The U.S. Supreme Court seems ready to overturn Roe vs. Wade which would give politicians in this country the authority to strip women of their own bodily autonomy.
In a leaked draft document obtained by POLITICO, the SCOTUS which has a 6-3 conservative majority, is prepared to trash a nearly 50-year-old law that in 1973 determined that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” the leaked draft states.
“We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly. We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives,” per the draft.
The draft was reportedly penned by justice Samuel Alito back in February who is said to have the backing of fellow conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Unfortunately, when it comes to this potential draconian ruling, which could come in the next few months, abortion would immediately become illegal in at least 13 states including Wyoming which just passed a “trigger law”.
However, more states would very likely move to either make access to safe abortions virtually impossible or ban them altogether. Alabama, Iowa, Ohio, Georgia, and South Carolina had already passed restrictive choice laws that were federally blocked due to Roe while states like Michigan and Wisconsin could move in the direction of also banning abortion based on legislation written over 90 years ago.
It probably won’t stop with abortion
While legal pundits like Jeffrey Toobin sit here and cry over some lost decorum over SCOTUS documents getting leaked while women are on the precipice of losing freedoms over their own bodies, the legalities of abortion are probably only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what could be next.
Also contained within Alito’s draft are opinions that criticize Lawrence vs. Texas (legalizing sodomy) and Obergefell vs. Hodges (legalizing same-sex marriage) referring to these rulings as “phony rights” not “deeply rooted in history.”
20 years ago it seemed inconceivable that a women’s right to choose would ever be put into question from a legal standpoint. If Roe is overturned, what’s exactly next given the precedent? Is it crazy to think that being gay or trans could at some point in the near future be outlawed in this country? Florida governor Ron DeSantis already signed into law the “Parental Rights in Education” bill otherwise known as the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation which prohibits classroom instruction on gender identity and/or sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade. It’s hard to believe that Alito, based on his drafted opinions, or his conservative SCOTUS counterparts would have any issue with DeSantis’ actions in Florida to deem homosexuality as some taboo topic that isn’t to be spoken of in elementary schools.
On the flip, would a conservative majority in the SCOTUS overturn Lawrence, and in turn, would states like Florida or Texas reenact anti-sodomy laws? Again inconceivable probably 15 years ago, now not so much.