A leaked initial draft majority opinion suggests the U.S. Supreme Court will vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, Politico reported on Monday.
Reuters was not able to confirm the authenticity of the draft. The Supreme Court and the White House declined to comment.
Read more: Roe v. Wade — Pro-choice activists ‘livid’ after U.S. Supreme Court draft leak
A woman’s right to have an abortion through the first trimester of pregnancy was protected nationally in 1973, following the Supreme Court’s landmark 7-2 ruling here in Roe v. Wade.
Plaintiff Jane Roe, later identified as Norma McCorvey, was an unmarried pregnant woman who was unable to get an abortion under Texas law, where it was illegal unless to save the life of the mother.
Roe’s lawyers said she was unable to travel out of the state to obtain an abortion and argued that the law was too vague and infringed on her constitutional rights.
“Pregnancy often comes more than once to the same woman, and in the general population, if man is to survive, it will always be with us,” Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, a Republican nominated by President Richard Nixon, wrote in the sweeping majority opinion that detailed attitudes about abortion from the time of the Persian empire.
The Texas law infringed on women’s right to privacy, was overly broad and violated the due process clause in the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, the decision said.
“This right of privacy…is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent.
“Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in