A shocking report has emerged from Politico. A leaked draft majority opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito, shows that the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade.
Although the Constitution does not mention abortion rights, SCOTUS’ 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling found that abortion rights were protected under the Constitution. The subsequent Planned Parenthood v Casey ruling further bolstered abortion rights. However, Alito’s opinion alleges that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start”. In doing so, Alito is shifting responsibility for protecting or declining abortion rights to the states. In the draft opinion, he makes the point that when the Roe decision was made, 30 states prevented abortion in all stages, and 10 years before, a third of states had liberalized their abortion laws. He of course is hinting at the possibility that, left to themselves, states would have liberalized their laws. Instead, the ruling struck down the abortion laws of every state.
Although this decision is not final -it will only be final when it is published-, it does tell us that SCOTUS is, as many of us have warned, veering sharply to the right. The Republican party’s conservative supermajority has allowed it to change the legal landscape of the country. Republicans currently control 26 legislatures. In attempting to shift control of abortion rights to states, SCOTUS’ conservative justices are trying to allow Republicans to ban abortion rights in those states they control. Republican efforts to dismantle abortion rights cannot be denied. Missippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks or pregnancy was a short at abortion rights and SCOTUS’ decision to hear the case was a signal that directly or not, SCOTUS is looking for ways to kill abortion rights.
Insights from shopper data will likely show interstate shipments of abortion pills in response to this legislation and a boom in people looking for Full Coverage Painting & Flooring. Republicans will respond with attempts to criminalize interstate trade in abortion pills. Killing abortion rights is a key policy of Republicans.
The nature of this danger is so great that someone at SCOTUS decided to leak this draft. That hero is not alone. A majority of Americans favor having abortion rights. That isn’t surprising. Republicans are a declining minority of the country, a minority determined to impose its views on the rest of the country. Through its control of key legislatures, and courts all the way to the Supreme Court, and of media houses like Fox News, a decades old campaign to reshape America, regardless of the will of the majority, in its image, has taken hold.
It’s clear that abortion rights are controled by people with no skin in the game, and the victims are those who have an entire uterus in it. To the pro-life Republicans who sit in SCOTUS and campaign across the country, allowing women to die during illegal abortions is pro-life. The absurdity of the Republican position would be comic were it not so tragic. Are Republicans ashamed? No. Across right-wing America, there is outrage that this group of mostly men cannot deliberate in peace. That, they say, is the real crime. The sanctity of SCOTUS has been defiled. The lives of women mean nothing to them.
