A majority of the Supreme Court’s justices intend to strike down Roe v Wade, according to a leaked draft opinion. If this goes ahead then within two months a right that has endured for 49 years could be jettisoned
FIVE YEARS ago, on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who would “automatically” overturn, the ruling from 1973 that established a constitutional right to abortion. During his term in office Mr Trump transformed the court by appointing three
, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority. Now a leaked draft opinion from February, published by Politico on May 2nd, appears to show that a majority of the court’s justices intend to strike down. Assuming that position continues to reflect the court’s view today, it could within two months jettison the constitutional right to abortion, returning to states the power to legislate on the matter.
, a case from Mississippi that has returned abortion to the Supreme Court, began on December 1st. But several states have sought to testby passing laws designed to undermine access to abortion. Since 2021 at least 70 restrictions have taken effect across 14 states. One of the most onerous—a near-total ban at six weeks’ gestation, before many women are aware they are pregnant—became law in Texas.
There is little hope of a repeat surprise. Mississippi’s law is, as both the district court and the highly conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals saw, blatantly unconstitutional under. The question for the Supreme Court, then, is whether all pre-viability abortion bans really are unconstitutional—in other words, whether those decades-old precedents should stand. Where the public stands is tricky to divine.
It is not clear what motivated the leak of the draft opinion in this case. Perhaps a clerk wants to deter a wavering justice from drifting away from his or her initial support of’s demise. But as early reactions to the leak suggest, the decision will inflame political passion—not least because it will land in the heat of the midterm election campaigns.the Supreme Court revealed that a majority of its justices would currently vote to overturn Roe v Wade.
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