so it is possible there had been some changes since then but it is our best understanding at least where the court stood at that time which is about two and a half months after arguments in this pivotal mississippi abortion case. you report, josh, and again, forgive me if i get these details wrong, as i am learning this as we re talking about it but you report that the court majority here is established, that there are at least in the initial conference between the justices after the arguments, there were five votes on justice alito s reported side here, and the only ambiguity, the only question is whether or not justice roberts would make it a 6-3 decision or a you a 4 5-4 decision if he sides with the more liberal members of the court. what you can tells about your reporting about the numbers and how the two sides align and whether that is a matter of some fluidity.
with josh and his colleagues at politico, that it is a work report, whether or not it is revised before it is ultimately published. the bottom line here is that this is, this would appear to be the day that, i mean i was born in 1973, which is when roe v. wade was passed, in my entire life, women have been talking about the day that this will come. and that roe v. wade could be overturned and that the united states would become a country in which abortion was treated as a crime. and it was the government, was the state, that is allowed to decide whether or not men give birth, it is the state that is allowed to force women to bring unwanted pregnancies to term, even if they, for the world s most, greatest reasons, don t want to do it. putting the government in control of women its lives in this way of women s lives in this way changes something fundamental about who we are as a country and who we are as a
supreme court and politico, strike down the landmark roe v. wade decision, the draft opinion is a full unflynning repudiation which guaranteed constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision, planned parenthood v casey which largely maintained the right. roe was egregiously wrong from the start. we hold that roe and casey must be overturned. it is time to heed the constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people s elected representatives. which as chris was mentioned, which means returning it to the states and then more than two dozen states, what are called trigger laws, which would immediately render abortion a crime, immediately upon the supreme court issuing such a ruling. as josh reports along with his colleague alexander ward at politico tonight, the immediate impact of the ruling would be to end a half century
y, because it s different, and yet it often does get applied that way. but there s no question, he s trying to keep this confined to the issue of abortion. and of course, that s funny, that s telling itself, right, that you would be willing to say, it s just about abortion and not about anything important, don t worry, tells you the frame of mind of, the frame of mind behind people who would make this kind of a change. let me ask you about one last piece of this, josh. since we ve been on the air, since we received your reporting tonight, since you published, we, on my show, have contacted four former clerks for supreme court justices, all of whom uniformly told us that the document that you published tonight appears to be a legitimate work product of the court, meaning it just matches in form, style, and texture of the kind of product that they as clerks were used to seeing as a draft majority opinion.
apple. none of that is surprising but to have this draft opinion on the internet is shocking. it is shocking as you said and as we started discussing here, it is shocking both in substance and also shocking in terms of what it means about the court, and what it means about the stakes here that someone was willing to do this. it is just a remarkable thing. chris, thank you for handling as legitimately breaking, sort of overwhelming breaking news. i m going to pick this up right now, including with the reporter who just broke this story. thank you, my friend. thank you. before i bring on josh, the reporter who just broke this story at politico, let me just summarize once again this breaking news that chris hayes and i are both doing our best to respond to. the headline at politico .com right now, breaking in the last few minutes is this, united states supreme court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows. according to an initial draft majority opinion rin by j