The United States Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that allows women to have a legal right to an abortion, this according to a report.
In the opinion draft, which was written by Justice Samuel Alito and released to Politico said,
‘Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. ‘It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.’
This is the first time in modern history that a Supreme Court draft decision was leaked to the media while a case was still pending.
The draft ruling would end the protections for abortion by the federal government and leave the issue up to each state to decide whether or not they will restrict or ban abortions.
As of right now about % of the states plan to immediately impose abortion restrictions.
A spokesperson for the Supreme Court said: ‘The Court has no comment.’
Politicao sent out a note to staff saying they have confidence in the accuracy of the report,
‘After an extensive review process, we are confident of the authenticity of the draft. We take our responsibilities to our readers with the greatest seriousness,.’
Here is the entire draft opinion.
A source said that Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all voted to strike down Roe. In addition Democrat-appointed justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are working on dissents.
However, the wild card is Chief Justice John Roberts, as nobody knows how he intends to vote. Also SCOTUS judges do their votes as opinions circulate, Politico noted, and decisions like this can go through numerous drafts before a final decision is reached.
According to report the draft is 98 pages long, has a 32-page appendix packed with state abortion laws and includes 118 footnotes.
Katyal describes the decision making process of the Supreme Court,
‘After oral argument the Justices take a tentative vote. This would have happened in December. The senior most justice in the majority gets to assign the opinion. That might have been Roberts, but doubtful since Alito wrote this draft,’ he noted on Twitter, ‘Now, once the draft is circulated, the justices in dissent will write an opinion. That’s presumably happening now. But the tentative vote seems strong, and Chief Justice Roberts is irrelevant if the 4 + Alito hold with their tentative votes,’ he added.
The hightly-respected SCOTUSblog, has authenticated the Politico report.
The ruling would be sure to impact the 2022 mid term elections, and also governor’s races as the power of abortion will now be placed in the hands of the states.
