Politico has obtained a draft of a Supreme Court majority opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito, that would overturn the landmark Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade of 1973, which guaranteed a Constitutionally protected right to an abortion.
Politico reports that the draft began circulating among the justices on February 10 of this year. While it is unclear what the official vote will be, a person familiar with the matter reported that 4 Justices, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, 3 of whom are Trump appointees, would be joining Justice Alito in voting to overturn the landmark decision. The three liberal Justices, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan are expected to vote against overturning the measure and are working on a dissent opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts’ position remains unclear at this time, however it was being reported that Roberts did not want to completely overturn the decision, and it is expected that he will side with the Court liberals.
In the draft, Alito writes “Roe must be overturned” and continues to write “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” and said Roe was “egregiously wrong from the start” and “exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”
If the Court does rule to overturn Roe v. Wade then it would leave the decision of legalizing abortion to the states rather than protecting it as a constitutional right in the status quo. Nearly half of U.S. states already have laws in place that have either already banned abortion or will ban the practice upon the reversal of the ruling.
While oral arguments began on December 1, an official decision will not be decided for another two months and vote counts could be subjected to change in this time period with Justices potentially changing votes or revising drafts.
The leak by reported by politico represents one of the biggest leaks in the modern history of the Court and went against the traditional secrecy of its decisions and opinion drafts, which are among some of the most closely guarded secrets and decisions in Washington.
The debate over the future of Roe v. Wade has been one of the most hotly contested discussions in American politics for decades, and with this leak, it will inevitably intensify even more in the coming days and weeks of the official decision. It would also be a major victory for the conservative movement which had been working for decades to overturn the decision. Former President Donald Trump said he would appoint Justices who would “automatically” overturn Roe, with his 3 appointments to the Court siding with Alito.