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Leaked draft Supreme Court abortion decision would overturn Roe v. Wade

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Anti-abortion rights activists hold a baby doll outside of the Supreme Court building. They were protesting the beginning of the arguments in Dobbs. v. Jackson Women’s Health in Washington.

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According to a leak of the initial draft, the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade’s nearly 50-year-old constitutionally protected right for abortion. the new opinion obtained by Politico.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the draft, and at most, at least one other person agreed to it. Four other members of the Supreme Court are conservative.

We hold this Roe CaseyAlito stated that the decision must be overruled. It relates to Mississippi’s new strict abortion law. According to Monday’s report, Alito made the statement.

This draft opinion refers to the 1992 decision of the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood, v. Casey. It further cements the Constitution’s protections for women.

The Justice wrote that it was time to “heed the Constitution” to give the decision on abortion back to voters in the Draft published by Politico.

Alito also wrote “RoeReport stated, “was egregiously incorrect from the beginning.”

CNBC could not confirm that the draft opinion was authentic. Politico claimed it had been distributed to the justices in February. If there were any subsequent modifications to the draft, it is not clear.

If the draft opinion is issued before the term expires in approximately two months, it would be up to each state to decide if and when a woman can terminate her pregnancy.

This would also be a huge victory for religious conservatives who have for many decades pushed for states to pass laws that restrict abortion rights and for the Supreme Court not to overturn the Roe/Casey decisions.

However, the outlet pointed out that Supreme Court draft opinions do not have to be finalized and that judges can change their minds after receiving a copy.

Politico pointed out that, in all modern court history, no draft ruling has been released publicly when a case is still pending. This unprecedented disclosure is sure to increase the controversy over the case that was the most controversial on this term’s docket.

The highly respected Supreme Court news blog SCOTUSblog said: “It’s impossible not to overstate what an earthquake it will cause within the Court in terms of the loss of trust among Justices and staff. This is the worst, most inexcusable sin.

Dafna Linzer (Polito’s Executive Editor) wrote that she was confident in the draft’s authenticity “after an extensive revision process.”

She wrote, “This extraordinary view of the justices’ deliberations was plainly newsworthy of great public importance.”

CNBC asked a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court to respond but she did not reply immediately.

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Alito’s decision was in Dobbs. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This case revolved around a Mississippi law which would prohibit almost all abortions within 15 weeks. 

The law was blocked by lower federal courts on grounds it infringed upon the Roe and Casey legal protections.

Those rulings together protect abortion before the point of fetal viability — around 24 weeks of gestation — and require that laws regulating abortion not pose an “undue burden.”

In oral arguments before the high court in December, the liberal justices expressed grave fears about the consequences of the court — which had already become a flashpoint for controversy and was facing all-time low approval from the public — reversing decades of precedent on perhaps the most divisive issue in American politics.

“Will the institution survive the stigma that this causes in public opinion that the Constitution is a mere political act?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor pondered aloud throughout those arguments. She stated, “I don’t understand how it can be possible.”

Mississippi’s Supreme Court case was prompted by the fact that almost every abortion after 15 weeks would be banned under this law. 

Lower federal courts blocked the implementation of the law, ruling that it violates Roe and Casey, which protect abortion before the point of fetal viability — around 24 weeks of gestation — and which require that laws regulating abortion not pose an “undue burden.”

In the draft opinion, as reported, Alito wrote, “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.”

Politico reports that Alito said, “Roe’s defenders characterize an abortion right as similar with the rights recognized in previous decisions involving matters such intimate sexual relationships, contraception and marriage.”

Roe and Casey both acknowledged that abortion was fundamentally different because it destroyed what they called “fetal life” and what the law currently before us calls an “unborn human being”. “

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