Help pro-life heroes expose abortion in D.C.: LifeFunder
DALLAS (LifeSiteNews) – The leak of a draft opinion in a hugely consequential abortion case is a grim omen for the institutional integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas warned Friday.
On May 2, Politico published a leaked draft of a majority opinion by conservative Justice Samuel Alito for Dobbs, which concerns Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. The draft declares that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” and therefore it is “time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” In response, the Court announced the draft was authentic but “does not represent a final decision by the court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case,” and announced the leak was under investigation.
It remains unclear whether the draft represents a final decision to overturn Roe, is a tentative decision subject to change, was prepared in anticipation of a majority to overturn, or was written in hopes of persuading Alito’s colleagues to sign on. Regardless, the leak has sent shockwaves across the political spectrum, with pro-lifers tentatively rejoicing, pro-abortion politicians and activists lashing out in anger, and many speculating that the leak may have been intended to pressure judges to flip their votes, or to incite hatred and threats against them.
Mediaite reported that Thomas was speaking at the Old Parkland Conference hosted by the right-leaning groups American Enterprise Institute, Hoover Institution, and Manhattan Institute when he expressed concern that “we are in danger of destroying the institutions that are required for a free society.”
“You can’t have a civil society, a free society, without a stable legal system,” Thomas said. “You can’t have one without stability and things like property or interpretation and impartial judiciary. I’ve been in this business long enough to know just how fragile it is.”
“The institution that I’m a part of — If someone said that one line of one opinion would be leaked by anyone, and you would say that, oh, that’s impossible,” the justice went on. “No one would ever do that. There’s such a belief in the rule of law, belief in the court, a belief in what we were doing that that was verboten. It was beyond anyone’s understanding, or at least anyone’s imagination that someone would do that. And look where we are, where now that trust or that belief is gone forever.”
“And when you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally,” he warned. “You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity, that you can explain it but you can’t undo it.”
Thomas also called out the disparate treatment of conservative and liberal justices and judicial nominees, from the baseless rape claims against Brett Kavanaugh to this month’s Democrat-condoned protests outside the homes of Republican-appointed jurists.
“You would never visit Supreme Court justices’ houses when things didn’t go our way,” Thomas told the predominantly conservative audience. “We didn’t throw temper tantrums. It is incumbent on us to always act appropriately, and not to repay tit for tat [… from conservatives,] you will not see the utter destruction of a single nominee. You will also not see people going to other people’s houses, attacking them at dinner at a restaurant, throwing things on them.”
If Alito’s opinion does prove to be the Supreme Court’s final decision, its ramifications will be drastic. More than 20 states currently have laws on the books that would effectively ban abortion within their borders upon Roe’s fall, from pre-Roe abortion bans that went unenforced to “trigger laws” designed not to take effect until a ruling like today’s. In those states, abortion would become illegal as soon as the ruling is issued.
More than a dozen other states plus the District of Columbia have laws on the books legally protecting abortion, at least three of which explicitly codify the practice as a “right.” Abortion would remain legal in those jurisdictions, as well as the remaining states that have not spelled out abortion’s status one way or another, but without Roe state residents would have the power to vote on the issue for themselves, or lobby their elected representatives to change the law in either direction.
Pro-lifers in Congress could pursue a nationwide abortion ban as well, and many pro-lifers will no doubt urge them to do so, in order to prevent states like California from attempting to keep interstate abortions thriving.
Help pro-life heroes expose abortion in D.C.: LifeFunder