Supreme Court Votes To Overturn Roe V. Wade
Although this draft opinion is yet to be published, it’s a guarantee now: Federal abortion rights are about to be completely repealed. Individual states will still have their own laws (e.g., blue states will still allow abortions, red states obviously won’t), but the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling will be officially overruled nationwide once this opinion is published within the next two months. Samuel Alito—a George W. Bush appointee—wrote this draft opinion, but without Donald Trump’s three appointees, this obviously never would’ve been possible. Via Politico:
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.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Deliberations on controversial cases have in the past been fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.
The immediate impact of the ruling as drafted in February would be to end a half-century guarantee of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or ban abortion. It’s unclear if there have been subsequent changes to the draft.
[Politico: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows]
AND:
The reporter who broke the story on Rachel Maddow tonight:
ADDED:
There’s a lot of discussion right now about the leak of the draft, and the “earthquake” it’s going to cause within the court:
