The U.S. Supreme Court will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide, according to draft opinion revealed by Politico, on Monday evening.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. writes in the purported 98-page draft document, obtained by Politico, which is labelled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

The Politico report described the opinion as “a full-throated, unflinching repudiation” of Roe v. Wade, which created a constitutional right to abortion nationwide up until roughly 24-28 weeks of pregnancy. The court sides with the state of Mississippi, which had appealed to the court to uphold a 15-week abortion ban that lawmakers there passed in 2018.

The document, which bears the words “1st Draft” at the top, states that Roe v. Wade’s reasoning was “exceptionally weak,” that the original decision has had “damaging consequences,” and that the decision was “egregiously wrong.”

“A person familiar with the court’s deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.” Politico reports.

A George W. Bush appointee who joined the court in 2006, Alito argues that the 1973 abortion rights ruling was an ill-conceived and deeply flawed decision that invented a right mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and unwisely sought to wrench the contentious issue away from the political branches of government.

The draft concludes ““The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” the draft concludes. “Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”

"The American people have the right to act through their elected officials to debate and enact laws that protect unborn children and honor women,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement.

On Twitter, reporters noted that barricades went up around the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., immediately after the news broke.

Pro-life leaders respond to the leaked draft

The pro-life group SBA List said, “If the draft opinion made public tonight is the final opinion of the court, we wholeheartedly applaud the decision."

The March for Life “will not be providing comment on an official decision of #scotus possible leak until a decision is officially announced,” Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life, responded on Twitter after Politico published its exclusive report.

In response to the Politico report, Lila Rose, the president and founder of Live Action, responded with a slew of tweets, beginning with, “Roe Must Go! The right to kill a child doesn’t exist. But the right to life is a basic human right.”

As president and CEO of Americans United for Life, Catherine Glenn Foster responded, “We stand alongside all Americans who have waited so hopefully and for so long for the Supreme Court to reverse Roe, to set American on the path to abortion abolition, and to restore justice to our nation. Today is a day for courage and hope.”
-CNA