According to a recent report that The Washington Post has quoted, months after the leaked draft majority opinion was written by the Supreme Court’s Justice Samuel Alito, it support remains intact and still has the five-vote majority needed in the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Although it has almost certainly changed multiple times in the three months since it was written, the draft majority opinion Alito penned on Feb. 10 still has the supporting votes of five justices, including Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barret.
It’s also expected that such a decision, which may ultimately reverse Roe v. Wade, a bedrock of American law, will be firmly opposed by the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices.
After siding with the liberal wing of the court on more than one occasion, according to three conservative sources close to the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts still appears set to oppose the decision and attempting to persuade Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh to take a more phased approach to allow abortion restrictions.
Many observers of the court were stunned by the leaking of the draft opinion, pointing out that it does not reflect the final decision of the justices since their votes could change before the decision is officially announced.
Confirming the authenticity of the draft, Chief Justice Roberts stressed that the justices have not yet completed deliberations and have announced opening an investigation into the leak.
Branding the leak a betrayal of the confidences of the Court intended to undermine the integrity of its operations, he underlined that it will not succeed in its intentions and that the Court’s work in no way is affected.
Reversing Roe v. Wade would mean taking away women’s rights to an abortion at a federal level, reversing a half-century of precedent and that abortion will be outlawed in huge swaths of the nation.
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