The US Supreme Court will overturn the decision on abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, reports Politico

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WASHINGTON — An initial leaked draft majority opinion suggests the US Supreme Court will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion nationwide, Politico reported Monday.

The unprecedented leak from the conservative-majority Supreme Court shocked the United States, not least because the court prides itself on keeping its internal deliberations secret and leaks are extremely rare.

Reuters was unable to confirm the authenticity of the draft. The Supreme Court and the White House declined to comment.

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“Roe was terribly wrong from the start,” conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the draft opinion dated February 10, according to Politico, which posted a copy https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180 -874f-dd36-a38c-c74f98520000 online.

Based on Alito’s opinion, the court would find that the Roe v. Wade that allowed abortions to be performed before the fetus was viable outside the womb (between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy) was decided incorrectly because the US Constitution makes no specific mention of abortion rights.

“Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each state from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” Alito said, according to the leaked document.

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The news jumped just over six months before the midterm elections that will determine whether Democrats maintain their narrow majorities in the US Congress for the next two years of President Joe Biden’s term.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in American politics and has been for nearly half a century.

Four of the other Republican-appointed justices, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, voted with Alito at the justices’ conference, the report added.

After an initial vote among the justices following oral argument, one is assigned the majority opinion and a draft is written. It is then distributed among the judges.

Sometimes, between the initial vote and the bug posting, the voting lineup can change. A judgment is only final when it is published by the court.

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In a post on Twitter, Neal Katyal, a lawyer who regularly argues before the court, said that if the report was accurate, it would be “the first major leak from the Supreme Court.”

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, heard oral arguments in December over Mississippi’s attempt to revive its ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a law blocked by lower courts.

Based on oral argument in December, it appeared that the majority was leaning in favor of Mississippi’s abortion ban and that there could be five votes to override Roe.

The decision Roe v. Wade recognized that the right to personal privacy under the US Constitution protects a woman’s ability to terminate her own pregnancy.

Christian conservatives and many Republican officials have long tried to unseat him.

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The Supreme Court in a 1992 ruling called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey reaffirmed the right to abortion and banned laws that place an “undue burden” on abortion access.

Mississippi asked the justices to reverse both rulings, and Alito’s draft opinion largely adopts the Republican state’s arguments.

If Roe is overturned, abortion is likely to remain legal in liberal states. Currently, more than a dozen states have laws that protect the right to abortion. Numerous Republican-led states have passed various abortion restrictions in defiance of the Roe precedent in recent years.

Republicans could try to enact a national abortion ban, while Democrats could also try to protect abortion rights nationally.

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Democrats said the draft opinion undermines the importance of this year’s election, in which they seek to maintain control of the House and Senate.

“We need to generate the vote like never before,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin told MSNBC. “People need to stand up and defend democratic institutions and the rights of the people because the Supreme Court is certainly not doing anything for us.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said, without evidence, that the leak likely came from a liberal on the court.

“The magistrates must not give in to this attempt to corrupt the process. Stay strong,” he said in a Twitter post. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Eric Beech in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Kim Coghill, and Michael Perry)