03 May 2022 - Roe v Wade: US Supreme Court may overturn abortion law, leak suggests
Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows
Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward (Politico, 02/05/2022)
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.
'Five-alarm fire': leaked abortion memo from Supreme Court has lawmakers, candidates reacting
Ledyard King, Dylan Wells and Candy Woodall (USA Today, 02/05/2022)
Lawmakers and congressional candidates wasted little time Monday reacting to the news of a draft Supreme Court opinion published by Politico suggesting the court is considering a decision that would overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.
The issue of abortion was already a hot-button issue in key races across the country in advance of November's mid-term elections.
As the US supreme court moves to end abortion, is America still a free country?
Moira Donegan (The Guardian, 03/05/2022)
It’s the worst possible outcome: according to a draft majority opinion published by Politico, the US supreme court has voted to overturn Roe v Wade, along with its sister decision Planned Parenthood v Casey. This momentous ruling will result in abortion becoming immediately illegal in an estimated 26 states when it is officially issued, likely sometime next month.
The draft opinion, authored by Samuel Alito, the most rabidly hateful member of the court’s archconservative wing, will upend 50 years of precedent and undo a landmark ruling that has profoundly shaped legal doctrine, popular conceptions of the law, and millions of American lives. It will make women prisoners to their own bodies, and to men’s ideas of what those bodies must mean. It will make our country weaker, crueler, stupider and less vibrant.
Alito’s Leaked Draft Fully Overruling Roe Is Jaw-Dropping and Unprecedented
Mark Joseph Stern (Slate, 02/05/2022)
The Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, Politico reported on Monday, revealing an apparent leaked draft of Justice Sam Alito’s majority opinion abolishing the constitutional right to abortion.
Alito’s draft, which he appears to have completed in February, constitutes an acidic and unflinching repudiation of reproductive rights—as well as other closely connected liberties like LGBTQ equality. It is a maximalist assault on progressive constitutionalism that will lead to the near-instant prohibition of abortion in as many as 26 states.
Never before has the complete draft of a Supreme Court opinion leaked before its official release. But there are many good reasons to believe that the unprecedented leak in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is, in fact, real.