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The head of the Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of a leaked draft that ignited the alarms of public opinion due to the possibility of annulling the right to abortion in the United States, which has been legal since 1973. The meaning of the text generates a tremor in American politics and justice. Upon learning of the leak, Democratic President Joe Biden declared himself “concerned” and stressed that “women’s right to choose is fundamental.”
After the draft of the Supreme Court was leaked by the news portal ‘Politico’, With the majority opinion of judges that aims to annul the right to abortion in the United States, hundreds of women took to the streets this May 3 with divided opinions about the possible decision, which generates an earthquake in the political and justice world.
The document, signed by Justice Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and the three judges proposed by former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, would leave the regulation of the procedure or the prohibition of the in the hands of each state.
The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, has six conservative and three liberal justices.
Although the abortion procedure has been legal in the US since 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled that “the State has no right to intervene in a woman’s decision about her pregnancy”, reproductive rights have been increasingly threatened more in recent months with the tightening of restrictions against abortion in different states of the country.
Restrictions that, for the most part, have been sponsored by right-wing politicians, while some Democratic officials have used different mechanisms to protect access to the procedure.
The draft opinion, leaked on the night of Monday, May 2, and which suggests the annulment of the historic case Roe vs. Wade in 1973 that legalized abortion in the countrywas confirmed as authentic by the president of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, who also assured that the text does not represent the “final position of any member on the issues of the case”.
“This betrayal of court confidences that was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations will not succeed. The work of the court will not be affected in any way,” Roberts said in a press release, adding that he will launch an investigation into the origin of the court. of the filtration.
The court’s press release made it clear that draft opinions are only distributed internally as one step in the judges’ confidential deliberation process. The leak of the document, then, could be seen as a major breach in the trust that has been built over decades in the judges’ deliberations.
Although there have been other leaks before, there has never been one of this magnitude involving a document that only a handful of people have access to before it is published.
“Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the court (…) This was a unique and egregious violation of that trust that is an affront to the court and to the community of public servants who work here,” Roberts added in the statement.
Joe Biden declares himself “concerned” and describes the meaning of the text as “radical”
Before boarding Air Force One to travel to Alabama, through a statement to journalists, which would later be condensed into an official statement on his Twitter account, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, described the project as “radical”. ”, ensuring that “a whole series of rights” based on the presumption of privacy would be threatened, such as access to contraception and equal marriage.
The US president said that he will work to codify the right to abortion in federal law and also assured that “basic justice and the stability of our law require that the Supreme Court of the United States not annul the case that legalized abortion in all the country”.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill an “abomination” and vowed Tuesday that if the ruling stands, the Senate will vote on legislation to uphold women’s access to abortion.
The Guttmacher Institute, a private nonprofit organization that supports abortion rights, estimates that 26 of the 50 US states will ban abortion if Roe vs. Wade, most of them located in the west and southwest of the country.
According to his forecasts, most of the states where access to the medical procedure would continue to be legal are located in the northeast or on the west coast of the United States, with California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington being some of them.
>> See the estimates on the Guttmacher Institute interactive map
Most of the states where abortion would remain legal are on the West Coast (California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington) or in the Northeast. Governor Gavin Newsom of California, the most populous state, proposed Monday to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution.
With AP, Reuters and local media
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