WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – According to an initial leaked draft majority opinion allegedly written by Justice Samuel Alito and obtained by Politico, the U.S. Supreme Court has voted 5-4 to overturn its nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision, which imposed abortion on demand across the country. Politico reported that Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined Justice Alito in the reported majority ruling. Faux conservative Justice John Roberts joined the liberals, as expected.
If a newly-leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey really does reflect the U.S. Supreme Court’s final ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it will represent the most consequential development in the abortion wars in most current activists’ lifetimes.
Last December, the Court began consideration of Dobbs, which concerned Mississippi’s HB 1510 law banning abortions from being committed past 15 weeks for any reason other than physical medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormalities. After its enactment in 2019, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deemed it unconstitutional because of an “unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 ruling which imposed on all 50 states a “right” to pre-viability abortion.
If real and final, the justices have voted 5-4 to finally overturn Roe, as well as 1992’s Casey, which reaffirmed Roe’s conclusion while modifying some of its details. On Tuesday morning, the Court announced the draft was authentic but “does not represent a final decision by the court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
The leak has sent shockwaves across the political spectrum, with pro-lifers tentatively rejoicing, pro-abortion politicians and activists lashing out in anger, and many speculating that the leak may have been intended to pressure judges to flip their votes, or to incite hatred and threats against them.
As reported by Politico, the opinion is “a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights [sic],” marking a gigantic victory for the pro-life movement. The leak of a drafted opinion is unprecedented in Supreme Court history and is sending shockwaves through the legal world.
It’s impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the Justices and staff. This leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) May 3, 2022
Alito’s draft opens with a forceful repudiation of Roe’s merits, noting that the 1973 ruling “did not claim that American law or the common law had ever recognized [a right to abortion], and its survey of history ranged from the constitutionally irrelevant (e.g. its discussion of abortion in antiquity) to the plainly incorrect (c.g, its assertion that abortion was probably never a crime under the common law). After cataloguing a wealth of other information having no bearing on the meaning of the Constitution, the opinion concluded with a numbered set of rules much like those that ‘might be found in a statute enacted by a legislature.”
“The Court did not explain the basis for this line [that states’ legitimate interest in protecting ‘potential life’ did not justify limiting pre-viability abortions], and even abortion supporters have found it hard to defend Roe’s reasoning,” Alito adds, quoting one of many pro-abortion scholars who have admitted as much.
Alito goes on to address the popular talking point that Roe is owed deference due to the stare decisis, the doctrine that gives added weight to rulings depending on how long they have stood as precedent.
“We have long recognized, however, that stare decisis is ‘not an inexorable command,’ and it ‘is at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution,’” he writes. “It has been said that it is sometimes more important that an issue ‘be settled than that it be settled right.’ But when it comes to the interpretation of the Constitution — the ‘great charter of our liberties,’ which was meant ‘to endure through a long lapse of ages,’ we place a high value on having the matter ‘settled right.’”
“On many other occasions, this Court has overruled important constitutional decisions,” Alito notes, such as the pro-slavery Dred Scott v. Sandford and pro-segregation Plessy v. Ferguson. “Without these decisions, American constitutional law as we know it would be unrecognizable, and this would be a different country.”
Alito also notes that, far from “ending division on the issue of abortion,” Roe ‘‘‘inflamed’ a national issue that has remained bitterly divisive for the past half-century.” He adds that the Supreme Court “cannot bring about the permanent resolution of a rancorous national controversy simply by dictating a settlement and telling the people to move on” and should not let speculation as to “how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision … influence our decision. We can only do our job.”
Ultimately, the opinion declares, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.” Therefore, it is “time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Pro-life activists and legal analysts have had much to say of the opinion, with some expressing celebration and others opting to wait until the outcome is more official, but all agreeing that Alito’s work is laudable, and that the battle is far from over:
Pro-lifers were hopeful that this decision would be made by the U.S. Supreme Court after the court heard arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case last year, which concerns Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
While the current draft of the ruling does indeed overturn the landmark pro-abortion precedent that has resulted in over the murder of 60 million babies, the decision will not be considered official until the opinion is published by the court, likely within the next two months according to Politico.
The alleged leaked decision was met with mixed reactions, with adulation from the political right and dismay by the political left.
“One of the most disgraceful decisions in the history of the United States,” lamented pro-abortion New York Congressman Ritchie Torres.
The decision is expected to cause massive division and discord in American society, with one shocking photo already showing that large barricades have been erected around the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.
The alleged leak of the opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is nothing short of breathtaking. It would constitute one of the greatest breaches of security in the history of the Court.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 3, 2022
“The leak is a manifestation of yet another abortion-based epicycle: the breach of Courtroom confidentiality. Someone (we do not know who) thought the issue of abortion was significant enough to justify leaking a draft majority opinion to the press,” South Texas College of Law Houston professor Josh Blackman wrote. “This ultimate breach in Court confidentiality provides yet one more reason why the Supreme Court must exit the arena of abortion. Hopefully, this leak will be Roe’s final epicycle.”
More than a dozen other states, plus the District of Columbia, have laws on the books legally protecting abortion, at least three of which explicitly codify the practice as a “right.” Abortion would remain legal in those jurisdictions, as well as the remaining states that have not spelled out abortion’s status one way or another, but without Roe, state residents would have the power to vote on the issue for themselves or lobby their elected representatives to change the law in either direction. Pro-lifers in Congress could pursue a nationwide abortion ban, as well.5
Employees of woke companies who live in red states will still be able to obtain abortions should Roe v. Wade be overturned.
Since conservative-leaning states began flexing their legislative muscles to outlaw abortion within their borders or severely limit its practice, companies from the likes of Amazon to Yelp have been drafting policies that will pay for employees’ abortions should they live in a state that outlaws the practice. After Politico published the leaked Supreme Court decision indicating that Roe v. Wade may be in its final days, more and more companies have been actively considering implementing such a practice, with none other than Amazon joining the fold this week.
CNN reported on Wednesday.
Amazon became the latest corporation to cover employees’ travel costs to seek abortion care. The company told staff it would pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses annually for medical treatments including abortions, according to a message seen by Reuters. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the nature of the Reuters report to CNN Business.
Amazon joined Citigroup, Yelp, Uber, Lyft, Bumble, Match Group, and Salesforce to draft such a policy. On Tuesday, Levi Strauss & Co. reminded its employees that its current benefits program will grant reimbursements “for healthcare-related travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including those related to reproductive health care and abortion.” The company said:
Access to reproductive health care, including abortion, has been a critical factor to the workplace gains and contributions women have made over the past 50 years. Further restricting or criminalizing access will jeopardize that progress and disproportionately affect women of color, putting their well-being at risk and impeding diverse hiring pipelines.
Women in some states would have fewer rights than women in others, and our country would be consigned to a more unjust and inequitable future. What’s more, companies would need different health policies for different locations – including coverage for time off and travel across state lines – to ensure employees can access reproductive health care.
Likewise, Match Group CEO Shar Dubey said in a statement that she “personally, as a woman in Texas, could not keep silent” when the company announced its abortion tourism policy this past September in response to the Texas law that banned abortion in most cases.
Elon Musk’s Tesla would also commit to pay expenses for employees who wanted an abortion, should Roe v Wade be overturned.
As Breitbart News recently profiled, a Fox News poll showed that a majority of Americans want and support some abortion restrictions.
“Most Americans believe abortion should be either ‘mostly’ or ‘always’ illegal, and support banning abortion after 15 weeks, a Fox News poll released this week found,” said the report. “The national poll, conducted prior to the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe v. Wade, found that 54 percent favor banning abortion in their respective state after 15 weeks of pregnancy, compared to 41 percent who oppose. Additionally, more favor banning abortion in their state after just six weeks than oppose — 50 percent to 46 percent.”
The opinion, reportedly penned by Justice Samuel Alito, states that the 1973 decision “must be overruled.”
The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”
The opinion concludes that the Constitution, as originally understood, did not include a right to abortion.
“Some Republican leaders are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women. How dare they?” faux VP Kamala Harris declared during a conference for the pro-abortion group EMILY’s List, Politico reported. “How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body? How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?”
Pro-abortion groups and politicians were quick to respond, with some saying the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) had lost all legitimacy and others warning of what life will be like in a post-Roe America.
Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said the opinion is “dangerous” and said Planned Parenthood is “fighting like hell.”6
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi reportedly said the ruling would “inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years – not just on women but on all Americans.”
“The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history,” the two Congressional Democratic leaders said, according to Politico reporter Marianne Levine. “Several of these conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation.”
According to ABC News, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) implied she wants to see Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh investigated for a potential ruling to reverse Roe v. Wade: “What should be investigated and prosecuted is the fact that people who were nominated to the Supreme Court stood up and said they believed in the rule of law and precedent, and then at first opportunity, changed direction by 180 degrees and are going for a full repeal of Roe.”
“I am angry because an extremist United States Supreme Court thinks that they can impose their extremist views on all of the women of this country and they are wrong,” Warren said outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday. “I am angry because we have reached the culmination of what Republicans have been fighting for, angling for decades now, and we are going to fight back.”
“I am angry because of who will pay the price for this,” Warren continued. She said that “wealthy women” won’t “pay the price,” but the “poorest women” and the “young women who have been abused” and “raped” will be harmed. Ninety-nine percent of abortions are for reasons other than rape, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.4
Read some conservative reactions HERE…
“The leak is a manifestation of yet another abortion-based epicycle: the breach of Courtroom confidentiality. Someone (we do not know who) thought the issue of abortion was significant enough to justify leaking a draft majority opinion to the press,” South Texas College of Law Houston professor Josh Blackman wrote. “This ultimate breach in Court confidentiality provides yet one more reason why the Supreme Court must exit the arena of abortion. Hopefully, this leak will be Roe’s final epicycle.”
Following the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft abortion decision, media and law school academics are apoplectic over what may be the fragile future of same-sex “marriage.” Liberal elites are right to be scared because they know that, like Roe, the court’s 2015 Obergefell decision preventing states from banning non-conjugal “marriages” was built on sand. As such, the right to “gay marriage” exists on shaky ground. As a matter of law and constitutionality, it should be overturned.3
Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation into the gross violation of the Court’s rules, noting that it was “intended to undermine the integrity of our operations.” However, he said, it “will not succeed” and assured that “the work of the Court will not be affected in any way.”
Far-left group “Ruth Sent Us” doxxed the home address of the six conservative justices of the US Supreme Court in hopes that more Democrats will join them to harass and threaten the SCOTUS Justices and their families.
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are scrambling to abolish the filibuster in order to codify Roe into law.
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