The Supreme Court of the United States would be ready to annul the judgment of 1973 which recognizes the right to abortion at the federal level, according to information from the American newspaper Politico.
The media relied on a major leak of documents from the highest court in the United States, made public in their article Monday morning. Politico says it is a “draft,” a working document, written by Conservative Justice Samuel Alito.
“We believe that Roe v. Wade (name of the 1973 judgment on abortion, editor’s note) must be annulled”, is it written in this document, which also considers that this law on abortion was “unfounded from the start”, and that the subject of abortion is « a profound moral question ».
“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each state from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” according to Samuel Alito. “The inescapable conclusion is that the right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the Nation,” he added, adding that the right to abortion is only “protected by any provision of the Constitution”.
Conservative majority on the Supreme Court
According to Politico, this working paper circulated to the Supreme Court in February. The official opinion of the Supreme Court has therefore not been published and the votes of the judges concerning the repeal of the right to abortion at the federal level have not yet been recorded.
CNN reported that, according to its sources, five justices of the Court (of the nine) could vote to end Roe v. Wade. The President of the Court, John Roberts, however, would not agree with all parts of Samuel Alito’s text. However, if this conclusion is accepted by the High Court, the United States will return to the situation in force before 1973 when each state was free to prohibit or authorize abortions. The most conservative states, particularly in the south and center of the country, could therefore quickly ban abortion on their soil.
Since the arrival of three conservative judges at the Supreme Court under the mandate of Donald Trump, bringing the number of conservatives to six out of nine, the court has issued several favorable signals to opponents of abortion. She initially refused to prevent the entry into force of a Texas law which limits the right to an abortion to the first six weeks of pregnancy against two trimesters under the current legal framework. During the December review of a Mississippi law, which also questioned the legal deadline for an abortion, a majority of its magistrates made it clear that they were ready to nibble or even simply overturn Roe v. Wade.
Democrat reactions
The Democratic camp also reacted strongly to these revelations. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “The vote of Republican-appointed judges to overturn Roe v. Wade would be considered an abomination, one of the most serious and damaging decisions in modern history. »
Former presidential candidate against Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, also said: “This decision is a direct attack on the dignity, rights and lives of women, not to mention decades of established law. She will kill and subjugate women even though a large majority of Americans think abortion should be legal. It’s a real shame. »
The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) May 3, 2022
Monday evening, after the Politico revelations, a crowd pressed in front of the building of the Supreme Court to demonstrate against the cancellation of the right to abortion, chanting “My body, my choice!”.