Report: A Leaked Supreme Court Opinion Signals the Justices Are About to Overturn Roe v. Wade

Well, fuck.

Pro-choice activists participate in a demonstration outside of the US Supreme Court on January 22, 2022 in Washington, DC.Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty

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For years, abortion rights advocates have been warning about the fall of Roe v. Wade, and abortion opponents have been pledging to bring it about. Well, that time is apparently right around the corner.

According to a shocking scoop from Politico on Monday night, the draft decision of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, written by Justice Samuel Alito, has been leaked, and the justices plan to side with the state of Mississippi, overturning the precedent established in the Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973 that legalized abortion in the United States. As Politico reports:

The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

According to Politico, “no draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending.”

While it’s not much solace, it’s important to emphasize that this is a draft decision—the opinion, and the justices signing onto it, could still change before it is officially released, likely next month. And let’s be very clear: As of this moment, abortion is still legal in the United States, period. If you are a patient seeking care, you can still get it.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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