Well the Supreme Court Bill has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft, majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, circulated inside the court but then leaked. The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed guaranteed federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood versus KC, that largely maintained the right, Roe was egregiously wrong from the start, Alito rights. You know Bill, there have been times I thought that Roe v. Wade would never be overturned, but according to this leaked opinion from the Supreme Court, it looks like this is about to happen. Well, one can only hope that that is the case. From what I've heard, five of the justices at least are in support of Alito's opinion. And as you said, Kevin, it repudiates the legal reasoning behind Roe v. Wade as well as the KC versus Planned Parenthood decision. And so it looks as though this could be returned to the states to decide in that this Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade will be overturned. And like you, Kevin, I was hopeless that this might ever happen. I remember back in the 1980s, Pundits, saying, why don't these pro-life people just give it up? This is never going to be overturned. All of these efforts are in vain. It's a futile effort to try to do this. And yet the pro-life cause never gave up. They stayed in the trenches. And now it appears that victory for them may be on the horizon. It really is a breathtaking development. And I have to say as well, Kevin, this is the legacy of Donald Trump's presidency. Three of the five justices were appointed by Trump that are apparently ready and willing to overturn Roe v Wade. And so this shows the enduring impact of that man's presidency. Now as I think about this leak, Kevin, it seems to me that there are three issues, independent issues that need to be talked about. One would be the leak itself. Second would be the constitutionality of Roe v Wade. And then the third would be the ethics of abortion on demand. And I think it's important that we keep these distinct because whether or not you're in favor of abortion on demand, that's quite independent of whether or not the road decision was good legal reasoning, was it good constitutional law, and yet many people because they are so pro-abortion on demand automatically think that therefore rho was good constitutional law and that simply doesn't follow. And Bill, that leaked opinion is 98 pages long. So there's no way we're going to be able to cover all of that. It's pretty hefty reading. And we're also going to talk a little bit more about the danger of court documents being leaked. But first, let's get you to comment on a couple of the excerpts from the court opinion. Here are two right here. Quoting, for the first 185 years after the adoption of the Constitution, each state was permitted to address this issue at a courtence with the views of its citizens. Then, in 1973, this court decided Roe v. Wade, even though the Constitution makes no mention of abortion, the court held that it confers a broad right to obtain one. And then, secondly, at the time of row, 30 states still prohibited abortion at all stages. And the years prior to that decision, about a third of the states had liberalized their laws, but row abruptly ended that political process. It imposed the same highly restrictive regime on the entire nation and it effectively

struck down the abortion laws of every single state. Yeah, what the decision did was it interrupted the political process and took the decision away from the people and imposed abortion on demand on the nation as a whole and And as Alito says here, it invents this right to abortion on demand and reads it into the Constitution, which I think we can confidently say, was never envisioned or implied by the original framers of the Constitution. So the road decision is very widely recognized to be just bad constitutional law. Even if you're in favor of a portion on demand, you ought to recognize that this is not something that is guaranteed in the United States Constitution. Here are two more excerpts. Quoting, we hold that role and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of row and Casey now chiefly rely, the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. And that's quoting Washington verse Guxberg. He's quoting the case there. The right to abortion does not fall within this category of deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition. And until the latter part of the 20th century, such as a right was entirely unknown in American law, indeed, when the 14th Amendment was adopted, three quarters of the states made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy. Yeah, can you imagine that? 75% of the states made abortion a crime at any time during pregnancy. And so clearly this right is not deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition, and therefore cannot be inferred to be implicit in the Constitution, even if it's not explicit. And listen to this excerpt. Quoting, the abortion right is also critically different from any other right that this court has held to fall within the 14th Amendment's protection of liberty. Rose defenders characterized the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different as both

Roe and Casey acknowledge because it destroys what those decisions called fetal life and what the law now before us describes as an unborn human being. Oh boy, what is in a description? a rovy-wade described, the unborn baby as fetal life.

But the... boy what is in a description that Roe v. Wade described the unborn baby as fetal life but the law before the court now talks about unborn human beings and he's quite right this sets it apart we're talking about the right to destroy human life without any overriding moral justification for doing so. Roe v. Wade legitimizes abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. And is therefore, I think, profoundly evil, which is to speak to the ethical question, but Alito's point here is that this is very different from other constitutional cases. Bill, this may be the most strongly worded excerpt, quoting, Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. His reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Row and Casey have inflamed debate and deep in division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives. The permissibility of abortion and the limitations upon it are to be resolved like most important questions

in our democracy by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting. He quotes another case there. This is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand. These are such powerful words, aren't they? So the overturning of Roe v. Wade does not outlaw abortion. What it does is it returns the issue to the people and to the states. And if this is done, undoubtedly there will be a wide variety of state laws governing the regulation of abortion. Just a couple more excerpts, Bill, real quick. This one says, row, however, was remarkably loose in its treatment of a constitutional text. It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned. Yeah. So you've got one right that is not mentioned, and that unmentioned right is supposed to imply another right also unmentioned. And all of this is just the fabrication of this activist court in 1973. This sexer on occasion, when the court has ignored the appropriate limits imposed by respect for the teachings of history, it has fallen into the free-wheeling judicial policy making that characterized discredited decisions such as Loch Niver's New York, and the Constitution must not fall prey to such an unprincipled approach. Instead, guided by the history and tradition that map the essential components of our nation's concept of ordered liberty, we must ask what the 14th Amendment means by the term liberty. When we engage in that inquiry, in the present case, the clear answer is that the 14th Amendment does not protect the right to an abortion. Yes, exactly. And again, what Alito is saying is that the court in the past has notoriously, infamously, made some very bad decisions, and then those decisions have been overturned. So in a sense, it is following precedent in overturning here an egregiously weak decision that was rendered. Bill, you mentioned this earlier, but I'll give you a couple of quotes here from an article in First Things that says that a leak is very dangerous. It says, quoting a potentially shattering event, both because of the leakers probable motives and the leaks probable effects. Most likely, the leakers set out to intimidate one or more the justices and affect the outcome of the case. Alternatively, the leaker hope to destroy the court as an institution, in the approving phrase of one progressive commentator to burn this place down. The long-term consequences of the leak may be severe. In particular, the article says, after this episode, justices will feel less secure about confidentiality in their deliberations and think twice about what they put in drafts. The work of the court will inevitably suffer. That is what makes this leak so damaging. However, one feels about the ultimate issue at stake. Now, this is that first question I alluded to. whatever you think again about the Roe v. Wade decision or its ethics, these kinds of leaks are intolerable. It wasn't just some notes from Justice Alito that were leaked. This is an entire Supreme Court opinion on a case, an opinion that will be either agree to or descended from by the other justices. And this thing has been leaked to the public prior to its final vote. And it's absolutely essential that these kinds of things be done privately on the court

so that there can be a free-wheeling exchange of ideas among the justices as they debate

these issues and see if they can agree with the opinion or dissent from it. It is disastrous

for the working of the court for this kind of material to be leaked. And whoever did this needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If one of the other justices did this, then I think that justice should be impeached because this is intolerable. If it was a law clerk who did it, then that clerk needs to be found out and needs to be fully prosecuted. And I say that regardless of your view of whether or not the decision over turn, Roe v. Wade is justified. These kind of leaks cannot be permitted. And I think it is scandalous that the current administration has not said anything to date to protest this violation of this most sacred of our judicial institutions the Supreme Court. Bill, as we wrap it up today, I wonder what you think. I know a cost for a little speculation. If Roe v. Wade is overturned in the upcoming decision, what do you think the effects will be on society? What will it mean for our country? And maybe I could ask it this way, what do you hope that it would do? Well, my hope is that it would save thousands and thousands of lives that women contemplating, having an abortion will choose instead adoption or to have the baby after all and work things out. That would be my hope is that this will be a truly life-saving measure. But you know what, Kevin? I predict that after the initial kerfuffle and the heat of this thing dies down that people will just learn to live with it. I think that in a year's time it won't be all that big a deal because people have an amazing ability to simply adapt to whatever the Supreme Court decides. That's been the pattern in the past. And so women living in states that prohibit abortion will probably try to go out of state if they can to get an abortion. And the liberal states, like New York and California, will continue to have their liberal abortion on demand laws. So I doubt that there will be a tremendous change, but it does mean that the pro-life movement will now move to the state level. It means that we've got to care a lot more about not just who is our federal representative or senator but who is it that we're electing to our state legislature because these will now be the men and women that are deciding on the legality of abortion on demand in our own personal states. We'll be watching this case and updating.

Thank you Bill.