Roe v. Wade Overturned

According to a leaked initial draft majority opinion published by Politico on Monday, May 2022, The United States Supreme Court has provisionally voted to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark decision that legalised abortion in the United States.

According to Politico, conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the draft opinion, dated Feb. 10, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

The unprecedented leak from the conservative-majority Supreme Court shocked the country, not least because the court prides itself on keeping its internal deliberations secret, and leaks are extremely rare.

If Roe is overturned, abortion will almost certainly remain legal in liberal states. Currently, more than a dozen states have laws protecting abortion rights. In recent years, several Republican-led states have adopted various abortion restrictions in defiance of the Roe v. Wade precedent.

The case of Roe v. Wade involved Norma McCorvey, better known by her legal alias “Jane Roe,” and district attorney Henry Wade. McCorvey, who became pregnant with her third child in 1969, desired an abortion but lived in Texas, where abortion was illegal unless it was necessary to save the mother’s life.

McCorvey had her attorneys file a case against the district attorney of Texas which they won.