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

Professional-abortion and anti-abortion demonstrators protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court docket after the leak of a draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito preparing for a majority of the courtroom to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights determination 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 will toss out longstanding abortion rights, but famous that is not the court's ultimate determination.

Roberts ordered an investigation into the leaker.

"To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court docket was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it is not going to succeed," the chief justice mentioned in an announcement. "The work of the Court won't be affected in any way."

"I've 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 just about unprecedented for the excessive court, where leaks of any kind are exceedingly uncommon.

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

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

The justices, law clerks and other staff of the court are "intensely loyal to the establishment and dedicated to the rule of regulation," Roberts stated.

"Court docket employees have an exemplary and necessary tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial course of and upholding the trust of the Court docket. This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that's an affront to the Courtroom and the neighborhood 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 at the moment are pushing for Congress to immediately codify abortion rights via laws.

Republicans decried the leak itself, and lots of referred to as for the sort of investigation the Roberts introduced late Tuesday morning. The GOP lawmakers who commented on the draft opinion praised it for putting selections about abortion in the arms of states instead of the federal authorities.

The 98-page draft opinion was penned by Justice Samuel Alito, one in all six conservatives on a court 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 protect the proper to get an abortion earlier than 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 have to be overruled."

The draft of the opinion of the courtroom in Dobbs v. Jackson Girls's Health Group would facet with the state of Mississippi in protection of a legislation that may ban virtually all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Lower 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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