The Supreme Court voted to overturn the milestone Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito.
The Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide.
According to POLITICO, Alito writes that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he continued. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
The reactions to the leaked draft have been explosive.
“If the report is accurate, the supreme court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years – not just on women but on all Americans. The Republican-appointed justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history,” Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House.
“Several of these conservative justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the US Senate, ripped up the constitution and defiled both precedent and the supreme court’s reputation.”
In October, Rep. Cori Bush testified at a hearing on reproductive rights, where she shared her abortion experience before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, alongside Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal.
Bush shared she was a victim of rape.
“To all the Black women and girls who have had abortions and will have abortions, we have nothing to be ashamed of,” Bush said at the time.
“We live in a society that has failed to legislate love and justice for us, so we deserve better. We demand better. We are worthy of better. That’s why I’m here to tell my story. So today I sit before you as that nurse, as that pastor, as that activist, that survivor, that single mom, that Congresswoman, to testify that in the summer of 1994, I was raped, I became pregnant, and I chose to have an abortion.”
Her testimony followed the controversial Texas Senate Bill 8, which went into effect in September—effectively banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy and no exceptions are made for victims of rape.
On Tuesday, she reacted to the leaked draft:
“Abolish the filibuster. Codify Roe. Expand the Supreme Court. Protect abortion rights by any means necessary. We need all of the above. This is an emergency,” she tweeted.
