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The U.S. Supreme Court did not issue a ruling on Monday in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, prolonging for at least one more week the official decision in the case expected to overturn the right to an abortion.
“The justices released decisions in multiple cases Monday, but Dobbs was not among them. There’s now approximately a month left in the court’s current term. A ruling in Dobbs is expected to come by either late June or early July,” Fox News reported.
“The court ruled in three cases Monday. One was a bankruptcy law case involving a trustee for the defunct tech store Circuit City, another was a Florida-based case on Medicaid and a third was a labor dispute involving Southwest Airlines and a worker who wanted to sue the airline over allegedly lacking overtime wages rather than go to arbitration,” the report added.
“The Dobbs case stems from a dispute over a Mississippi law which bans abortion after 15 weeks. Argued in December, the case is seen as the biggest test yet for how the new 6-3 Republican-appointed majority on the court – capped with the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 – will handle major controversial issues,” the report continued.
The looming decision comes as Supreme Court officials ramp up their search for the source of the leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
The nation’s highest court has taken a slew of actions since the leak, including requiring law clerks to provide cell phone records and sign affidavits.
CNN’s Joan Biskupic provided an update on the Supreme Court’s investigation to identify the leaker:
First of all, remember, this is the most important case of this term, the most important case in many years: the potential to roll back a half-century of abortion rights, and privacy rights. Midway through the negotiations over this case, a draft document was leaked, as we all know, it was leaked from last February. So not only did the public see where the court was headed, to roll back Roe v. Wade, but also it so seriously disrupted negotiations among the justices in terms of where they were actually going to head by the end of June. Chief Justice John Roberts launched an unprecedented investigation four weeks ago, four weeks ago today. Apparently, that has made absolutely insufficient progress, I would say, and they have taken this new step to have clerks sign affidavits.
I’m not sure exactly of the wording, but there would be a denial of any responsibility — and also starting to lay the groundwork for obtaining cell phone data. Now, I should tell you that this private draft went to not only the nine justices, their law clerks — each has four apiece — and then probably about a dozen other people in the Supreme Court building, it goes both electronically and hand-delivered to the chambers. You know, a lot more people could have had this inside the courthouse, but then also if anybody brought it home, the potential for other people obtaining it is great. So they’re focusing on law clerks right now, but we don’t know — at least from the outside — whether it would definitely be a law clerk, it would be somebody else, a full-time employee, anybody else who came upon this, unlikely a justice.
WATCH:
The Supreme Court will soon deliver the official ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the highly anticipated abortion case that could overrule Roe v. Wade.
A draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico earlier this month and it set off a firestorm on social media.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
“We, therefore, hold the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Alito writes in the document, labeled the “Opinion of the Court.”
Soon after Alito’s draft majority opinion leaked, it’s assumed there were at least 5 votes in favor of overturning Roe v Wade, leaving state legislators to weigh their own abortion policies.
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz also offered his opinion of who he believes the “leaker” could be.
