Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats, speak to reporters about a news report by Politico that a Supreme Court draft opinion suggests the justices could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 3, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Chuck Schumer
WASHINGTON — The text of a Supreme Court opinion and even the justices’ votes can change, sometimes dramatically, between the time they take a first vote on the case during a private conference following oral arguments and when the decision is announced.
That happened in the 1992 abortion case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which ended up reaffirming the right to an abortion.
Initially, as Evan Thomas recounted in his recent biography of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, it seemed there were five justices willing to overrule Roe v. Wade. But in late May of that year, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote to his colleague Justice Harry Blackmun, himself the author of Roe v. Wade, that there had been some developments in the case.
Three justices — Kennedy and O’Connor and Justice David Souter — had been “meeting secretly to save a woman’s right to abortion,” Thomas wrote.
“The Troika, as they became known, was cobbling together a joint opinion” that would lead to the preservation of Roe, he wrote. All three justices have since retired.
—Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
