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Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows

May 4, 2022

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A shocking and unethical action by a clerk within the Supreme Court staff has resulted in the leaking of a draft opinion which it appears will strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The document written by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated inside the court was obtained by POLITICO.

“The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

The immediate impact of the ruling as drafted in February would be to end a half-century guarantee of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or ban abortion. It’s unclear if there have been subsequent changes to the draft.

No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending. The unprecedented revelation is bound to intensify the debate over what was already the most controversial case on the docket this term.

CBS News reports “The document denotes the decision is a “1st Draft,” and Alito’s opinion runs 67 pages and is accompanied by a 31-page appendix containing various state statutes criminalizing abortion.

If the Supreme Court overrules Roe and Casey, as the reported draft opinion suggests, it would mark a long-awaited victory for anti-abortion advocates who for decades have called on the high court to reconsider its abortion precedents.

In a statement Monday night, Patricia McCabe, the Supreme Court’s public information officer, said the court has no comment on the report.

A full-scale investigation involving the FBI is expected into the leak of the draft opinion that involves the FBI to determine who was the source”.

POLITICO goes on to say –

“The Supreme Court remains one of Washington’s most secretive institutions, priding itself on protecting the confidentiality of its internal deliberations.

“At the Supreme Court, those who know don’t talk, and those who talk don’t know,” Ginsburg was fond of saying.

That tight-lipped reputation has eroded somewhat in recent decades due to a series of books by law clerks, law professors and investigative journalists. Some of these authors clearly had access to draft opinions such as the one obtained by POLITICO, but their books emerged well after the cases in question were resolved.

The justices held their final arguments of the current term on Wednesday. The court has set a series of sessions over the next two months to release rulings in its still-unresolved cases, including the Mississippi abortion case.”

NOTE: POLITICO received a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document. The draft opinion runs 98 pages, including a 31-page appendix of historical state abortion laws. The document is replete with citations to previous court decisions, books and other authorities, and includes 118 footnotes. The appearances and timing of this draft are consistent with court practice.

The disclosure of Alito’s draft majority opinion – a rare breach of Supreme Court secrecy and tradition around its deliberations – comes as all sides in the abortion debate are girding for the ruling. Speculation about the looming decision has been intense since the December oral arguments indicated a majority was inclined to support the Mississippi law.

The overturning of Roe would almost immediately lead to stricter limits on abortion access in large swaths of the South and Midwest, with about half of the states set to immediately impose broad abortion bans. Any state could still legally allow the procedure. – POLITICO

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

Justice Samuel Alito in an initial draft majority opinion