Supreme Court draft opinion would overturn Roe v. Wade

When Chief Justice John Roberts announced Tuesday that the Supreme Court will investigate the release of a draft opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade, he kicked off what will likely be one of Washington’s most unusual leak investigations in recent years.

According to the draft authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the court would overturn Roe’s holding of a federal constitutional right to an abortion.

Roberts called the release “a singular and egregious breach” of trust and said he’s “directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.”

It’s unclear, however, how much experience that office has in conducting a probe such as this.

Here’s what we know so far about the draft opinion and the investigation:

When was the draft opinion published and what does it say? The draft opinion was published Monday evening by Politico and was later authenticated by the court. In it, Alito says Roe was “egregiously wrong from the start” and “must be overruled.” 

It appears that five justices would be voting to overturn Roe. Roberts did not want to completely overturn Roe v. Wade, meaning he would have dissented from part of Alito’s draft opinion, sources tell CNN. That would mean that the five conservative justices who would make up the majority overturning Roe are Alito and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

What did Roberts say? Roberts, who has long tried to preserve the court’s independence and reputation, said in a statement that the court “will not be affected in any way” by the leak.

“Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court.” 

“I have directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak,” he said.

Who is the marshal of the Supreme Court? The marshal of the Supreme Court oversees about 260 employees, including the court’s police department, which has the power to arrest people on the grounds of the court. The current marshal is Col. Gail A. Curley, who began serving as the court’s 11th marshal in 2021. 

It’s unclear what investigative resources the court’s marshal has and how much experience employees have in finding the source of a leak. If the marshal finds evidence of a possible crime, the court can ask the Justice Department to prosecute someone. 

Who had access to the draft opinion? Typically, the people with access to such a document would be the nine justices and the people working in their chambers, including their clerks and staff — nearly 50 people in all. 

Why didn’t Roberts ask the Justice Department to investigate the leak? 

Roberts has long guarded the independence of the third branch of government, keeping the legislative and executive branches, which include the Justice Department and the FBI, out of the court’s affairs. His decision to have the matter handled — at least initially — internally by a force he controls underscores that desire. 

A former leader of the US Marshals Service, the agency responsible for judicial security beyond the confines of the Supreme Court, told CNN it would be unlikely that Roberts would ask an executive branch law enforcement agency to investigate the leak, noting the court is not an organization that enjoys outsiders peering in.

The source also described the marshal of the Supreme Court as differing from traditional law enforcement, describing that role as more like a chief administrative officer with oversight of a police department. 

What crime is at play? It’s unclear what crime could be investigated and whether the FBI and the Justice Department have the authority to look into a leak that doesn’t have to do with classified or sensitive information. 

Moreover, after leading politically sensitive investigations of presidential candidates and a sitting president in recent years, Justice Department and FBI officials are loath to get the bureau involved in what may end up being a political effort to try to affect the outcome of the court’s final opinion in the case. 

“Leaks of government information, by themselves, are not crimes,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst who’s a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. “Usually, leakers are prosecuted for leaking classified information, which this isn’t, or for offenses related to how they obtained the information they leaked.” 

“But without one of those hooks, or some kind of financial harm to the government arising from the leak, there’s no federal criminal statute that makes leaking of simply confidential governmental information unlawful,” Vladeck added. 

Read more about the investigation here.

Vice President Harris said if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will be a “direct assault on freedom.”

“Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women… Well, we say, how dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body?” Harris said during remarks at Emily List’s Gala Tuesday about the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion. “How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future?”

She received raucous applause.

Harris dedicated a majority of her remarks to the issue, reminding the crowd about a back and forth she had with then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh while Harris was a senator during his confirmation hearing. Harris mocked his answer when she asked if he can think of a law that governs men’s bodies.

Harris then echoed President Biden, when she called for Emily’s List to help the administration elect pro-choice Democrats to Congress.

“If there was ever any doubt about why Emily’s List is important, last night makes the point,” Harris said. “There is nothing hypothetical about this moment. Let me be clear. This fight requires the work of this very organization, Emily’s List, to elect pro-choice Democrats to Congress.”

Harris said it was clear that there is one party working to expand rights and another working to limit them.

“They want to take us back to a time before Roe v. Wade, back to a time before Obergefell v. Hodges, back to a time before Grunewald v. United States but we’re not going back! We are not going back!”

In a rallying call towards the end, Harris said now is the time to enter a “new phase” of the fight that women have already been on the front lines for.

“Democracy cannot be strong if the rights of women are under attack. So to all here, I say, let us fight for our country and for the principles upon which it was founded and let us fight with everything we have got,” she added. 

In a stunning breach of Supreme Court confidentiality and secrecy, Politico obtained what it called a draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would strike down Roe v. Wade.

The draft was circulated in early February, according to Politico. The final opinion has not been released and votes and language can change before opinions are formally released. The opinion in this case is not expected to be published until late June.

The court confirmed the authenticity of the document Tuesday. It also stressed it was not the final decision.

News of the draft opinion sparked reactions across the country. Demonstrators for and against Roe v. Wade gathered in front of the Supreme Court.

Here’s a look at some scenes from outside the court today:

Hundreds of pro-abortion and anti-abortion protestors gather outside the Supreme Court.

Pro-abortion demonstrators hold up photographs of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts during a protest in Foley Square.

A woman holds a sign saying "Human rights for all human beings born + pre-born."

Roberta Shapiro, left, and Kim Fellner demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building

Pro-abortion and anti-abortion demonstrators confront each other outside the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Compelling.” “Comprehensive.” “A tour de force.”

Abortion opponents saw everything they have hoped for in their decades-long partnership with the broader legal conservative movement in a draft Supreme Court majority opinion disclosed Monday that, if ultimately adopted by the court, would end nationwide abortion rights protections for Americans.

With all the caveats that the draft is not final and the vote count of a majority willing to overturn Roe v. Wade could always change, prominent members of the conservative legal world were thrilled with the approach that Justice Samuel Alito took in the document obtained by Politico after it apparently had been circulated among the justices in February.

Politico published the draft opinion Monday night in a stunning breach of the norms of secrecy that surround the Supreme Court’s inner workings. Assuming the court was following its typical protocols, the justices would have privately taken a vote on their views on the abortion case in question — a lawsuit, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization challenging Mississippi’s 15-week ban — after its December oral arguments. Then a justice in the majority would have been assigned to take an initial stab at an opinion.

Until a formal opinion is released — likely in June — it will remain unknown how many more edits and changes to Alito’s reasoning will have been made to shore up a majority, or even if a majority will remain behind overruling Roe.

But longtime leaders of the anti-abortion movement gave full-throated approval of where Alito apparently wanted to take the court.

“If this is the opinion of the Court, it will be one of the greatest opinions in Supreme Court history,” Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley tweeted.

The 98-page document, which included 30 page appendix of 19th-century state abortion laws, was “compelling,” according to prominent anti-abortion lawyer Jim Bopp, and “seems to have hit every possible issue.”

“There are various parts that will … appeal to certain justices or people,” Bopp, who has served as the National Right to Life Committee’s chief lawyer since 1978, told CNN.

Alito called the Supreme Court’s 1973 holding in Roe — which, coupled with a 1992 decision affirming it, protects abortion rights nationwide up into fetal viability — ” egregiously wrong from the start,” of “exceptionally weak” reasoning and a decision that has “had damaging consequences.”

That biting language against Roe comes after Chief Justice John Roberts had floated, during December oral arguments, a compromise route that upheld the Mississippi law while somehow avoiding reversing Roe outright. (Lawyers for both sides in the case rejected the idea that the court could rule in Mississippi’s favor without dismantling Roe.)

“Roberts at oral argument at least was … open to the idea of a middle ground. And Justice Alito’s draft definitely draws a line short of that,” said Adam White, a Roe critic and legal scholar at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute.

Read the full story here.

As developments surrounding the Supreme Court’s draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade continue to unfold, in Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a new law Tuesday to restrict abortions in the state. The legislation is modeled after the Texas law that allows private citizens to bring civil suits against people providing abortion services, the governor tweeted Tuesday. 

Under Senate Bill 1503, civil lawsuits can be brought against abortion providers for up to $10,000. Abortions would be banned from the point of detectable fetal activity, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Abortion would be allowed to protect the life of the mother.

The bill was passed with an emergency provision, meaning it goes into effect immediately.

Stitt already signed Senate Bill 612, which would ban nearly all abortions and is set to go into effect in August. It would make performing an abortion a felony punishable with up to 10 years in prison. Neither law would provide exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest.

The bill comes as people around the country are reacting to a leaked draft opinion on Roe v. Wade from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

According to the draft, the court would overturn Roe v. Wade’s holding of a federal constitutional right to an abortion. This would be the most consequential abortion decision in decades and transform women’s reproductive health in America.

The final opinion has not been released, and votes and language can change before release. The opinion in this case is not expected to be published until late June.

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, how would that impact you and your community? Please leave us a voicemail at 612-314-3042 and let us know your thoughts.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James Tuesday responded to the draft Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, calling the decision an “egregious attempt to overturn abortion rights.”

James continued: “I have long fought and will keep fighting for reproductive freedom in New York and states across the country because our democracy is strongest when every voice is heard and protected. I will never quit fighting for equality, justice, and the right for all people across the country to have full control over their own bodies.”

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama have released a joint statement on the draft Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, stating that if it becomes final “it will relegate the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues.”

The statement continued; “Few, if any, women make the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually — and people of goodwill, across the political spectrum, can hold different views on the subject. But what Roe recognized is that the freedom enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution requires all of us to enjoy a sphere of our lives that isn’t subject to meddling from the state — a sphere that includes personal decisions involving who we sleep with, who we marry, whether or not to use contraception, and whether or not to bear children.”

Democrats had been struggling to find their midterm footing amid bad polls and rising inflation — but now are rallying around an issue they hope will turn around their fortunes: Abortion.

With no chance of successfully passing a bill, they are pleading with voters to send them more senators to change filibuster rules and codify a woman’s abortion rights.  

But they face a daunting environment nonetheless.

“We will vote to protect a woman’s right to choose,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised on the Senate floor Tuesday despite the fact Democrats don’t have the votes to pass such a law.

But in the wake of the stunning Supreme Court leak that showed a majority of justices voting to overturn the landmark abortion decision, Democrats are grappling with the tenuous reality of their 50-50 Senate: a fractured majority that leaves them no options to enshrining abortion rights in law and instead gives them only the power to keep it in the spotlight ahead of the November elections.

While some Democratic candidates are calling on senators to expand the Supreme Court or gut the filibuster to protect Roe v. Wade, neither of those options stands a chance of passing in the 50-50 Senate.

“The 50-50 Senate sucks,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, lamented Tuesday, adding it was her goal to try and get more Democrats elected that would back abortion rights in the future.

For now, leaders are looking to force votes on abortion rights that will put members on the record and keep the issue in the headlines. It may be the best – and only – path forward for a Democratic Party that has struggled to keep voters enthusiastic ahead of the midterms.

“We are discussing this point what our next move is,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois. “There is no decision about expanding the court in the early stages here, but there is a discussion about floor action.”

But floor action will also expose long-established rifts in Democratic ranks. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, doesn’t back a law that codifies abortion rights for women.

In February, he voted with Republicans against advancing the Women’s Health Protection Act, which protects the rights of women to access abortion in the US. And both Manchin and Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema reiterated Tuesday they would not back any action to gut the filibuster for abortion or any other issue.

Democrats still see a path, however, to use the Supreme Court decision to turn out their base at the polls. Democrats are hopeful it could be a swift turn of fate for a party that has been struggling to rally behind a singular and cohesive message ever since efforts to pass the President’s sweeping social agenda plan faltered in December.

“The simple fact is that poll after poll show that Americans do not want to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. “I think it will spark outrage, anger, astonishment and a lot of votes.”

Read more here.

CNN’s Morgan Rimmer and Ali Zaslav contributed to this report.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer railed against Republicans for refusing to “own up” to how their actions may now contribute to overturning Roe v. Wade.

“I cannot tell you the outrage I feel at this decision and the outrage I feel that Republicans who did it won’t own up to it and duck it. It’s despicable,” Schumer said at his weekly policy presser on Tuesday.

The New York Democrat responded to GOP Leader Mitch McConnell being asked at his weekly policy presser by CNN’s Manu Raju whether he takes personal credit for getting Roe repealed, “and he wouldn’t even answer yes or no,” he said.

Raju asked Schumer whether he regrets the decision of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg not to step aside from the Supreme Court and Democrats not urging her to do so, as Justice Amy Coney Barrett is likely in the majority to strike down Roe. “I’m not going to second guess Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” he said.

Schumer reiterated his intention to hold a vote “very soon” on legislation to codify the right to an abortion, which currently has no path forward in the 50-50 split chamber. 

The majority leader declined to comment on the legislation of GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine to codify Roe, saying he hasn’t seen it.

Asked about his statement accusing some Supreme Court justices of being liars, Schumer said: “When asked about Roe v. Wade, they said they follow precedent and on issue after issue they are no longer following precedent that was misleading the American people and we are many instances in the private interviews when they talk to people just the same. They were true misleading.” 

Schumer dodged the question of whether Democrats should look more seriously at expanding the Supreme Court.

“Our first step is to have the vote that we’re going to have next week,” he said. “And the bottom line is that we’re going to look to these elections in November and I think it’s going to be the American people (that) are going to speak loudly and clearly that we need some change. We cannot have a right wing court run America. How that changes we’ll have to see.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said that abortion access in the state will remain “legal and safe” as long as he is governor.

Wolf added that he will continue to veto any legislation that threatens access to abortion in the state.

“Any decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is an assault on the right to access safe, legal abortion services,” Wolf said in a news release on Tuesday.

Wolf is expected to hold a news conference Wednesday to further discuss the impact of the draft US Supreme Court decision might have on the state.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One for travel to Alabama from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Tuesday, May 3.

President Biden, his chief of staff Ron Klain and other senior advisers huddled this morning at the White House before the President left for Alabama to discuss the extraordinary news that broke overnight of the Supreme Court draft opinion on Roe v. Wade and to craft the statement that Biden ultimately released in the morning.

And now, Biden’s team is already looking ahead to what this news will mean for Democrats heading into the midterms, with one Biden adviser telling CNN that they expect and hope the news will result in many people channeling their “energy and rage” into voting for candidates who are supporters of ​legal abortion rights in November.

The adviser pointed to young people, people of color, women, independents and suburban women as groups that they expect the opinion draft to galvanize. If social issues have largely been “abstract” so far, “this is no longer going to be abstract,” the adviser said. “This is going to be real.”

The adviser cautioned that the development doesn’t change the fact that Democrats face significant “headwinds” heading into November. But this Supreme Court draft opinion will now be one of the several issues that Biden and other top officials discuss publicly, as they attempt to draw a contrast between Democrats and “the MAGA Republicans,” the adviser said.

When Biden met with his top advisers this morning, one concern they discussed was what the draft opinion might signal about the ultimate final ruling’s reach, beyond just the issue of abortion. “It is far reaching,” the adviser said.

Biden signaled as much when he spoke to reporters this morning, saying: “If the rationale of the decision as released were to be sustained, a whole range of rights would be question.”

Jim Obergefell holds a photo of his late husband John Arthur as he speaks to members of the media in June 2015 outside the US Supreme Court after gay marriage was legalized.

After the draft of a majority opinion on a Supreme Court case was leaked, revealing the court would strike down Roe v. Wade, Jim Obergefell says he is worried that his landmark US Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage across America could also be in danger.

While his immediate reaction to the draft opinion was that “this is a dark day for women in our nation,” he said it was quickly followed by the worry that “marriage equality is next.” 

“Many of the rights we enjoy, especially the LGBTQ+ community, are based on unenumerated rights under the 14th Amendment — the right to privacy,” he explained. “If the Constitution doesn’t specifically, in writing, outline that right to privacy, then all of those rights that have been affirmed for us that are based on the right to privacy under the 14th Amendment are at risk.”

He told CNN he hoped the bombshell leak spurs people on the sidelines to vote.

In a statement released Tuesday, Obergefell also said that the most basic human rights are “under siege.”

Earlier today, Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, also said she fears that if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it might lead to the overturning of other key privacy decisions including Obergefell, which legalized same-sex marriage.

CNN’s Lauren Fox and Sarah Fortinsky contributed reporting to this post.

A draft opinion published by Politico on Monday and written by Justice Samuel Alito appears to have the support of four other Republican-appointed justices. Things could still change, but the draft eviscerates Roe v. Wade and would overturn decades of law founded on privacy rights. 

If Roe is overturned, it might come as a complete shock if all you’ve watched is Supreme Court confirmation hearings for the past generation, when obfuscation by nominees on the issue of abortion was elevated to an art form.

Justice Alito: At his confirmation hearing in 2006, Alito promised to respect precedent and keep an open mind on abortion cases and to respect stare decisis, the legal principle by which precedent takes on increasing importance.

He tried to separate himself from a memo he wrote in 1985 as a lawyer in the Reagan administration, in which he said the Constitution did not protect a right to an abortion. He may now hand down that decision as a Supreme Court justice.

Justice Thomas: Years earlier, in 1991, then-nominee Clarence Thomas told senators he hadn’t given the issue of Roe v. Wade much thought. As a confirmed justice, he pretty quickly turned into a major critic of the decision and has long pushed for it to be overturned.

Justice Gorsuch: He said Roe was the “law of the land,” saying the decision held that “a fetus is not a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment.”

Sen. Dick Durbin asked Gorsuch if he accepted that.

“That’s the law of the land. I accept the law of the land, senator, yes,” Gorsuch said.

Justice Kavanaugh: Like Alito, Kavanaugh had also written a memo as a government lawyer in which he expressed doubt about the precedent of Roe. But at his confirmation hearing, he said he understood it.

Justice Coney Barrett: At her confirmation hearing to take over for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she would set aside her personal opposition to abortion in order to follow the law as a judge. 

Barrett would not say if she felt that Roe was correctly decided, according to CNN’s analysis at the time, but she did acknowledge that Roe “held that the Constitution protected a woman’s right to terminate pregnancy.”

Chief Justice Roberts: He may not vote with other Republican-appointed justices to fully overturn Roe v. Wade, but he has appeared open to affirming a Mississippi law that would restrict abortion in that state to 15 weeks of gestation. 

At his 2005 confirmation hearing, he said Roe was entitled to respect as a precedent. Unlike Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch, Roberts has not pushed as a justice to reconsider Roe.

Read the full analysis here.

The White House didn’t weigh in directly on whether the President would support getting rid of the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade, instead pointing to the last vote on legislation that would ensure the legality of abortion. 

“The President’s position is that we need to codify Roe, and that is what he has long called on Congress to act on,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.

“What is also true,” she continued, “is that there has been a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would do exactly that, and there were not even enough votes, even if there was no filibuster, to get that done.”

That vote came before there was a renewed push to pass the act in light of the leaked Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

President Biden was asked about getting rid of the filibuster himself earlier on Tuesday but declined to say one way or the other.

“I’m not prepared to make those judgments now,” Biden said, as CNN’s Jasmine Wright reported. “You know, I think the codification of Roe makes a lot of sense.”

The leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion “raises eyebrows” among many, including individuals in the White House, Psaki said.

“Because this is unprecedented – or almost unprecedented, depending on what historian you speak to — there’s no question that that raises eyebrows for many in the country, including those of us in the White House,” Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Alabama.

“But what our focus is on right now, beyond the leak, is how we’re going to protect a woman’s right to make choices about her health care with her doctor – a right that is supported by the vast majority of the American public. And some call it a political issue. It is not. It is supported by the majority of the American public,” she continued.

Vice President Kamala Harris said that now is the time to “fight for women and for our country with everything we have” in her first statement since news of the draft opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade leaked.

President Biden earlier told reporters that he thinks codification of Roe v. Wade “makes a lot of sense.” While Harris did not address the issue in her statement, she said it’s clear that those who oppose the law “want to punish women” and take away their rights.

Harris, the first female vice president of the United States, also echoed statements from Biden that with this draft opinion, “the rights of all Americans are at risk.”

“If the right to privacy is weakened, every person could face a future in which the government can potentially interfere in the personal decisions you make about your life. This is the time to fight for women and for our country with everything we have,” Harris added.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski asks a question during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on May 3.

GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski told reporters on Tuesday that if a draft opinion by the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade is accurate, “it was not the direction that I believed that the court would take”

Asked how this impacts her thinking about future nominations, Murkowski said: “I haven’t processed that yet.”

Murkowski later added that if the Supreme Court draft ruling striking down Roe v. Wade is accurate, “it rocks my confidence in the court.”

“The comment that I made earlier was if in fact this draft is where the court ends up being … the words that I used is it has rocked my confidence in the court and that is because I think there was some representations made with regards to precedent,” Murkowski said to reporters, noting she’s specifically referring to the comments that “were made to me and to others about Roe being settled and being precedent.”

What we know: The Supreme Court in a statement confirmed the authenticity of the leaked document but noted that it does not represent a decision in the case.

Chief Justice Roberts called the leak a “singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.”

The Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade Tuesday, stressing that it was not the final decision.

An official Supreme Court opinion striking down Roe v. Wade in the United States would reverberate around the world. It would firmly counter a global trend towards freer access to abortion and place the US in a very small club of countries that have moved to restrict access in recent years.

Several states have already chipped away at the availability of the procedure; if swathes of the US are allowed to end it entirely, the country would become home to some of the strictest abortion laws in the Western world.

Currently, the US is one of 56 countries where abortion is legal at the request at a woman’s request, with no requirement for justification, according to the World Health Organization.

It is generally in the company of other Western nations, since few developed countries ban or heavily restrict access to abortions. Of the 36 countries the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs defines as developed economies, all but two — Poland and Malta — allow abortions on request or on broad health and socio-economic grounds, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which campaigns for improved access to abortion and monitors laws worldwide.

But an end to federal protection of abortion would see parts of the US join that list. It would also push against a global tide that has seen many nations, including those on the United States’ doorstep, liberalize abortion laws in recent years.

Last year, Mexico’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional, in a decision impacting precedent for the legal status of abortion nationwide.

The US’ northern neighbor, Canada, is one of the few countries which allows abortion at any point during pregnancy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has criticized moves in US states to make abortions more difficult to access.

Most European Union nations — including those in the G7 — allow abortion with gestation limits, the most common being 12 weeks, according to monitoring charities including CRR. Exceptions after that period are usually permitted on certain grounds, such as if the pregnancy or birth poses a risk to the mother’s health.

Japan, alongside countries like Finland and India, makes provisions for abortion in cases of rape or risk to the woman’s health, but also on wider socioeconomic grounds.

Among comparative democracies to the US, Australia’s laws have been among the most similar. As in the US, access to abortion varies in each Australian state and territory — and until recently, some regions criminalized the procedure.

Read more about other countries’ policies on abortion here:

A crowd of people gather outside the Supreme Court, early Tuesday, May 3, 2022 in Washington. A draft opinion circulated among Supreme Court justices suggests that earlier this year a majority of them had thrown support behind overturning the 1973 case Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a report published Monday night in Politico. It's unclear if the draft represents the court's final word on the matter. The Associated Press could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the draft Politico posted, which if verified marks a shocking revelation of the high court's secretive deliberation process, particularly before a case is formally decided. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Related article Scrapping Roe v. Wade would make the US an outlier in the West. Here's how it compares on abortion rights | CNN

Sen. Joe Manchin defended his vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, telling CNN this morning “I based it on the facts I had in front of me,” adding, “He was not – I did not see – the claims that were made against him were not substantiated in anything I saw, so I thought it was unfair. He was very well qualified.”

Asked if he’d vote for him again today, the West Virginia Democrat added, “I vote for people that basically, I think, have the qualifications that they’re asked to do.”

Pressed on if his support for the Senate filibuster was unchanged, Manchin replied, “The filibuster is a protection of democracy.”