American Supreme Court is set to overturn the historic 1973 Roe v Wade judgement that legalized abortion in America, reported Politico on Tuesday while quoting a leaked draft legal opinion.
The draft legal opinion leaked to Politico reveals a majority of US Supreme Court judges have reached an agreement to force a change in the abortion law by overturning the Roe v Wade judgement.
If the court does what the draft suggests, the ruling would upend a nearly 50-year-old decision.
In the alleged document, Justice Samuel Alito has opined that Roe v Wade which legalized abortion was ‘egregiously wrong from the start and ‘must be overruled’.
He argues that Roe’s ‘reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.
If the ruling is overturned, it would give individual American states the power to decide on whether to ban abortion.
Partisan fighting over the issue began almost immediately, with Democrats vowing to defend abortion rights while Republicans demanded a probe into the leak.
As reported by Daily Mail, just hours after the draft legal opinion leaked, hundreds of pro-choice and anti-abortion activists gathered in front of the US Supreme Court on Monday night.
‘Roe v Wade is going to go,’ anti-abortion protesters taunted, while the pro-choice crowd yelled – ‘My body, my choice.’
The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research group, has said that 26 states are ‘certain or likely’ to ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
However, draft opinions can change and the ruling will not be final until it is published.
What is Roe v Wade Judgement?
Roe v Wade is a historic US Supreme Court judgement that held that the right to personal privacy under the American Constitution protects a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy.
In other words, it legalized abortions in America by holding that the constitutional right to privacy applied to abortion.