Supreme Court docket says leaked abortion draft is authentic; Roberts orders investigation into leak

Professional-abortion and anti-abortion demonstrators protest outdoors the U.S. Supreme Courtroom after the leak of a draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito getting ready for a majority of the courtroom to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision later this year, in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2022. 

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday confirmed the authenticity of a leaked draft court docket opinion that would toss out longstanding abortion rights, however noted that is not the court docket's ultimate choice.

Roberts ordered an investigation into the leaker.

"To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was meant to undermine the integrity of our operations, it is not going to succeed," the chief justice mentioned in a press release. "The work of the Courtroom will not be affected in any means."

"I've directed the Marshal of the Courtroom to launch an investigation into the supply of the leak," Roberts mentioned.

The advance publication of a draft opinion is nearly unprecedented for the excessive court docket, the place leaks of any type are exceedingly rare.

The court shares drafts of opinions internally lengthy earlier than they're issued publicly, Roberts famous, calling it "a routine and important part of the Court docket's confidential deliberative work."

The draft on this high-profile abortion case was created in February, in keeping with Politico, which obtained the opinion.

The justices, regulation clerks and different workers of the courtroom are "intensely loyal to the establishment and devoted to the rule of regulation," Roberts mentioned.

"Court workers have an exemplary and vital tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court. This was a singular and egregious breach of that belief that is an affront to the Court docket and the neighborhood of public servants who work right here," he stated.

The publication of the draft opinion rocked Washington, triggering waves of shock and fury from Democrats who are now pushing for Congress to instantly codify abortion rights by way of legislation.

Republicans decried the leak itself, and lots of known as for the sort of investigation the Roberts announced late Tuesday morning. The GOP lawmakers who commented on the draft opinion praised it for placing choices about abortion within the palms of states as a substitute of the federal government.

The 98-page draft opinion was penned by Justice Samuel Alito, certainly one of six conservatives on a courtroom that has moved sharply to the fitting within the wake of the Trump administration.

Alito's draft would toss out the precedent set by the 1973 case Roe v. Wade and reaffirmed in 1992 by Deliberate Parenthood v. Casey. These pivotal rulings shield the suitable to get an abortion before the point of fetal viability and require that laws limiting abortion entry don't pose an "undue burden."

Alito wrote: "We hold that Roe and Casey should be overruled."

The draft of the opinion of the courtroom in Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies's Well being Group would side with the state of Mississippi in protection of a law that will ban almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Lower federal courts had blocked the regulation on the grounds that it violates the protections established by the Roe and Casey decisions.

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