When is the Roe v. Wade decision expected?
It was released on Friday, June 24, 2022. Opinions are posted in 10-minute intervals and can be found here.
Update: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe on Friday, June 24, 2022. You can read the 6-3 decision here.
Technically, the abortion case is called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
On June 22, 2022, SCOTUS blog wrote: “The Supreme Court has added another opinion day this week. The court will issue opinions on both Thursday and Friday at 10 a.m. EDT. There are 13 cases that still remain to be decided.” However, when the decisions came down on Thursday, they did not include Roe. That has all eyes turning to 10 a.m. Friday.
The first case was released at 10 a.m. on the east coast, and it wasn’t Roe. It was Becerra v. Empire Health Foundation, For Valley Hospital Medical Center.
Here’s the court’s opinion day calendar. Only June 24 is remaining as an opinion day. The New York Post notes that the court could still add additional days. Thus, some people think the Dobbs decision will come down next week (the last week of June) because the court still has nine decisions to release, which is a lot for a single day.
Journalist Shannon Bream believes, if the decision does not come down Friday, it might happen Monday. “Monday is the ‘scheduled’ final day of the #SCOTUS Term, so we’d assume we’ll get opinions that day. It’s possible we don’t!” she tweeted, although Monday is not listed on the opinion day calendar yet.
SCOTUS
Nothing is listed in July 2022.
It was possible that the court would issue the Roe vs. Wade opinion on Thursday, June 23, 2022, but it did not do so. The court did issue four opinions on June 23, including a major decision on gun rights. The court goes into summer recess at the end of June or early July, according to The Independent.
Here’s what you need to know:
A Draft Opinion Authored by Justice Alito Indicated the Court Was Poised to Strike Down Roe
GettyAssociate Justice Samuel Alito sits during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on April 23, 2021.
In May 2022, a leak from an unknown person to Politico revealed that a majority of the justices were poised to strike down Roe v. Wade.
The draft opinion was authored by Justice Samuel Alito. It struck down the 1973 decision that found constitutional protection for abortion, as well as a 1992 decision upholding it, which is called Planned Parenthood vs. Casey.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in the draft opinion. It’s always possible that the reasoning given in the draft opinion and the votes for or against striking down Roe v. Wade have changed since that time, of course. No one really knows that question for sure.
What is Dobbs? It’s a case from Mississippi in which Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which provides abortions, sued the state because it bans abortions after 15 weeks without exceptions for rape or incest. The case revolves around whether it’s unconstitutional for states to ban or restrict abortion before fetuses are viable or whether those decisions should be left to the states. In other words, the core question is whether abortion is protected by the U.S. Constitution.
As of the morning of June 23, the court had 13 decisions left to release – among them, Roe vs. Wade, according to SCOTUS blog. Now the count is down to nine.
The Court Issued a Major Decision on Gun Rights Thursday June 23
GettyPolice officers walk toward the US Supreme Court as demonstrators gather in Washington, DC, on May 3, 2022.
Although Roe didn’t come down Thursday so far, a major gun decision did. You can read it here.
The decision struck down a law in New York that restricted concealed carry of guns outside a person’s home. According to CNN, it was the “widest expansion of gun rights in a decade.”
“Because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the decision.
The court also allowed Republican legislators in North Carolina to intervene in challenges to the state’s voter ID law, allowed a death row inmate in George to challenge the method of death, and limited the ability for people to sue police if they feel their Miranda rights were violated.
Response to the gun decision was heated.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul criticized the decision on Twitter, writing, “It is outrageous that at a moment of national reckoning on gun violence, the Supreme Court has recklessly struck down a New York law that limits those who can carry concealed weapons.”
President Joe Biden released a statement condemning the court’s decision. He wrote, in part,
I am deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Since 1911, the State of New York has required individuals who would like to carry a concealed weapon in public to show a need to do so for the purpose of self-defense and to acquire a license. More than a century later, the United States Supreme Court has chosen to strike down New York’s long-established authority to protect its citizens. This ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.
However, the National Rifle Association praised the decision in a statement, writing, “The National Rifle Association (NRA) welcomes the Supreme Court’s decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen. The Court affirmed that the right to bear arms does not stop at a person’s front door. This is the most significant Second Amendment ruling in more than a decade.”
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