Drafting the end of Roe v. Wade
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2022
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Supreme Court may soon overturn Roe v. Wade. Today, we unpack the leaked draft opinion that has spurred intense reaction from both sides of the issue. Plus, we hear about the implications for red states, blue states and the Supreme Court.
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Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. confirmed on Tuesday that the draft opinion is authentic, and that he is opening an investigation into how it became public. Roberts also stressed that the draft opinion was not final, and the ultimate decision of the court or any particular justice could change before the official ruling is released.
“What you see … is one of the justices trying to provide an explanation to the country of why the court was taking this step at this time,” says Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes,“And that doesn't mean it will be a final decision.”
Still, the opinion has been a shock to activists on both sides of the battle over the future of abortion rights. Some of them spoke to national politics reporter Caroline Kitchener, who heard firsthand how abortion providers have been scrambling to make plans for a world after the fall of Roe v. Wade – and how antiabortion activists plan to push to ban abortion completely in the United States.
Transcript
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| 0:31.8 | Outside of the Supreme Court on Monday night, a crowd was gathering. Someone had leaked a draft of a court opinion to the news outlet Politico, and according to that draft, the Supreme Court had voted to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark case that guarantees a constitutional right to abortion. Our executive producer Maggie Pennman was there. |
| 0:59.8 | It's 11.15 pm and the crowd outside the court has just gotten bigger and louder over the last half hour. When I first got here, there were people who were here to celebrate. |
| 1:11.8 | Anti-bortion activists chanting, hey, hey, ho, ho, Roe v Wade has got to go. |
| 1:19.8 | It's emotional for a lot of them who have been fighting for life for decades. But they have been outnumbered and drowned out by the pro-choice activists who are chanting things like my body, my choice, and abortion is healthcare. |
| 1:36.8 | I immediately was reminded that the elephants have consequences. The time to stop this was, of course, in 2016, people didn't show up unfortunately in the numbers that we needed. |
| 1:48.8 | There are other activists who are here holding candles and looking at the court quietly and protesting in a different way. |
| 1:57.8 | I talked to one of them, her name is Sarah, and she told me she lost her mom in the last year, and that it's scary to face this without her mom. |
| 2:09.8 | I'm not animated by what happened. I'm deflated by what happened. I feel like in a way we've failed. I think I eventually, I have to move past that. |
| 2:24.8 | But I'm not there yet. I'm still feeling like a failure. |
| 2:31.8 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Martine Powers. It's Tuesday, May 3rd. |
| 2:39.8 | Today, we dig into the details of this leaked draft and how it could reverse 50 years of abortion access in the US. |
| 2:46.8 | Then, later in the show, we hear how this could play out in states across the country, including in blue states. |
| 3:00.8 | On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of this draft opinion. |
| 3:05.8 | He made it clear that this was not the final draft, and that they would be investigating the source of the leak. |
| 3:11.8 | Roberts called it, quote, a betrayal of the confidences of the court intended to undermine the integrity of its operations. |
| 3:19.8 | Yes, it's extremely unusual to see something like this while the court is still deliberating a case. |
| 3:27.8 | That's Bob Barnes. He covers the Supreme Court for the post. |
| 3:30.8 | And according to Bob, this moment was so shocking because we never see this kind of breach from inside the court. |
| 3:37.8 | We have had reporting after the fact about, for instance, votes changing or a justice sort of losing a majority opinion while she was writing it. |
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