Condemning the Supreme Court for Overturning Roe v. Wade

On May 2, 2022, Politico reported that an unidentified individual had leaked an initial draft of a 5-4 majority opinion, written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in which the Court had decided to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. “No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending,” said Politico. Whereas Roe had guaranteed federal constitutional protections for abortion rights, the new ruling would return responsibility for those rights to each individual state. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in his opinion, adding: “We hold that Roe and Casey [a 1992 decision that largely reaffirmed the rights set forth in Roe] must be overruled. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Outraged by the reported ruling of the Court, Clinton told CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell on May 4, 2022: “This opinion is dark. It is incredibly dangerous. And it is not just about a woman’s right to choose. It is about much more than that. I hope people now are fully aware of what we’re up against because the only answer is at the ballot box, to elect people who will stand up for every American’s rights. And any American who says, ‘Look, I’m not a woman, this doesn’t affect me. I’m not black. That doesn’t affect me. I’m not gay. That doesn’t affect me.’ Once you allow this kind of extreme power to take hold, you have no idea who they will come for next.”