Posted on 05/02/22
| News Source: Washington Times
The Supreme Court will overturn outright the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion in the coming weeks, according to a Politico report.
The Monday night report was based on an initial draft opinion that was written for the court’s majority by Justice Samuel A. Alito and obtained by Politico.
The 1973 Roe case, which made abortion a federal constitutional right, “was egregiously wrong from the start” and “must be overruled,” Justice Alito writes in the draft opinion.
“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” he reportedly writes.
While the draft decision obtained by Politico is labeled as the “Opinion of the Court,” justices sometimes change their votes during deliberations. Indeed, it is speculated that the court was ready to strike down Obamacare outright, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. switched his vote at the last minute.
According to Politico, citing “a person familiar with the court’s deliberations,” five justices voted to strike down Roe and a later abortion-rights case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, at their conference after their December public hearing in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Justice Alito was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in upholding a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
All five justices were nominated by Republican presidents.