Several Republican senators have demanded a probe into the “unprecedented breach of confidentiality” after Politico reported a leaked draft majority Supreme Court opinion overturning abortion rights legalised through the landmark Roe V Wade ruling.
The draft opinion appeared to have been authored by Justice Samuel Alito, and indicated that he, along with Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, voted to uphold a Mississippi law which criminalises termination of a pregnancy after 15 weeks.
Calling the leak an “assault” by the Left aimed at intimidating the Supreme Court, Missouri senator Josh Hawley tweeted: “The Left continues its assault on the Supreme Court with an unprecedented breach of confidentiality, clearly meant to intimidate. The Justices mustn’t give in to this attempt to corrupt the process. Stay strong.”
Senator Tom Cotton sought a probe, asking the Supreme Court and the Department of Justice to get “to the bottom of this leak immediately using every investigative tool necessary.”
“In the meantime, Roe was egregiously wrong from the beginning & I pray the Court follows the Constitution & allows the states to once again protect unborn life,” tweeted the Arkansas senator.
Florida senator Rick Scott also slammed the “radical Left” for the leak.
“The Supreme Court’s confidential deliberation process is sacred & protect it from political interference,” he wrote on Twitter. “This breach shows that radical Democrats are working even harder to intimidate & undermine the Court. It was always their plan. The justices cannot be swayed by this attack.”
The leak of the draft opinion has also drawn concerns from several lawyers and experts scrutinising the functioning of the court.
Unlike the White House and Congress, where leaks are a tool of political operatives trying to advance their agendas, the Supreme Court typically keeps its internal deliberations private.
“This is the equivalent of the Pentagon Papers leak, but at the Supreme Court,” Neal Katyal, a former acting US Solicitor General said in a Twitter post.
“It’s impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the justices and staff,” wrote the widely-followed “Scotusblog” on its Twitter account.
“Leaking a draft opinion is a massive violation of settled norms. It just doesn’t happen,” tweeted Dan Epps, a professor of law at Washington University in St Louis, adding that the culprit likely “would be someone who is upset” about what the court is doing.
Ilya Shapiro, a lecturer at the Georgetown University Law Center, posted that the leaker is “someone on the Left engaged in civil disobedience” and called the leak “inexcusable and threatens the court’s functioning.”
Supporters and opponents of abortion rights clashed in front of the Supreme Court building over the potential consequence of such a ruling.
Pro-choice activists fear that it would force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term unless they can travel to a state where abortion is legal under state law, or risk undergoing an illegal procedure outside of licensed medical facilities.
“Justices get out of my vagina,” one sign, held aloft, read. “I love someone who had an abortion,” read another. “Abortion is healthcare,” abortion rights supporters chanted.
Meanwhile, the draft ruling has drawn swift backlash from Democrats, with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders leading the angry condemnation of the draft leaked judgment.
“As we’ve warned, SCOTUS isn’t just coming for abortion - they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage + civil rights,” tweeted Ms Ocasio-Cortez.
