The leaked "1st Draft" opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that was published yesterday by Politico would, if officially released by the Court, overturn both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the key precedents securing a woman's constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.
The author of the leaked draft opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, makes the standard conservative argument against abortion rights. "The Constitution makes no reference to abortion," Alito writes, "and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition' and 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'" Alito continues: "The right to an abortion does not fall within this category."
