Draft ruling threat to abortion rights
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden urged voters to defend “fundamental” rights after a leaked Supreme Court draft ruling indicated a 50year-old law legalising abortion could be overturned.
Tens of millions of American women fear they will lose what has long been viewed as a basic freedom.
If the draft ruling is confirmed by the court, it would overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade decision, which enshrined abortion rights across the country. Instantly, abortion laws would be left up to individual states, with as many as half expected to enact bans or new restrictions.
For many women, the
potential loss of abortion rights across swaths of the US raises the prospect of being forced to travel hundreds of miles for the procedure or giving birth in traumatic circumstances.
“I’ll fight it with every breath I have,” said Lynn Hart, a grandmother of four, who had an abortion when she was a teenager before the landmark 1973 ruling.
Republicans have pushed hard for years to overturn Roe, and it became only a matter of time after three conservative justices were appointed by former president Donald Trump, shifting the Supreme Court’s balance sharply to the right.
The Politico news site published the leaked ruling on Monday, thrusting the issue to the centre of the November congressional mid-term elections, potentially even opening a path for beleaguered Democrats to stem expected losses.
Biden, whose Democrats have been forecast to lose their narrow control of Congress, issued a rallying cry to the left, warning that restricting abortion rights will be only the beginning. “I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental ... and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned,” Biden said.
He said it’s up to voters to elect officials who back abortion rights, vowing to work to pass legislation in Congress that codifies Roe v Wade – an impossible goal unless far more Democrats win seats.
The unprecedented leak knocked another hole in the reputation of the top court as the one apolitical branch in the US government.
Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the leaked document was authentic, although he cautioned that it did not necessarily represent the court’s final decision. Roberts ordered a probe into the leak.
Crowds of protesters from both camps descended on the Supreme Court building, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed the leak as a “lawless act”.
“Never before in modern history has an internal draft been leaked to the public while the justices were still deciding a case,” the Republican veteran raged on the Senate floor. He said the leak was a historic low in the “radical left’s” ongoing campaign against the Supreme Court.