SCOTUS LEAK

Abortion supporters have predictably expressed their outrage over the leaked report that seems to indicate that the SCOTUS will overturn Roe v. Wade--the 1973 Supreme Court which wrongly found a constitutional right to abortion. Pro-life supporters are rightly encouraged, but the Supreme Court hasn't officially ruled anything yet. If they do overturn Roe v. Wade, it will simply mean that abortion laws will be handed back to states, which is what should have happened in 1973. Abortions will not cease. 

Fox New Online published a story yesterday, written by Kayleigh McEnany, entitled "If Roe is overturned, look for 3 long overdue developments. She serves as a co-host of "Outnumbered" on Fox News Channel, Prior to joining Fox News Channel, McEnany served as White House Press Secretary under former President Trump. This will automatically mean that she has no credibility with the Left. It does mean that she has great credibility with me.

"First,  overturning Roe would mean that, at least in some jurisdictions, America would no longer be the world's pariah when it comes to our abortion laws. Currently, America is one of 7 countries in the world that allows elective abortion after 20 weeks . . . we share that standard with the People's Republic of China & North Korea . . . Wait . . . What?

"Next, the nonsensical legal reasoning of Roe would be corrected. Indeed, Roe has been criticized by jurists of varying judicial philosophies . . . Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg--undeniably a proponent of abortion rights--called Roe 'heavy-handed judicial intervention.' Without a doubt, an invented right to abortion vaguely embedded in the 14th Amendment with no historical precedent or textual foundation is most certainly hard to justify.

"Finally, while abortion advocates suggest that America is a pro-abortion nation, when the extreme rhetoric & exaggerations are stripped away, Americans substantively agree with the Mississippi abortion law at issue in Dobbs, which bans most elective abortions after 15 weeks. A 2021 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that '65% said abortion should usually be illegal in the 2nd trimester [after 12 weeks], & 80% said that about the 3rd trimester [after 24 weeks].'"

MORE ABOUT THE LEAK

"If a Politico report based on a shocking leak is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to overrule its wayward abortion precedents when it decides Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the case involving Mississippi’s law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. If the news is true, our reaction mixes joy with indignation.

"The leak includes a 98-page draft opinion said to have been authored by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated within the Court in February, on behalf of a five-justice majority that emerged after Dobbs was argued in December. That majority reportedly includes four other conservative justices: Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The report, based on an unidentified source within the Court, indicates that dissents are being written by the Court’s three progressive justices (Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan). The source says it is unclear how Chief Justice John Roberts has voted on the case. CNN claims to have unnamed “sources saying that Roberts would vote to uphold Mississippi’s law but does not want to overturn Roe v. Wade . . . ”

"The legitimacy of the Supreme Court’s vital constitutional duty to pronounce authoritatively what the law is in cases where it is called to do so hinges on the integrity of its process. The Court has thus been admirably disciplined about maintaining the secrecy of its deliberations until rulings are announced. Without that discipline, the Court’s decision-making would be subjected to intense political pressure — the very antithesis of a system that insulates the judiciary from politics so that cases can be decided pursuant to law, without fear or favor. The Court’s vital constitutional role, vindicating a rule of law not men, would be destroyed. Worse, the leak could inspire violence against the Court or the justices. Either would be intolerable . . . 

"We have championed the pro-life movement and called for the reversal of the Roe abomination for nearly a half century. We would take a backseat to no one in celebrating the monstrous abortion regime’s demise. But the Supreme Court’s restoration of constitutional order ought to accompany a restoration of the Court’s norms. The leak is intolerable and cannot go unpunished. And Roe should not stay on the books a moment longer." The Editors, National Review Online, 5/3

ROE v. WADE

"If the opinion ends up saying what it is says in the Politico report, then all that will do is confirm what many people — including many intellectually honest pro-choice legal scholars — have understood for a long, long time: that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, that there is simply nothing in the Constitution that empowered the Court to supplant the democratic lawmaking process in this matter, and that the lawmaking will return to the lawmakers.

"The pro-abortion side will be disappointed at first with its symbolic loss, but it is very likely that the state legislatures in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, etc., will pass laws that secure abortion rights on those states. It seems reasonably likely that, for the foreseeable future, most Americans will live in states where abortion remains legal. A few big states, notably Texas, are likely to go the other way. Florida will probably enact some abortion restrictions but probably will not go as far as Texas or Oklahoma. The pro-life side will still have a great deal of work to do.

"The needle will move in the direction of abortion restriction some considerable distance, as a result of which U.S. abortion laws will be less like those of China or North Korea and more like those of France or Denmark. The Dobbs case results from a Mississippi abortion law that bans abortion in most cases after 15 weeks of pregnancy; in Norway, the rule is twelve weeks. Progressive Europhilia is highly selective.

"And if Roe is indeed overturned, it will go down as a model example of democratic political activism, one that took a tragically long time to succeed but succeeded in the right way, in accordance with the rule of law and our democratic traditions. That project comprehended more than abortion: It has to a considerable degree reformed American jurisprudence by creating institutions such as the Federalist Society and intelligent arguments that are so persuasive and now so embedded in our political culture that even Ketanji Brown Jackson felt compelled to pretend to be an originalist at her confirmation hearings. That will continue to bear fruit for a long time." Kevin Williamson, NRO Online, 5/3