“We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision,” wrote Samuel Alito in explaining the reasoning of the US Supreme Court as it reversed the constitutional right to an abortion. Perhaps not, but some facts are clear enough.

First, the ruling is more than just a symbol. The right to a legal abortion is one that has been used by tens of millions of women, and the ruling will curtail that right in meaningful ways.

One in four American women will have an abortion at some stage in their lives. (This estimate is based on patchy data, because the US government has shown a revealing lack of interest in collecting solid numbers.) Nearly half of pregnancies are unintended and nearly half of those unintended pregnancies are terminated; overall about one-fifth of pregnancies end in termination.