BMJ | May 17, 2022
Read the PublicationOn 2 May 2022, Politico published a leaked draft of a US Supreme Court opinion overturning the 1973 landmark case establishing a woman’s constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability (Roe v Wade). The leaked opinion concerned a current case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, challenging a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks’ gestation, except in medical emergencies or the case of severe fetal abnormality. In it, the highly conservative Justice Samuel Alito said, “the Constitution makes no reference to abortion.”