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

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

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday confirmed the authenticity of a leaked draft court opinion that may toss out longstanding abortion rights, however famous that isn't the courtroom's ultimate decision.

Roberts ordered an investigation into the leaker.

"To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was supposed to undermine the integrity of our operations, it won't succeed," the chief justice said in a statement. "The work of the Courtroom won't be affected in any manner."

"I have directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak," Roberts said.

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

The courtroom shares drafts of opinions internally long before they are issued publicly, Roberts famous, calling it "a routine and important part of the Court's confidential deliberative work."

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

The justices, law clerks and other workers of the courtroom are "intensely loyal to the establishment and dedicated to the rule of law," Roberts mentioned.

"Court docket staff have an exemplary and necessary tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court docket. This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that's an affront to the Court docket and the group of public servants who work here," he mentioned.

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

Republicans decried the leak itself, and many referred to as for the kind of investigation the Roberts announced late Tuesday morning. The GOP lawmakers who commented on the draft opinion praised it for placing decisions about abortion in the hands of states as a substitute of the federal government.

The 98-page draft opinion was penned by Justice Samuel Alito, one in all six conservatives on a court docket 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. Those pivotal rulings shield the fitting to get an abortion before the purpose of fetal viability and require that laws limiting abortion entry don't pose an "undue burden."

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

The draft of the opinion of the court in Dobbs v. Jackson Girls's Well being Organization would side with the state of Mississippi in defense of a regulation that would ban almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Decrease federal courts had blocked the law on the grounds that it violates the protections established by the Roe and Casey selections.

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