What Would Striking Down Roe v. Wade Mean For The Midterms?
2022 Elections,Abortion,Supreme Court,Politics,Roe V Wade,Elections,Democratic Party,Republican Party
Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): It’s possible that Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established the constitutional right to abortion, is about to be overturned.
Late on Monday, Politico published a draft Supreme Court opinion that indicates a majority of the court’s conservative justices are ready to overturn Roe. There’s still a lot we don’t know at this point, including whether this opinion has changed — the draft Politico obtained is dated Feb. 10, and Supreme Court opinions often involve multiple drafts and revisions — or who leaked it. (Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement Tuesday that the draft was authentic, but that it “does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member.”)