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WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court looks set to vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a leaked initial draft majority opinion published by Politico on Monday.
The unprecedented leak from the conservative-majority Supreme Court sent shock waves through the United States, not least because the court prides itself on keeping its internal deliberations secret and leaks are extremely uncommon.
Reuters was not able to confirm the authenticity of the draft. The Supreme Court and the White House declined to comment.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the draft opinion which is dated Feb. 10, according to Politico,
which posted a copy online.
Based on Alito's opinion, the court would find that the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortions performed before a fetus would be viable outside the womb - between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy - was wrongly decided because the U.S. 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.
The news broke a little more than six months before the mid-term elections that will determine if Democrats hold their razor-thin majorities in the U.S. Congress for the next two years of President Joe Biden's term in office.
Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in U.S. politics and has been for nearly a half century.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton said: "...Roe was egregiously wrong from the beginning & I pray the Court follows the Constitution & allows the states to once again protect unborn life."
Four of the other Republican-appointed justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett - voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices, the report added.
After an initial vote among the justices following an oral argument, one is assigned the majority opinion and writes a draft. It is then circulated among the justices.
At times, in between the initial vote and the ruling being released, the vote alignment can change.
A ruling is only final when it is published by the court.The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, heard oral arguments in December on Mississippi's bid to revive its ban on abortion starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy, a law blocked by lower courts.
It appeared based on December's oral argument that a majority was inclined to uphold Mississippi's abortion ban and that there could be five votes to overturn Roe.......
I believe that the Court may still leave some of the original Roe v Wade decision stand, but as I stated in more than one earlier post, I still hope & believe that the Court will return the abortion issue back to the States, as it was pre-Roe v. Wade of 1973, at the very least, giving each individual State the right & power to set all abortion rules according to the will of their individual State's own voters.....& out of the grasp of the Federal Government, bar a successful Constitutional Amendment, agreed to by a majority of American Voters in 38 of the 50 United States....75% of all the States, stating anything otherwise.
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⮞ ⮞ SCOTUS - MISSISSIPPI ABORTION CASE ⮜ ⮜ (Read 3407 times)
