Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills quickly issued a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade Friday.

With the ruling, the court ends constitutional protections that had been in place nearly 50 years for those seeking an abortion, leaving the issue up to the states.

In a statement, Gov. Mills called it “a fundamental assault on women’s rights and on reproductive freedom.”

She vowed to “defend the right to reproductive health care with everything I have.”

The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half of the U.S. states.

Mills said as long as she is governor, her “veto pen will stand in the way of any effort to undermine, rollback, or outright eliminate the right to safe and legal abortion in Maine.”

Maine has its own law protecting abortion access. The Reproductive Privacy Act was passed in 1993.

A press release has not yet been issued by Mills’ political rival and opponent in the general election, former Maine Gov. Paul LePage.

Independent U.S.  Senator Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, called the decision a “dangerous, blatantly political ruling that will rob millions of women the fundamental right to make decisions about their own health, safety, and lives.”

Sen. Susan Collins said in a statement: “This ill-considered action will further divide the country at a moment when, more than ever in modern times, we need the court to show both consistency and restraint.”

Sen. Collins says that Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who she voted to confirm in 2018, assured her that the ruling was settled law:

“This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon.”

Congressman Jared Golden, who represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, blasted the decision: “The majority opinion is wrong on principle and it is wrong on the merits, tossing aside decades of established precedent. In many parts of the country, there will be serious and harmful consequences for millions of women.”

Some local religious leaders are praising the decision. Bishop Robert Deeley with the Roman Catholic Diocese said Friday: “Today’s decision reaffirms the truth that every life is sacred, and it promotes protection for women and children from the grave injustice of abortion.”

Bishop Deeley went on to say that the church “welcomes the possibility of saving the lives of countless unborn children as well as sparing many women and families from pain.”

A rally and march organized by Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund was scheduled to take place in Portland to protest the decision. That protest was set to begin in Lincoln Park at 5:15 p.m.

The ruling comes more than a month after the stunning leak of a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito.