BY ROXY SZAL | Late Monday night, shock waves could be felt across the U.S. after a leaked draft opinion signaled the Supreme Court’s majority decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case concerning a 15-week abortion ban out of Mississippi. The leaked opinion, when a final decision is issued before the end of the Supreme Court’s term (likely in June), represents the biggest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history.
Most court watchers expected the Court would rule in this way after reviewing commentary from the conservative justices during December’s oral arguments in the Dobbs case. Even still, after the news broke, the continued mood among feminists and abortion supporters has been one of collective shock and outrage. Hundreds of protesters flocked to the U.S. Supreme Court steps to stage peaceful demonstrations on Monday which carried into early Tuesday morning; crowds chanted “abortion is healthcare” and “we’re not going backwards.” Protests across the country are expected to continue in the coming days and weeks.
Reactions from feminists, lawmakers, reproductive rights advocates and legal scholars have been pouring in as America begins to grapple with the gravity of what abortion access will look like in a post-Roe world.
Many are shocked at the bold language used by Justice Samuel Alito, who penned the leaked majority draft opinion. Prior to the leak, reproductive and legal commentators had warned that if the Court upheld the 15-week Mississippi ban, it would in fact be a de facto overturning of Roe, which guarantees the right to an abortion up to viability, or 26 weeks. Most abortion advocates anticipated a more tempered response where the justices would not admit they were overturning Roe outright. Alito’s opinion, on the contrary, spells out boldly its intention to abandon settled opinion (known as “stare decisis”): “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. … We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled.”
“While we anticipated this potential outcome, we share in the stun, insult and outrage cascading across the country,” said Debasri Ghosh, managing director of the National Network of Abortion Funds. “Whatever happens next, abortion funds will continue doing what they do best—helping people get the abortion care they need, when they need it.”
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