The United States Supreme Court appears set to overturn its Roe v. Wade decision which legalised abortion for nearly 50 years, according to a leaked initial draft of a court opinion.
Just minutes after the leak was published by Politico yesterday, reactions were fast and furious on social media, and barricades were erected around the Supreme Court. Many people gathered at the court in protest and some, including students from The Catholic University of America, were there to pray the rosary.
Others were less peaceful. Punches had been thrown in the crowd that had gathered outside the highest court of the land. News sites published reports of angry demonstrators shouting at one another.
President Joe Biden has reacted to the draft decision, criticising it as “radical” and vowing to work toward getting Congress to pass legislation codifying the Roe ruling.
The draft opinion, written by judge Samuel Alito, said Roe “was egregiously wrong from the start” and that “Roe and Casey must be overruled.” Casey v. Planned Parenthood is the 1992 decision that affirmed Roe.
Justice Alito’s opinion said the court’s 1973 Roe decision had exceptionally weak reasoning “and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” he wrote.
He also said abortion policies should be determined on the state level.
Politico’s report says Justice Alito’s opinion is supported by judges Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett and that judges Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were working on dissents. It was not clear how Chief Justice John Roberts planned to vote.
The 98-page draft, which includes a 31-page appendix of historical state abortion laws, is an opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — a case about Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy with the potential to also overturn Roe.
The fact that the opinion was leaked also caused significant reaction, because this is unprecedented in the court’s recent history, especially with such a big case.
A May 3 statement by the Supreme Court verified that the draft opinion reported on “is authentic” but that it “does not represent a decision by the court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
Pro-life groups praised the court’s potential decision but some also questioned the motivation behind the leak and wondered if the court was being manipulated by this action.
If this draft is adopted by the court, it means a ruling in favour of the Mississippi abortion ban.
If it goes further to overturn Roe, there would be stricter limits to abortion in parts of the US, particularly the South and Midwest, with several states set to immediately impose broad abortion bans.
Outside the Supreme Court, there was a gathering of Catholics with diverse opinions on the draft.
“This is amazing,” Norvilia Etienne, a 26-year-old Catholic from Fredericksburg, Virginia, told Catholic News Service, saying she was in favour of what was being reported in the draft opinion leaked.
“It gives the decision back to the states so regular people like myself can make the decision to vote (for) people that I want in my state and pass pro-life laws,” said Etienne, fellowship and impact coordinator with Students for Life.
Nearby, Jamie Manson, representing Catholics for Choice, was telling a crowd: “We need the faith voice more than ever because we are fighting religious ideology that is being codified into law.”
She spoke about the Catholics who hold similar beliefs, including the president of the United States.
A Pew Research Survey from 2019 revealed that 56 per cent of U.S. Catholics said “abortion should be legal in all or most cases,” even as it goes against church teaching, “while roughly 4 in 10 (42 per cent) said it should be illegal in all or most cases,” the survey found.
“We heard the arguments on Dec. 1, and this looks to be the way they were moving,” Manson told CNS, saying she wasn’t surprised by the revelations of where the court was heading.
To those who do not share the same point of view, “I would say that we love you,” Etienne said.
“We want to provide the support and help that you need to carry your baby to term so that you can keep having, you know, keep going to school, keep having the resources you need to have a good career but also have your baby,” she said. “It’s not a curse to be pregnant.”
“I’m just not seeing the amount of money and energy being put in … by conservative Catholics … I don’t see it,” said Manson.
“Show me the money, show me the policies that are going to protect mothers and children, the policies that are going to preserve maternal health as well. I just don’t see it.”
But above all, Manson said: “What I really want is for us to be in dialogue with each other. I really do. If there is there any type of way to engage, but there’s no space in the Catholic Church right now to have this conversation … to start thinking about the mother, to think about the complexity of her life, trust her to be a moral agent.”
And yet for Etienne, it’s a conversation about her very existence.
“My dad actually told me that I was almost aborted,” she said. “I’m here today in front of you because my mom ultimately chose life for me.”
