The clerk who leaked a draft of the Roe v. Wade decision should be “exiled from the legal community,” one Republican lawmaker says
Republican lawmakers condemned the Supreme Court staffer, who leaked a draft of an opinion showing the court’s imminent rejection of the Roe v. Wade landmark decision allowing for abortion. Senator MarshaBlackburn said that it was a leak. “radical activist,”This effectively forced a legal conflict into the public domain.
“I have no doubt that the Chief Justice will work to root out the radical activist that betrayed the sacred tradition of the court,”Blackburn, a Republican of Tennessee tweetedTomorrow is Tuesday. “The leaker must be immediately removed from their position and exiled from the legal community.”
Hours earlier, Politico published a draft decision suggesting that the Supreme Court, by five votes to three, had decided to overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1973 ruling that guaranteed the absolute right to a first-trimester abortion and limited rights in the second. A 1992 ruling upholding Roe v. Wade – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – would also be overturned.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences,”In a majority draft opinion, conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote. Alito said that because the US Constitution doesn’t mention the right of termination, Alito was wrong. “it is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives”At the state and local level.
Conservative legislators and pundits believed that the decision had been leaked to the media by a liberal clerk to create public outrage, and to force the court into reconsideration. While one of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s clerks has been suggested as the probable culprit, this is not proven.
“This is a blatant attempt to intimidate the court through public pressure rather than reasoned argument,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) tweeted. “I hope my fellow former clerks and the entire legal community will join me in denouncing this egregious breach of trust.”
“This leak has to come from a clerk or Justice themselves,”An unnamed ex-clerk told conservative pundit Benny Johnson. “It is intended to blow up the court. Criminal investigation needs to happen now.”
The leak is inexcusable and threatens the Court’s functioning. The most plausible explanation is that it’s someone on the left engaged in civil disobedience—so yet again it’s those who bemoan the “loss of norms” who break them. Cf. court-packing, attacking legitimacy, etc.
— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) May 3, 2022
Pro-life commentators described it as a leak. “unprecedented.” However, the court’s rulings have leaked before. Time magazine published Roe v. Wade’s original decision hours before the court announced it. The outcome of that case was already known, but the Politico document on Monday, however, was still a draft and could be changed.
The court will not issue an opinion on Roe V. Wade until June. It will then likely decide on the Mississippi case regarding abortion that placed the precedent from 1973 in question.
Based on CBS NewsChief Justice John Roberts is likely to order an FBI investigation. In the meantime, protestors from both pro- and against abortion have been demonstrating outside Washington DC’s Supreme Court.
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