President Joe Biden has slammed a leaked Supreme Court decision that might overturn women's right to abortion in the United States as "extreme" and "far overboard," as Democrats use the contentious draft judgement to rally support for the midterm elections.
Mr. Biden encouraged Democrats "at all levels of government" to adopt legislation protecting women's right to abortion, as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed that the draft ruling published by Politico by Justice Samuel Alito was legitimate, even if it was not the court's final decision.
“We will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law,” Mr Biden said in a statement on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST).
“Roe says what all basic mainstream religions have historically concluded — that the right — that the existence of a human life and being is not in question,” the President said before departing for a flight to Alabama on Tuesday. He was referring to a 1973 Supreme Court decision that found abortion was protected by the US constitution.
Vice President Kamala Harris also lambasted the draft judgement, warning of a future in which governments "may potentially interfere in your personal life decisions."
Looming midterm elections on November
The 98-page decision, which would defer to state legislatures on the issue of abortion, sent shockwaves through the US political establishment on Tuesday, as strategists assessed the impact on November's midterm elections and politicians considered how to respond to a decision that had been expected for months.
"Make no mistake, reproductive rights will be on the ballot, and this midterm election is more essential than ever," the Democratic National Committee stated in a statement.
Republicans blasted the leak as a direct attack on the Supreme Court and an attempt to torpedo a long-awaited decision that conservatives had been praying for for nearly fifty years.
“By every indication, this was yet another escalation in the radical left’s ongoing campaign to bully and intimidate federal judges and substitute mob rule for the rule of law,” Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said.
Growing opposition to overturn women’s rights
Surveys reveal that roughly two thirds of Americans believe they are opposed to altering the landmark Roe v Wade decision, which guaranteed women the right to have an abortion except in the final trimester of pregnancy.
The Supreme Court may be prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 precedent that established a constitutional right to abortion, according to a leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and released late Monday by Politico.
Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed in a statement that the draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, was authentic, but he said it was not necessarily the final resolution in the case. “This was a singular and egregious breach” of trust, he said.
Justice Roberts denounced the leak and stated the situation would be investigated by the court's marshal.
The 67-page ruling, which was identified as an early draft, said that Roe v. Wade was "egregiously erroneous and extremely destructive," and that Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 decision that reduced but did not destroy abortion rights, extended the court's error.
The draft, prepared in February, echoes the tone of the oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case challenging Roe that involves Mississippi's 15-week abortion prohibition. The document was branded as the court's opinion, meaning that a majority of the justices agreed with it.
The opinion, as written in February, would put a stop to a half-century of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and empower each state to determine whether to restrict or prohibit abortion. It's unclear whether the draft has been revised since then.
In the modern history of the court, no draft ruling has ever been made public while a case was still ongoing. The unusual disclosure is certain to exacerbate the argument over what was already the most divisive case on the docket this term.
The draft opinion provides a rare glimpse into the justices' thoughts in one of the court's most important cases in the last five decades. Some court observers believed that the conservative majority would whittle away at abortion rights without reversing a 49-year-old ruling outright. The draft indicates that the court intends to overturn Roe's logic and legal safeguards.