Protests as Roe v Wade ruling leaks

WASHINGTON: Antiabortion activists and proabortion rights supporters yesterday took to the streets of Washington after news the United States Supreme Court might overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling which legalised abortion nationally in the US.

A leaked initial draft majority opinion suggests the court has voted to overturn Roe v Wade, Politico reported yesterday.

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the authenticity of the draft opinion. The Supreme Court and the White House declined to comment.

Within hours of the news, antiabortion activists chanting, ‘‘Hey, hey, ho, ho, Roe v Wade has got to go’’ and abortion rights supporters shouting ‘‘Abortion is healthcare’’ were facing off outside the court.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in US politics and has been for nearly a half century.

A 2021 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 59% of US adults believed it should be legal in all or most cases, while 39% thought it should be illegal in most or all cases.

‘‘Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,’’ conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the draft opinion which is dated February 10, according to Politico, which posted a copy online.

Based on Alito’s opinion, the court would find that the Roe v Wade decision that allowed abortions performed before a foetus would be viable outside the womb

— between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy — was wrongly decided because the US Constitution makes no specific mention of abortion rights.

‘‘Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each state from regulating or prohibiting abortion,’’ Alito said, according to the leaked document.

The unprecedented leak sent shock waves through the United States, not least because the court prides itself on keeping its internal deliberations secret and leaks are extremely uncommon.

The news stunned abortion providers.

Andrea Gallegos, of Tulsa Women’s Clinic, Oklahoma, had to call 25 patients scheduled for abortions today to tell them their appointments would need to be cancelled because of a soontobe enacted Oklahoma law modelled on a highly restrictive Texas abortion ban.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said his state would propose an amendment to ‘‘enshrine the right to choose’’ in the state’s constitution.

‘‘We can’t trust SCOTUS to protect the right to abortion, so we’ll do it ourselves,’’ Newsom tweeted.

The ruling would be the court’s most sweeping since former president Donald Trump succeeded in naming three justices to the court, cementing a 63 conservative majority. — Reuters