Roe v Wade news – live: Biden vows to protect abortion rights amid Supreme Court threat

Joe Biden released the following statement on Tuesday claiming he would fight to codify Roe v. Wade into law. The statement was released in respone to a leaked draft decision showing the court aimed to overturn the landmark ruling.

“We do not know whether this draft is genuine, or whether it reflects the final decision of the Court.

With that critical caveat, I want to be clear on three points about the cases before the Supreme Court.

First, my administration argued strongly before the Court in defense of Roe v. Wade. We said that Roe is based on “a long line of precedent recognizing ‘the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty’… against government interference with intensely personal decisions.” I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned.

You can read the rest of the statement in Andrew Feinberg’s story below

An anti-abortion activist celebrated a leaked draft opinon that revealed that the US Supreme Court will overturn Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, saying his ultimate plan was to punish every abortion provider, including women who seek abortions (Eric Garcia writes).

Randall Terry, who leads Operation Rescue, is one of the most prominent anti-abortion activists in the United States. On the night that the draft opinion – initially leaked by Politico – showed at the Supreme Court building up with a group of anti-abortion protesters with a ukulele talking about dancing on the grave of Roe v Wade, the landmark decision that enshrined the right to an abortion.

Mr Terry spoke to The Independent about his plans, comparing it to D-Day in World War II.

“We will make it to Berlin and we will make it crime to kill innocent babies from conception ‘til birth in all 50 states,” he said. “Every abortionist here in America should be tried for the killing of innocent babies.”

Susan B Anthony List, an anti-abortion group, has welcomed reports that the US Supreme Court intends to overrule Roe v Wade.

The group’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement: “If the draft opinion made public tonight is the final opinion of the court, we wholeheartedly applaud the decision.

“The American people have the right to act through their elected officials to debate and enact laws that protect unborn children and honor women.”

The anti-abortion group is named after American suffragette Susan B Anthony, who it claims was opposed to abortion.

The group’s use Anthony’s name is controversial and the claim that she was anti-abortion has been disputed by historians.

The US Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in a Mississippi case challenging a state law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, presenting a major challenge to the landmark precedent established in the 1973 ruling in Roe v Wade, which enshrined consititutional protections for the procedure.

The Roe ruling effectively repealed laws that banned the procedure outright and sparked decades of religious and moral conflict over women’s bodies.

Alice Hutton explains the landmark ruling on abortion rights and what Americans stand to lose if it is overturned:

Pro- and anti-abortion activists gathered outside the United States Supreme Court after a leaked report indicated that the court would overturn the landmark Roe vs Wade case law.

Barricades were set up and police officers were deployed outside the court in anticipation of the protests, which began in the evening.

The Independent spoke to some of the protesters:

Roe v Wade protesters speak out about Supreme Court plan to drop abortion law

Britain supports the right for women to have access to safe and legal abortions, a spokesman for Boris Johnson said, after being asked about the reported decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade.

“My understanding is this comes from a leaked document rather than an official decision and of course, as you’d expect, it’s a matter for the US courts in general,” the spokesman told reporters.

“The UK fully supports women’s reproductive rights globally ... including the right to access safe and legal abortion.”

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, also weighed in on the report, writing on Twitter: “The right of women to decide what happens to our own bodies is a human right.”

Abortion is less of a divisive issue in the UK than in the US. YouGov polling in recent years has consistently found around 85 per cent of British adults support a woman’s right to have an abortion. Though Northern Ireland remains more restrictive than the rest of the UK, abortion laws were loosened there in 2019.

It is worth noting that the US public is also firmly in favour of the right, with 69 per cent of Americans saying Roe v Wade should be left as is.

There are 26 US states that would ban abortion if the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade as it is reportedly poised to, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research body.

The institute lists 22 states certain to ban the procedure either effectively, through unworkable time limits, or outright. 13 of these states have so-called “trigger laws” that would automatically enshrine anti-abortion legislation at state level if Roe were overturned.

Some states have introduced bans on abortion after six-weeks to their legislature but have not been able to enact the law due to challenges. A six-week ban is in effect in Texas and set to come into effect within weeks in Idaho.

Four states – Florida, Indiana, Montana and Nebraska – are thought likely to impose bans. The Guttmacher Institute said this is down to their historical opposition to abortion, recent legislative measures and the political composition of their state legislatures.

Several Republican senators have demanded a probe into the “unprecedented breach of confidentiality” after Politico reported a leaked draft majority Supreme Court opinion overturning abortion rights legalised through the landmark Roe v Wade ruling (Namita Singh writes).

The draft opinion appeared to have been authored by Justice Samuel Alito, and indicated that he, along with Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, voted to uphold a Mississippi law which criminalises termination of a pregnancy after 15 weeks.

Calling the leak an “assault” by the Left aimed at intimidating the Supreme Court, Missouri senator Josh Hawley tweeted: “The Left continues its assault on the Supreme Court with an unprecedented breach of confidentiality, clearly meant to intimidate. The Justices mustn’t give in to this attempt to corrupt the process. Stay strong.”

Republican governors have expressed their support for a reported Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, though several have condemned the leak to Politico.

Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota vowed to guarantee “the right to life” by opposing abortion.

Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama said she hope the 1973 decision would be overturned. “Tonight, let us say a prayer for life and that our justices remain steadfast in their convictions,” she tweeted.

The governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, also tweeted his support.

The decision was reported to have been backed by five of the six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, with the opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts not yet known.

Americans have called on Joe Biden to deliver on his promise to convert Roe versus Wade into a law as stated by him in 2019 in the run up to the presidential elections amid reports of a draft decision from the Supreme Court to overturn the landmark ruling (Arpan Rai writes).

“Roe v Wade is the law of the land, and we must fight any and all attempts to overturn it. As president, I will codify Roe into law and ensure this choice remains between a woman and her doctor,” Mr Biden had said in 2019 on Twitter.

Now politicians and celebrities have called on the president to act on his word: