WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court’s nine justices will gather in private for their first scheduled meeting since the leak of a draft opinion that would overrule Roe v.
Wade and sharply curtail abortion rights in roughly half the states.The meeting Thursday in the justices' private, wood-paneled conference room could be a tense affair in a setting noted for its decorum.
No one aside from the justices attends and the most junior among them, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is responsible for taking notes.Thursday’s conference comes at an especially fraught moment, with the future of abortion rights at stake and an investigation underway to try to find the source of the leak.Chief Justice John Roberts last week confirmed the authenticity of the opinion, revealed by Politico, in ordering the court's marshal to undertake an investigation.Roberts stressed that the draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated in February, may not be the court's final word.
Supreme Court decisions are not final until they are formally issued and the outcomes in some cases changed between the justices’ initial votes shortly after arguments and the official announcement of the decisions.That's true of a major abortion ruling from 1992 that now is threatened, Planned Parenthood v.