Leaked threat to Roe v Wade stuns, then energises Americans

Protestors gathered in Indianapolis after the leak of a draft opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court would overrule Roe v. Wade. Photo / Jamie Kelter Davis, The New York Times

Opponents and supporters of abortion rights had expected for months that the Supreme Court would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, but the leaked draft opinion late Monday came as if out of the blue, setting off shock, outrage and jubilation on either side of the nation's deeply polarised abortion debate.

Activists took to the streets to declare their intention to fight harder, especially over control of Congress in this year's midterm elections. Candidates sought to raise money off the news. And in states that are poised to ban abortion or guard access to it, politicians and governors declared that they were ready to act.

Yet many Americans woke up stunned, not realising — and some still not believing — that Roe and the constitutional right to an abortion that it has guaranteed for five decades could disappear within a matter of weeks.

Connie Wright, a Des Moines, Iowa-area grandmother of eight, was getting ready for bed Monday night when her phone lit up with a friend's text about the leak. Searching online to confirm it, Wright fell to her knees. "I feel like this is something I've been praying for forever," she later said. "And that it was answered prayer. And I just kept thanking the Lord for these innocent babies' lives that are being saved."

Demonstrators outside the Supreme Court. Photo / Kenny Holston, The New York Times

Jordyn McFadden, a first-year law student at Washington University in St. Louis who was studying outside a Starbucks, said the draft ruling that suggests Roe v. Wade will be overturned made her see the Supreme Court as "tyrannical."

"Just another political body," said McFadden, 23, who is from New Hampshire. "It's insane to me that an unelected body can control the right" to have an abortion. "And after how many years of having the right to an abortion with Roe v. Wade? Now it's completely over."

For the people most involved, the leak was a call to action.

Bradley Pierce, who leads the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, was on his way to Louisiana to testify for a bill he helped draft there when he paused in an airport to do a Facebook Live post about the leaked opinion.

"We need to be putting political pressure on the court right now," he told supporters. "We need to keep introducing bills about abolition across the country. Don't let up."

On the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, Jamie Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, declared herself "shocked but not surprised." She had been at the court in early December, when the justices heard oral arguments in the case at issue, a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, well before the limit of viability established by Roe. Those arguments made clear that a majority of the justices — she called them "five radically anti-choice Catholics" — were in favour of overturning the decision.

"Last week we had polling that 30 per cent of Americans didn't think anything was going to happen to Roe and hadn't heard much about it," she said. "I hope today that number is zero."

"We're fighting a religious movement," she said, "we have religious ideology being codified into law, and we have to have people of faith rising up and saying, 'Not in our name.'"

Many Americans woke up stunned on Tuesday, not realising that the constitutional right to an abortion could disappear within a matter of weeks. Photo / Kendrick Brinson, The New York Times

Although there has not been an official ruling from the Supreme Court, governors were pushing ahead with the fight. Several Republican governors, including those in Florida and Virginia, condemned the leak, saying it was an attempt to whip up opposition to the court's decision and mobilise Democrats. In Oklahoma, Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican, signed a ban on abortions after about six weeks, modelled on a Texas law the Supreme Court has allowed to stand that relies on civilian enforcement, with bounties of at least US$10,000 for successful lawsuits against anyone who aids or abets an abortion.

Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. A Gallup poll in June found that 58 per cent of Americans were opposed, a figure that has been relatively unchanged for three decades. A Public Religion Research Institute poll last week found that 61 per cent oppose overturning Roe, and 36 per cent support it.

In Miami, Jamaica Rose, a 32-year-old chef who supports Roe v. Wade, was among those still doubting that the court would consider overturning it after so many decades.

"I don't see it as a realistic possibility," she said, even though she had heard the news the night before. "It's pretty longstanding and it has had a lot of support."

"It's something that's kind of ingrained," she said. "Individuality is huge for every American."

Near the city's Freedom Tower, a group of protesters was gathering, summoned by text messages from abortion rights groups and Democrats with news of the draft opinion.

"Especially in a country that stands for freedom — with the controversy when it came to masks and things like that — just infringing on a human right that has to do with the body just seems extremely hypocritical," said Amanda Lewan, 23, who had joined with two friends.

Over lunch at the Downtown Market in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Elyse Greene and a friend said they were shaken by the draft opinion and the idea that they might not have a right to an abortion.

"As an African American woman, it feels like my whole existence is being attacked," said Greene, who is 26. The draft decision made her worry about what the conservative majority on the Supreme Court might do next. "Once you start taking apart things that give humans rights, what will stop them from bringing back the Jim Crow era? What will stop them from taking away rights that African Americans have worked so hard for?"

Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. Photo / Caitlin Ochs, The New York Times

In South Jordan, Utah, Mary Taylor, leader of Pro-Life Utah, threw her phone across the room in excitement when a friend called her with the news. Utah passed a trigger ban in 2020, similar to laws in a dozen other states, that would almost immediately outlaw abortion with few exceptions if the Supreme Court overturns Roe. If that law takes effect, "We will be more on defence mode," said Taylor, 63. But, she added, "Our services are going to be needed more than ever."

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, Yvette Clark, 61, was trying to sort through what the leaked ruling would actually mean politically and for women in her state. Clark, a dance instructor who is active in her Catholic parish, described herself as "pro-life" but is not an activist, and said she had "an abundance of compassion" for women who have chosen an abortion.

"Does it mean abortion rights will go to the states or some states will allow abortions and some won't?" she wondered. "Louisiana already has strict abortion laws, so I guess they will be upheld. I'm a little unclear on what that all means."

She was cautiously in favour of a rollback of Roe v. Wade. "At the same time," she said, "I'm so tired of everyone yelling at each other and everything being such a huge fight."

When Christina Rodriguez first read the news over her morning coffee in Tucson, Arizona, she hoped it was misinformation, or some kind of mistake. Within a few hours, Rodriguez, 34, was preparing to attend an impromptu protest outside the federal courthouse Tuesday evening.

Rodriguez has worked as a field organizer for Democratic causes but is at home with her 2-year-old and anticipating the birth of her second son this summer. "It's absolutely imperative for my children, boy or girl, to make decisions about their own bodies," she said. "Now that that choice could be stripped away, it's scary."

The faces of Supreme Court justices at a protest in Manhattan. Photo / Caitlin Ochs, The New York Times

Even before the draft opinion was leaked Monday night, a coalition of national abortion rights groups had announced they would spend US$150 million to help elect allies up and down the ballot in the midterms this November. But Tuesday morning, they acknowledged that it had been hard to mobilize support among voters, or even convince sympathetic Americans that Roe was at risk.

The draft opinion, said Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, could serve as "a wake-up call."

But if overturning Roe was a victory for anti-abortion groups, they were not resting. Outside the Supreme Court, Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, who has frequently been arrested and has been the target of many lawsuits for his anti-abortion actions, said they would next push for a federal law prohibiting abortion.

"This is like D-Day for us," he said. "This is taking the beach. It is not the end of the war. We will make it to Berlin."

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Kate Zernike, Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham
Photographs by: Jamie Kelter Davis, Kendrick Brinson, Caitlin Ochs and Kenny Holston
© 2022 THE NEW YORK TIMES