WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has voted to overturn Rowe’s remarkable ruling against Wade, which guarantees the right to abortion for nearly half a century, according to a February draft opinion released online Monday night by Politico.
In a draft opinion written by Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., a majority of the court voted to repeal Rowe, according to Politico. Judge Alito called the decision wrong and said the contentious issue, which has revived political debates in the United States for more than a generation, should be decided by politicians, not the courts.
“We believe that Rowe and Casey should be overturned,” Judge Alito wrote in a document labeled the Court’s Opinion, citing a second decision confirming Rowe. “It is time to listen to the constitution and return the issue of abortions to elected representatives.
The draft, published by Politico, is in line with published Supreme Court opinions in major and minor ways, including structure, length, typography and how legal citations are presented. His assertive and sometimes sharp tone is read a lot like other main opinions from Judge Alito.
The release of the 98-page document is unprecedented in the modern history of the court: early drafts of opinions practically never expired before the final decision was announced and never in such a subsequent case. And early draft opinions often change until the court’s decision is announced.
Shortly after the article was published Monday night, Politico Editor-in-Chief Matthew Kaminski and its editor-in-chief Daphne Linzer sent an email to the editors, emphasizing its authenticity. In a note, Mr. Kaminski and Ms. Linzer said the article has undergone an “extensive review process”, describing it as “clearly news of great public interest”.
Asked to respond to the apparent leak, a Supreme Court spokesman said the court had no comment.
If the judges announce a decision on the early expired draft, it will be a seismic change in US law and policy coming just months before the midterm congressional elections, which will decide who controls Capitol Hill power.
Abortion has long divided the two parties – and the country – although it had withdrawn as a central issue in the presidential election, although it remained a stimulating issue for many. A court ruling like this in the early draft could provoke new political battles in Congress and in states across the country over whether and how the procedure should be restricted.
The Politico report states that the judges who voted in favor of Judge Alito are Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Cavanaugh and Amy Connie Barrett. The news organization reported that Judges Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are working on the disagreement. It was not clear how Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. planned to vote.
Rowe v. Wade, who established the constitutional right to abortion in a landmark case in 1973, has been the center of American jurisprudence ever since. In the language of the court, this was a precedent that established women’s fundamental rights to have access to legal abortion. Over the years, the court has accepted restrictions on this right, but has not deviated from the basic legal standard set by Rowe.
The current court – which has six conservative judges and three liberal ones – has indicated over the past year that it may be ready to reconsider this position.
During the Supreme Court’s arguments in December, conservative judges showed a willingness to reduce, if not repeal, federal protection against abortion and leave most of the regulation to individual states.
In more than two dozen conservative states, lawmakers have drafted bills that would effectively ban abortion if the court overturns Rowe v. Wade. If the court accepts Judge Alito’s draft opinion as its final position, it will clear the way for these bills to quickly become law.
The draft opinion contains familiar arguments against Roe. It states that the Constitution is silent on abortion and that nothing in its text or structure supports the constitutional right to abortion. Roe, the project continues, is so grossly wrong that it does not deserve to be set as a precedent. The right approach, according to the project, is to return the matter to the states.
The Mississippi law, contested in the case, bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and Judge Alito was able to take the average approach taken by Chief Justice Roberts when the case was discussed in December: uphold the law and leave questions about Roe’s fate for more. one day.
According to Judge Alito’s draft, the majority rejected this approach.
If the draft opinion or something like that is eventually issued, it will lead to rifts in the court that could test its legitimacy.
During the dispute, the three liberal members of the court said that Roe’s annulment soon after a change in the composition of the court would damage the court’s authority. Indeed, Judge Sonia Sotomayor said, that would be an existential threat.
“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in public opinion that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” She asked.
“If people really believe it’s all political, how are we going to survive?” She asked. “How will the court survive?”
The expiration of the draft opinion shook Washington on Monday night. The revelations of the draft opinion again put the nine judges at the center of one of the most controversial issues in American life.
But the expiration could also be the start of a fierce, new political debate, even before judges reach a final decision.
Conservatives who oppose the right to abortion were quick to hail Judge Alito’s findings as correct for the country, praising him for legal arguments he has been arguing in court for decades.
“We still don’t know if the rumors about Roe’s end are true, but we know that terminating Roe is the right decision, returning the issue to ‘us the people’ by several judges on the agenda,” said Kriston Hawkins, president of Student Life. America. “You will not find ‘abortion’ inscribed in invisible in the Constitution, undiscovered until seven men saw it in 1973. The cessation of human life before birth is and has always been a miscarriage of justice.”
Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, tweeted Monday night that “Roe was extremely wrong from the start and I pray the Court will follow the Constitution and allow the states to protect unborn life again.”
But he also attacked the leak of the draft opinion, saying that the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice “must get to the bottom of this leak immediately, using all necessary investigative tools.”
Democrats and liberal activists also criticized the leak. But many were quick to take advantage of the news as the main reason voters supported Democrats in the fall election.
“If this report is true, this Republican attack on access to abortion, birth control and women’s health is drastically escalating the stakes in the 2022 election,” said Christy Roberts, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “At this critical juncture, we must defend and expand the majority of Democrats in the Senate with the power to confirm or reject Supreme Court justices.
Cecil Richards, who was president of Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018, when Congress and state legislatures tightened restrictions on reproductive health, said “terminating legal abortion will not end abortion.” It will simply mean that women are no longer safe in this country, and that lies at the feet of the Republican Party.
On Twitter on Monday night, the news sparked a debate over which political party could benefit from the early disclosure of a possible court ruling. Many say Democrats will use the report to energize their main constituents.
Senator Patti Murray, a Democrat from Washington and a member of her party’s Senate leadership, has promised to do just that.
“After ringing these alarms for years, it’s time to break the glass,” she said in a statement. “We have to fight with everything we have at the moment. The right to abortion is under threat and I will never stop fighting to protect it. “
The report was provided by Carl Hulls, Emily Cochrane, Elizabeth Diaz of Washington and Kate Zernike, Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson of New York.
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