Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion show
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S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and 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.”
Deliberations on controversial cases have in the past been fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.
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.
The draft opinion offers an extraordinary window into the justices’ deliberations in one of the most consequential cases before the court in the last five decades. Some court-watchers predicted that the conservative majority would slice away at abortion rights without flatly overturning a 49-year-old precedent. The draft shows that the court is looking to reject Roe ’s logic and legal protections.
A person familiar with the court’s deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.
The three Democratic-appointed justices – Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – are working on one or more dissents, according to the person. How Chief Justice John Roberts will ultimately vote, and whether he will join an already written opinion or draft his own, is unclear.The document, labeled as a first draft of the majority opinion, includes a notation that it was circulated among the justices on Feb. 10. If the Alito draft is adopted, it would rule in favor of Mississippi in the closely watched case over that state’s attempt to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
A Supreme Court spokesperson declined to comment or make another representative of the court available to answer questions about the draft
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A despicable, unprecedented leak by someone trying to influence the Court only proves what a disastrous decision Roe was.
It's obviously a political issue, as this demonstrates.
It's obviously a very risky thing to leak that document. I was listening to the news on it, they were talking about how the person who leaked it could be thrown off of their position in working with SCOTUS and could be disbarred. Nobody who was talking on the news could place any prior leaks from SCOTUS so this appears to be a first. The supposition is that this was a clerk or direct employee for one of the justices who did this.
The impact this causes is going to be very large.
This is an attack on the Court and an attempt to undermine it's legitimacy..
And the left on twitter applauds it. No surprise.
A leak about what is happening in the court undermines its legitimacy? How?
From what I heard, this is a first. The news I was listening to when this broke could not find any other time where there was a leak out of SCOTUS. It's a very risky action for the person who leaked the doc as they can be fired from their position in SCOTUS and possibly disbarred. The opinion is that this was either a clerk of a justice or a direct employee of a justice who did this.
As far as undermining the legitimacy of the Court, the Court is supposed to be governed by constitutional law and not swayed by public opinion. Having this early leak will greatly increase the urgency and actions of the protestors in an attempt to use public opinion to change the votes of individual justices.
Do you consider a leak a legitimate act?
Not sure I like going back to the 60's when you had to travel out of state for a safe abortion, or you could risk your life in a back alley. While I don't like abortion I do not believe it should be outlawed and I do believe that everybody should be able to get as many abortions as they can pay for.
The other side to this is that I believe if the Republicans want to get rid of abortion then they MUST resolve the other side of the equation. People will still have sex and there will still be unwanted pregnancies. If the women must carry those to term and birth them but do not want them then the Republicans must devise a solution to the issue of all those children.
How much this is going to impact the election in November, I cannot say. I do believe there will be an impact but November is too far out to know how large an impact there will be if this is truly the decision that gets released in the next couple of months.
There are safe harbor laws in place in every state. No one has to raise a kid if they don't want to.
This is great. Now, and finally, a woman will lose her right to tell a man to, "Take his seed and shove it."
Golly! Amy Coney Barrett. What a class lady.
Well this could get lively. Of course it might be premature. I would love to know if this is a valid document and how it could possibly get leaked from the Supreme Court. Personally I have always struggled with the issue itself. I have to wonder how much of a hit Republicans will take due to this especially if many of the states do not restrict abortion.
If it's not, this is going to be the biggest blunder Politico has ever made. You would think they have to be absolutely sure it's authentic.
Article locked as it is a duplicate seed.