Leaked Supreme Court’s draft abortion decision will overturn Roe v. Wade

The Supreme Court is poised to overturn the constitutionally protected abortion right guaranteed by Roe’s nearly 50-year-old decision to sue Wade, according to a leaked initial draft of the lawsuit. New opinion obtained by Politico.

The draft was written by Justice Samuel Alito, with the consent of at least four other conservative members of the Supreme Court.

“We hold that Roe and Casey Alito wrote in the draft decision, 98 pages long, regarding Mississippi’s strict new abortion law, according to a Politico report published Monday night.

“The indisputable conclusion is that the right to abortion is not ingrained in the history and traditions of the Nation.”

“The time has come to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the elected representatives of the people,” justice wrote in a draft published by the site.

“Roe was seriously wrong from the start. “

CNBC was unable to confirm the authenticity of the draft opinion, which Politico said was presented between judges in February, and three liberal members of the court, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, writing dissent.

It is unclear whether there have been subsequent changes to Alito’s manuscript since it was first circulated.

The draft opinion, if formally introduced by the court before its term ends in about two months, would leave individual states to place any restrictions on when and how a woman can pregnancy can be terminated.

While any state can allow abortion under any circumstances, conservative Republican-led states in the South and Midwest have the potential to impose far stricter restrictions than those imposed on them. current regulations.

Oklahoma’s House on Thursday passed a bill approved by Governor Kevin Stitt that would ban most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.

The Supreme Court ruling predicted in Alito’s draft would also be a major win for religious conservatives, who for decades have pushed states to pass legislation restricting abortion rights and asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as its decision in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, further strengthened women’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

But Politico notes that the Supreme Court’s draft opinions are not set in stone, and judges sometimes change their stance on a case after a copy of the draft is saved. act between them.

Politico also notes that “no draft decision in the modern history of the court has been publicly disclosed while a case is still being resolved. The unprecedented disclosure will certainly intensify the debate. debate on the most controversial case of this term.”

High Court news site SCOTUSblog tweeted: “It is impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of destroying trust between the Judges and staff. This leak is the heaviest, most unforgivable sin.”

Politico’s executive editor, Dafna Linzer, wrote in an editor’s note that “after an extensive review process, we are confident in the authenticity of the draft.”

“This unprecedented view of the judges’ deliberations is clearly news of great public interest,” she wrote.

A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court declined to comment to CNBC on the Politico report.

Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement reacting to the report: “Let’s be clear: Abortion is legal. It’s still your right.”

“This leaked opinion is horrifying and unprecedented, and it confirms our worst fears: that the Supreme Court is prepared to end the constitutional right to abortion. by overturning Roe against Wade,” McGill said.

“While we’ve seen writing on the walls for decades, it’s no less devastating, and came as soon as anti-abortion groups announced their final plan to ban abortion,” she said. nationwide,” she said. “Please understand that Planned Parenthood and our partners are prepared for every possible outcome in this case and are built to fight. for access to safe, legal abortion.”

Alito’s draft ruling came in the Dobbs Women’s Health Foundation v. Jackson, a case centered on a Mississippi law that bans virtually all abortions after 15 weeks of gestation.

Lower federal courts blocked the law on the grounds that it violated legal protections established by the Roe and Casey decisions.

Those rulings jointly protect abortion before the baby is still alive – around 24 weeks of age – and require that laws governing abortions not place an “undue burden”.

In oral arguments before the high court in December, the liberal justices expressed serious concern about the consequences of the court – which has become the focus of controversy and is facing the lowest approval. from the public – reversing decades of precedent on perhaps the most divisive issue in US politics.

“Can this institution survive the stench this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are purely political?” Sotomayor wondered aloud in those debates.

“I don’t see how it’s possible,” she said.

In the draft opinion, as reported, Alito wrote, “The Constitution makes no mention of abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including both the right on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now largely rely – the Fourteenth Amendment Clause proceedings.”

“Roe defenders describe abortion rights as similar to rights recognized in previous decisions regarding issues such as intimate sex, contraception and marriage,” Alito wrote, according to Politico.

He continued, according to the news agency: “But abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey admit because it destroys what those decisions call ‘fetal life’ and what what current law describes as ‘an unborn person’.”

Alito wrote that the tradition of so-called assertive rigor, or respect for court precedents, “does not compel Roe to abide by Roe’s long-term abuse of judicial power.”

“Roe was seriously wrong from the start,” Alito continued in a draft published by Politico. “Its reasoning was particularly weak and the decision had disastrous consequences. And without bringing about a national solution to the abortion issue, Roe and Casey sparked debate and deepened divisions.”

“We end this opinion from where we started,” Alito wrote.

“Abortion raises a profound ethical question. The Constitution does not forbid the citizens of each Country to prescribe or forbid abortion. Roe and Casey have arrogantly held that authority. We have now let go of those questions. that decision and return that right to the people and their elected representatives.”

Alito’s draft predicts a backlash that will overturn Roe and Casey as he rejects the idea of ​​allowing that to affect how he and the other judges in a majority vote on the issue.

“We cannot allow our decisions to be influenced by any external influences, such as concerns about public reaction to our work,” Alito writes, as reported by Politico. ,” Alito wrote, as reported by Politico.

“We don’t pretend to know how our political or social system would react to today’s outrageous decision Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what would happen, we would not have the authority to let those insights influence our decisions. “