US Supreme Court set to overturn landmark abortion ruling: Report | Women’s Rights News

Draft opinion obtained by Politico suggests justices are poised to overturn 1973 Roe v Wade, which allowed abortion across the United States.

The Supreme Court looks poised to overturn a landmark ruling allowing abortion for women across the United States, according to Politico magazine.

The Washington, DC-based news outlet said an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that it had obtained showed the court had voted to strike down the 1973 Roe v Wade decision.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in the opinion, which was circulated among the judges on February 10, 2022 and labelled as a “1st Draft” of the “Opinion of the Court”.

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 after hearing oral arguments in December, and continued to support the opinion, Politico said.

After an initial vote among the justices following oral argument, one is assigned the majority opinion and writes a draft, which is then circulated among the judges.

Between the initial vote and the ruling being released, the vote alignment can change and a ruling only becomes final when it is published by the court.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the draft added, referencing the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v Casey that affirmed Roe’s finding of a constitutional right to abortion services but allowed states to place some constraints on the practice. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

The draft opinion stems from a bid by Mississippi to revive its ban on abortion starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy, which had been blocked by lower courts.

The southern state had asked the justices to overturn Roe v Wade, as well as the 1992 Casey ruling.

At arguments in December, all six conservative justices signalled that they would uphold the Mississippi law, and five asked questions that suggested that overruling Roe and Casey was a possibility.

A number of Republican-controlled states are currently trying to restrict abortion rights, with Oklahoma the most recent.

The leak is an unprecedented disclosure of a draft Supreme Court opinion. The Associated Press news agency said if verified it would mark a “shocking revelation of the high court’s secretive deliberation process”.

The Supreme Court and the White House declined to comment on the story.