Report: A Leaked Supreme Court Opinion Signals the Justices Are About to Overturn Roe v. Wade

Pro-choice activists participate in a demonstration outside of the US Supreme Court on January 22, 2022 in Washington, DC.Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty

Facts matter: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter. Support our nonprofit reporting. Subscribe to our print magazine.For years, abortion rights advocates have been warning about the fall of Roe v. Wade, and abortion opponents have been pledging to bring it about. Well, that time is apparently right around the corner.
According to a shocking scoop from Politico on Monday night, the draft decision of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, written by Justice Samuel Alito, has been leaked, and the justices plan to side with the state of Mississippi, overturning the precedent established in the Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973 that legalized abortion in the United States. As Politico reports:
The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
According to Politico, “no draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending.”
While it’s not much solace, it’s important to emphasize that this is a draft decision—the opinion, and the justices signing onto it, could still change before it is officially released, likely next month. And let’s be very clear: As of this moment, abortion is still legal in the United States, period. If you are a patient seeking care, you can still get it.