Supreme Court says leaked abortion draft is genuine; Roberts orders investigation into leak

Pro-abortion and anti-abortion demonstrators protest outdoors the U.S. Supreme Courtroom after the leak of a draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito getting ready for a majority of the courtroom to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights resolution later this year, in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2022. 

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday confirmed the authenticity of a leaked draft court opinion that may toss out longstanding abortion rights, but noted that is not the courtroom's closing determination.

Roberts ordered an investigation into the leaker.

"To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was supposed to undermine the integrity of our operations, it won't succeed," the chief justice stated in an announcement. "The work of the Courtroom won't be affected in any way."

"I've directed the Marshal of the Court docket to launch an investigation into the source of the leak," Roberts said.

The advance publication of a draft opinion is nearly unprecedented for the excessive court, the place leaks of any type are exceedingly rare.

The court docket shares drafts of opinions internally long before they're issued publicly, Roberts noted, calling it "a routine and important part of the Courtroom's confidential deliberative work."

The draft in this high-profile abortion case was created in February, in keeping with Politico, which obtained the opinion.

The justices, legislation clerks and different employees of the court docket are "intensely loyal to the establishment and devoted to the rule of regulation," Roberts mentioned.

"Court docket employees have an exemplary and important custom of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial course of and upholding the belief of the Court docket. This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Courtroom and the community of public servants who work here," he said.

The publication of the draft opinion rocked Washington, triggering waves of shock and fury from Democrats who at the moment are pushing for Congress to instantly codify abortion rights through legislation.

Republicans decried the leak itself, and lots of known as for the kind of investigation the Roberts announced late Tuesday morning. The GOP lawmakers who commented on the draft opinion praised it for putting decisions about abortion in the hands of states as a substitute of the federal authorities.

The 98-page draft opinion was penned by Justice Samuel Alito, certainly one of six conservatives on a court docket that has moved sharply to the correct within the wake of the Trump administration.

Alito's draft would toss out the precedent set by the 1973 case Roe v. Wade and reaffirmed in 1992 by Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Those pivotal rulings protect the proper to get an abortion before the point of fetal viability and require that laws limiting abortion entry don't pose an "undue burden."

Alito wrote: "We hold that Roe and Casey should be overruled."

The draft of the opinion of the court docket in Dobbs v. Jackson Girls's Well being Group would side with the state of Mississippi in defense of a legislation that may ban virtually all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Decrease federal courts had blocked the regulation on the grounds that it violates the protections established by the Roe and Casey choices.

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