The Supreme Court voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to a leaked draft majority opinion written by Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito obtained by POLITICO.
Roe v. Wade is the 1973 decision that people across the U.S. the choice to have an abortion, ruling a state law banning abortion unconstitutional.
The opinion, written in early February, would end federal constitutional protection of abortion and would return to each state deciding whether to restrict or ban abortion, according to the POLITICO article.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in the leaked document. “...It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
The opinion is still considered to be the draft majority, with the opinion being subject to change before the final release expected in early June or July, according to the same article.
“If the Supreme Court does indeed issue a majority opinion along the lines of the leaked draft authored by Justice Alito, the shift in the tectonic plates of abortion rights will be as significant as any opinion the Court has ever issued,” the American Civil Liberties Union stated on Twitter Monday.
According to a March 16 Guttmacher Institute article, a pro-reproductive rights research group, 22 states will have laws imposing strict restrictions on abortions, with 18 states including Alabama, Wisconsin, Texas,, and Tennessee will impose near total bans.
No draft decision in the history of the Supreme Court has ever been disclosed publicly while the case is still pending, according to the same Politico article.
SJSU linguistics junior Brandon Rodriguez said he’s concerned about the bans that may occur regarding abortion.
“I also think it's scary because these sort of bans don't always stop at their intended goals, they continue to spread, chipping away at everyone's right to have a say in what goes on with their bodies,” he said. “We're already seeing it with the rights of transgender people - I can't imagine what's next.”
