An establishment media effort last month, derided as attempting to gin up political backlash over the United States Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) overruling Roe v. Wade, failed to intimidate conservative justices.
SCOTUS on Friday overruled Roe in a 5-4 ruling in the Dobbs case, finding the Constitution does not include the right to an abortion. The case returns the issue of abortion to state legislatures.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for SCOTUS in the case, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh filed concurring opinions.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, while Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by former President George W. Bush, filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.
Seated from left: Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Standing from left: Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett pose during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on April 23, 2021. (ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
In May, an early draft of Alito’s opinion was leaked to Politico. The historic breach was the first such leak of a full opinion in the 233-year history of SCOTUS. The leak did not make clear how Roberts would rule in Dobbs but noted that Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan were drafting a dissenting opinion.
Immediately following the leak, Roberts ordered an investigation into how the leak occurred and to find who, precisely, leaked the draft opinion to Politico.
The leak was derided as an effort to intimidate SCOTUS’s conservative majority and led to violent protests across the U.S. In a little over a month, 23 pro-life organizations were vandalized or firebombed by leftist pro-abortion activists as a result of the leak.
In one case, a Catholic church in Colorado was vandalized by pro-abortion activists.
Vandals in Colorado desecrated a Catholic church with pro-abortion messages in the wake of Politico publishing a leaked SCOTUS decision overruling Roe v. Wade. (Twitter/Catholic News agency)
Likewise, following the leak, a man has been arrested for allegedly plotting an assassination attempt on Kavanaugh. He pleaded not guilty in federal court this week. The alleged assassination attempt came as pro-abortion activists have continued protesting outside of the homes of justices.
Since Roe was handed down in 1973 in a 7-2 decision, holding that the Constitution includes a constitutional right to abortion, the National Right to Life Committee estimates that at least 63.4 million unborn babies have died as a result of an abortion in the U.S.
Worldwide, abortion continues to be the leading cause of death, with nearly 43 million killed across the globe in 2021 alone. In comparison, the Chinese coronavirus killed about 3.5 million people in 2021.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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