Politico has one of the biggest stories of the century live right now, the equivalent of the Pentagon Papers for the Supreme Court. The political news site acquired what it is confident is a draft of a Supreme Court opinion that will overturn Roe v. Wade and strike down federal protection of abortion rights in America. Per Politico’s report:
The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and obtained by POLITICO.
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.”
It’s hard to know what to say right now except we told you so. As outraged as we are, most of us have been waiting for this moment since Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Anyone who cared about the rights of pregnant people and people who can become pregnant saw this coming from a mile away. Even so, it’s shocking to see it laid out so starkly, and to grasp that a handful of unelected judges working under the cover of secrecy can impact millions of lives, seize control of our bodies, and cause what will be unfathomable suffering, should this come to pass without countermeasures to stop it.
Knowing we were right isn’t helping right now.
It feels bad. No matter how prepared you thought you were, it is breathtakingly bad.
— Charlotte Shane (@CharoShane) May 3, 2022
Would really like to hear from every single man on the left who told feminists we were catastrophizing
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) May 3, 2022
And yes, the fact of this draft’s leaking in advance is a significant historical moment piled on another historical moment. Politico again:
No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending. The unprecedented revelation is bound to intensify the debate over what was already the most controversial case on the docket this term.
The draft opinion offers an extraordinary window into the justices’ deliberations in one of the most consequential cases before the court in the last five decades. Some court-watchers predicted that the conservative majority would slice away at abortion rights without flatly overturning a 49-year-old precedent. The draft shows that the court is looking to reject Roe’s logic and legal protections.
Many commentators have pointed out that this isn’t only an attack on reproductive rights, but could set the stage for challenges to gay marriage and other civil rights protections that were also considered “settled law.”
this being the culmination of a holy war that’s been ongoing since the ’70s, you should be aware they are coming for absolutely everything that isn’t straight white christian fertile marriage with a submissive, economically dependent and fiscally constrained wife
— Talia Lavin (@swordsjew) May 3, 2022
Forced birth in a country with the highest maternal mortality rate, no paid maternity leave, no universal, subsidized childcare, no continued birth parent care, and frequently inaccessible mental health care.
— Tocarra Mallard (@TocarraElise) May 3, 2022
This is all the result of a decades-long campaign waged by Republicans and conservatives obsessed with controlling people’s bodies while providing zero social programs, healthcare, and safety nets to help children or people who bear children in this godforsaken country. And banning abortion does not lessen rates of abortion—it simply ensures that those who need access most cannot access it, and that many people will suffer and die as a result of unsafe and desperate attempts to acquire a vital healthcare procedure. We know this is true because we have been here before.
Let’s be clear, wealthy women will always have access to whatever doctors, medicines and procedures that they want. Ending Roe is an attack on the autonomy of poor and working class women.
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) May 3, 2022
One historian of abortion argues that abortion stays at pretty much the same rate per capita over time whether it’s legal or banned. What changes when you make it illegal is how many women die from it.
— Kathleen Belew (@kathleen_belew) May 3, 2022
I’ve never met a “pro-life” person who was actively doing anything to help systemic access to medical care, education, or social services for poor mothers and their unwanted children.
— Jen Richards (@SmartAssJen) May 3, 2022
On Tuesday my mid child will be 6.5 years old.
— Dr. Theresa Chapple (@Theresa_Chapple) May 3, 2022
I will be exactly 6 months away from paying off my 20% portion of her $1.2mil birth.
We can’t be deciding as a country to force carrying pregnancies when we wont provide insurance that covers the cost.
We’ll be covering this story as it develops. In the meantime, here are some of the tweets flooding the Internet. You’ll notice a conspicuous silence from the people who told us we were overreacting in our concern and panic for years.
50 senators could preempt this decision tomorrow by ending the filibuster and enacting the Women’s Health Protection Act.
— Niko Bowie (@nikobowie) May 3, 2022
Roe v. Wade is based on the ‘right to privacy.’ If the majority opinion by SCOTUS suggests that the constitution does not protect the right to privacy… that affects a WHOLE lot of other decisions. Buckle up – this is the beginning of a lot of potential ugliness.
— A. H. (@a_h_reaume) May 3, 2022
A thread.
Pretty much tells you all you need to know about the values and priorities of the Supreme Court, which are clearly fucked beyond repair. https://t.co/W4KSGm6OIT
— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) May 3, 2022
Only 30% of Americans support overturning Roe, with 69% opposed, according to the most recent polling. Get used to it: everything we know about the trajectory of American democracy suggests that minoritarianism will become the norm.
— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) May 3, 2022
If you are upset that #RoeVWade is about to be overturned by the Supreme Court but you didn’t vote in 2016 or you voted for Trump because you didn’t like the smart lady, YOU did this w/your apathy or your decision to choose an imp for President. YOU gave him THREE SCOTUS seats.
— yvette nicole brown (@YNB) May 3, 2022
By the way, our democratically elected, Democrat-led federal government isn’t helpless here. They just lack conviction, while the worst people, with apologies to Yeats, are full of passionate intensity. We’ll see, but we’re not holding our breath.
A whistleblower just gave us a seismic warning. Democrats in the Senate could suspend the filibuster and codify Roe tomorrow. Where’s the accountability for the Dems standing in our own way?
— Alessandra Biaggi (@Biaggi4NY) May 3, 2022
If the worst case scenarios for US democracy unfold, it’s going to look bizarre that Dems had control of the WH and Congress for these two years.
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) May 3, 2022
There was something uniquely American about this news unfolding while celebrities basked in one of their most glamorous and extravagant events, the Met Gala, which had a too-ironic theme this year of Gilded Age costumery.
The dissonance on the timeline between Roe news and Met Gala is truly unbearable.
— Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) May 3, 2022
This #RoeVWade news dropping during this Gilded Age themed Met Gala is pretty dystopian
— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) May 3, 2022
These days, what isn’t dystopian?
beyond parody pic.twitter.com/axU8uZWUpG
— jordan (@JordanUhl) May 3, 2022
(via Politico, image: Getty Images)
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Published: May 3, 2022 01:20 am