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 Courtroom after the leak of a draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito preparing for a majority of the court to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision later this yr, 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 last choice.

Roberts ordered an investigation into the leaker.

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

"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 high courtroom, where leaks of any sort are exceedingly uncommon.

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

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

The justices, regulation clerks and different workers of the court docket are "intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law," Roberts said.

"Court docket employees have an exemplary and important custom of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the belief of the Court docket. This was a singular and egregious breach of that belief that's an affront to the Court and the community 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 right away codify abortion rights by means of legislation.

Republicans decried the leak itself, and plenty of called for the form of investigation the Roberts announced late Tuesday morning. The GOP lawmakers who commented on the draft opinion praised it for putting decisions about abortion in the palms of states as an alternative of the federal authorities.

The 98-page draft opinion was penned by Justice Samuel Alito, certainly one of six conservatives on a court docket that has moved sharply to the right 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 Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Those pivotal rulings shield the proper to get an abortion before the purpose of fetal viability and require that rules limiting abortion access don't pose an "undue burden."

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

The draft of the opinion of the court docket in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization would facet with the state of Mississippi in defense of a regulation that would ban nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant.

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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