Caitlin Cruz, senior reporter at Jezebel, joins Cheddar News to talk about the leaked SCOTUS abortion ruling and the future of abortion rights in the U.S.

Between Bells

Draft SCOTUS Opinion Would Overturn Roe v. Wade

Welcome back to between bells everyone away of shock and emotion hit many abortion rights advocates after a leaked draft suggest the Supreme Court is poised to overturn roe v wade that legalized abortion nationwide. Now the Supreme Court verifying the authenticity of that leaked abortion opinion but says the decision is not final joining us now to discuss is Caitlin crews senior reporter at Jezebel. Welcome Caitlin. I'm so glad you're here. So this is unprecedented leak stunned Washington. Many of us in the country. You've been covering this for a while now. What was your first initial reaction to the news? Thanks for having me. I think the biggest reaction was the fact that a leak like this happened at all because while it's not unprecedented, you do have to go back a couple of 100 years but leaks like this at this stage do not happen. So the leak that the opinion that was leaked was labeled a first draft but it was incredibly complete and based on the fact of where we are in the calendar here, it's likely that what's happening is concurring opinions which is what are being circulated amongst the judges which are the justices, pardon me? Which means they're talking about how can we change this opinion? What do we think about this and kind of talking to each other and trying to rally votes right now. And so it's likely that this opinion is while it's a draft and doesn't change the law of the land right now is actually pretty can be pretty firm. So let's take a step back here, walk us through what this decision would mean if it doesn't become law Kaitlin for sure. So Samuel Alito has had a long history of not particularly liking abortion rights to put it very mildly. And so he's been on this tariff for a long time. And so in this opinion, he seeks to overrule roe v wade. The nine, the 73 decision that you mentioned, but also the 1992 decision planned parenthood v. Casey, which is what changed abortion jurisprudence a little bit and it's a bit in the weeds. But basically it uh prohibits people from making laws prohibiting abortion before viability bands. And that's kind of where all of The lawsuits that you see these days stem from, right, the 15 week ban, the six week ban, they all go back to the 1992 decision, and Samuel Alito wants to vacate both of those decisions, thereby sending abortion rights back to the states. So, we know pregnant people obviously are the most impacted here. But what what are these people going up against in states that have passed the so called trigger laws? Yeah, so a trigger law is a pretty scary thing if you're living in a state that's hostile to abortion rights. So usually the language in these laws specifically says when roe v wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, then abortion will be banned. So that depending on your state, that can mean immediately after this decision is announced or in some states, it's 30 days from the decision being announced. But either way, it means your access to abortion in your home state is no longer valid. So this was a 98 page draft signed by Justice Samuel Alito. Walk us through some of the points that he expressed in this almost 100 page document Caitlin. Yeah, definitely. So first he walks us through sort of the history that led up to the Roe V wade decision and he vehemently disagrees with it, saying that the right to an abortion is not mentioned in the constitution at all. And as a result, we shouldn't even be debating it at the Supreme Court, right. But the problem is is that roe V wade, it comes from a line of legal decisions that are based on the 14th Amendment, which are these these un enumerated rights things that we are still entitled to under personal liberty. And that's a long line of jurisprudence. And so he by saying that the 14th Amendment in this way is not a valid legal argument that opens up critiques to same sex marriage to anti sodomy laws um and just kind of just knocks down the uh dominoes of this kind of jurisprudence. And it's pretty scary. But in addition to that, Samuel Alito says that one of the things is because abortion is such a contentious issue that we shouldn't be looking to the Supreme Court for such a for such a resolution, which is just like silly because the Supreme Court is supposed to be the legal, the top legal minds of the land and it's supposed to be litigating just this. I'm so glad you mentioned that my colleague baker was talking about this a few moments ago, that the key part in Alito's argument is that an abortion is not an enumerated right written in the constitution, which has led many to wonder what that means. Like you mentioned to interracial marriage access to contraception, even same sex marriage, is that truly a potential concern here? Yeah, definitely. I think the we don't even have to go to uh anti miscegenation laws. So uh interracial marriage, we don't have to go to birth control. We have to look right now what's happening with trans rights for example, I believe it's Arkansas that making providing trans affirming healthcare is a felony. And so these are the trans rights are under that same umbrella. You know, trans people are not expressly mentioned in the constitution unless we were to pass a constitutional amendment. And so a lot of how we attack that personal liberty again, which is at the heart of this is not available right now. And so it's not even it's not something that's going to happen, I think is something we're missing out of this conversation. It's happening right now, trans people's rights are Under attack in southern states in particular, and it's under that same line of legal reasoning have about 30 seconds. But do you think Justin Justice Alito could keep his majority? And what would that mean ultimately Caitlin? Yeah, definitely. I think it's a real possibility this will happen. And what we're seeing is that chief Justice roberts is trying to keep a 15 week ban as like sort of the top end of what you could get an abortion at. And it's using that as the ability to say, oh, I'm not overturning roe v wade, but that is in essence like the actual ability of road to access an abortion when you want it. That is what is at stake. And either way it looks like abortion truly is on a is on the countdown clock Caitlin crews, Senior reporter Jezebel, Fantastic reporting, Caitlin. Thank you so much.