Striding from the US supreme court to the nearby US Capitol, holding aloft a sign that said “My body my choice” and “Women’s right to choose”, Taylor Treacy was struggling to fathom how she had fewer constitutional rights now than when she awoke that morning.

We’re allowing more access to guns yet we’re taking away the rights of women.

Millions of women had just lost access to abortion on Friday after America’s highest court overturned a near-50-year-old ruling and other precedents enshrining that right.

The court’s liberal minority responded: “With sorrow – for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection – we dissent.” The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states, although the timing of those laws taking effect varies.

The back-to-back decisions were the fruit of a long campaign by conservatives to shift the judiciary to the right, powered by influential groups such as the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.

The court struck down Roe v Wade against the wishes of a Democratic president, Democratic-controlled Congress and the citizenry.

In Washington abortion rights protesters crowded outside the fenced-off supreme court on Friday, opposite the gleaming dome of the US Capitol, where their elected representatives vented frustration at the demise of Roe but were powerless to intervene.

Calling it “a sad day for the court and the country”, Biden said: “It was three justices named by one president – Donald Trump – who were the core of today’s decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate a fundamental right for women in this country.

He added: “With this decision, the conservative majority of the supreme court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country.

The president admitted that he cannot take executive action to secure a woman’s right to choose.

We’ve seen, now, overturning the right to an abortion.

Americans’ faith in the supreme court has dropped to a historic low, with only 25% saying saying have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in it, down from 36% a year ago, according to a Gallup poll.

“Today’s ruling shows that the supreme court is the problem and so any solution has to address the supreme court,” he added.

Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion on Friday that the supreme court should reconsider other legal precedents protecting same-sex relationships, marriage equality and access to contraception.

Biden warned: “This is an extreme and dangerous path this court is taking us on.”.

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen America, an organisation that works to engage young voters, said: “It is the takeover of an extreme rightwing minority that seeks to roll back the gains for the LGBTQ community, for women, for people of colour.

In Alabama, the state’s three abortion clinics stopped performing the procedure for fear providers would now be prosecuted under a law dating to 1951; women in the waiting room on Friday morning were suddenly turned away.