Justice Samuel Alito of the Supreme Court claimed that the environment at the court had altered as a result of the leak earlier this year of a draft judgment overturning Roe v. Wade, which made conservative justices “targets for assassination.”
On October 25, Alito made his remarks during a discussion that was moderated at the Heritage Foundation in the capital. Alito received Heritage’s Defender of the Constitution Award at the conclusion of the discussion.
At the event, Alito also bemoaned the lack of free speech in higher education, claimed that using precedent to decide cases was overrated, and claimed that those who disagree with the Citizens United verdict, which allowed corporations to finance political elections, had misread it.
The leak occurred when the judges were deliberating their next move.
In an unprecedented leak of a whole Supreme Court ruling, an early copy of Alito’s proposed majority opinion in the Dobbs case made its way to the media. Politico released the Feb. 10 draft document on May 2 without mentioning where it came from. The court reversed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in every state, in both the draft and the final versions of the Dobbs ruling, which was released on June 24.
The Dobbs decision, which ruled that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, gave the states back control over abortion law. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, which held that a woman had the right to have an abortion prior to fetal viability without undue interference from others, was similarly reversed by the court in Dobbs.
