By Aaron Miller-
A leaked Supreme Court document suggests that millions of women across the US could soon lose their legal right to abortion, according to a leaked Supreme Court document.
The document, published by Politico, suggests the country’s top court is soon to overturn the 1973 decision which legalised abortion across the United States
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If the court strikes down the Roe v Wade ruling, individual , U.S states would be allowed to ban abortion, if they wish. Should the ruling become official, is expected abortion could then be banned in almost half of U.S states.
The Supreme Court’s justices are expected to issue a ruling in late June or early July.
Justices at the Supreme Court heard that case presented by Misssipi in December.
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Politico published a draft ‘opinion’ from the court which they say is a “full-throated” and “unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision” which guaranteed constitutional protections of abortion rights. The publication has attributed the judicial opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated inside the court.
We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote in the 98-page draft decision on Mississippi’s strict new abortion law, according to Politico’s report published Monday night.
“The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.”
“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” the justice wrote in the draft published by the s
It is unclear at this stage if the draft represents the court’s final word on the matter.
The Supreme Court has yet to issue an official ruling in the case, and opinions – and even justices’ votes – have been known to change during the drafting process. The court is expected to rule on the case before its term is up in late June or early July.
Thirteen states have already passed so-called trigger laws that will automatically ban abortion if Roe is overruled this summer. A number of others would be likely to pass laws quickly.
Some 36 million women could then lose abortion access, according to research from Planned Parenthood, a healthcare organisation which provides abortions.
Currently, the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and in a 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, bar states from passing laws that restrict abortions before the point of fetal viability — around 24 weeks of gestation, and require that laws regulating abortion not pose an “undue burden.”
But if the conclusions of Alito’s draft opinion are officially released by the court before its term ends in about two months, individual states would be able to restrict when and how women could terminate their pregnancies, without federal courts having a say over the legality of those rules.
Anti-abortion groups such as the Susan B. Anthony List welcomed the news. “If Roe is indeed overturned, our job will be to build consensus for the strongest protections possible for unborn children,” it said.
The leaked document – labelled “1st Draft” – appears to reflect the majority opinion of the court, and Politico reports that it was written by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated within the court on 10 February.
The leak has already led to intense dispute, Democrats vowing to defend abortion rights while Republican lawmakers demanded a probe into the leak as they denounced it as an attempt to ‘intimidate’ the justices into changing their minds.
Its publication on Monday sparked protests by both pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners outside the court in Washington DC.
Leading Democratic politicians Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said jointly that if the report was accurate, the Supreme Court was “poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years”.
Neal Katyal, a former acting US Solicitor General under former President Barack Obama, said: ‘This is the biggest step back for women in decades. It will have proven consequences. You can have now a flat ban on abortion in any state.’
In the leaked document, conservative Justice Samuel Alito writes that Roe v Wade – the 1973 Supreme Court ruling which found that excessive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional – was ‘egregiously wrong from the start’ and ‘must be overruled’.
Leading Democratic politicians Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said jointly that if the report was accurate, the Supreme Court was “poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years”.
With that critical caveat, I want to be clear on three points about the cases before the Supreme Court.
‘First, my administration argued strongly before the Court in defense of Roe v. Wade. We said that Roe is based on ‘a long line of precedent recognizing ‘the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty’… against government interference with intensely personal decisions.’ I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned.
Second, shortly after the enactment of Texas law SB 8 and other laws restricting women’s reproductive rights, I directed my Gender Policy Council and White House Counsel’s Office to prepare options for an Administration response to the continued attack on abortion and reproductive rights, under a variety of possible outcomes in the cases pending before the Supreme Court. We will be ready when any ruling is issued.
Third, if the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law’.
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