick Garland said the decision would be felt disproportionately by people of color.
- DOJ plans to support federal efforts to protect and advance reproductive freedom, he said.
- Garland was once nominated to the court, but Republicans refused to hold hearings or a vote.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday sharply condemned the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying the justices had dealt a "devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States" by eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.
In a prepared statement, Garland stressed that the Justice Department disagreed with the decision and predicted that it "will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country."
"And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect – with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means," he added.
Garland's comment came within hours of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion after almost a half-century. The decision, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, is expected to lead to all but total bans on abortion in about half the states.
A former federal appellate judge, Garland was nominated in 2016 to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, only to see Republicans refuse to hold hearings or a vote. Garland then remained in the powerful US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit until his confirmation to serve as attorney general under the Biden administration.
"Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today's decision is certain: the curtailment of women's rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens," read the dissenting opinion authored by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
But they warned that the opinion had implications beyond just abortion rights, pointing to the overturning of both Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Pennsylvania and the other court decisions that rested on those precedents.
"No one should be confident that this majority is done with its work," they wrote. "The right Roe and Casey recognized does not stand alone."