Most of the Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court agreed last year to co-sign Justice Samuel Alito's draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade soon after they were shown the 98-page decision, according to a new report.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of three appointees of former President Donald Trump, was one jurist who quickly agreed to sign off on Alito's Feb. 10, 2022, written opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, doing so just 10 minutes after it arrived at his desk, according to an extensive report Friday by the New York Times.
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The high court typically assigns specific justices to write the majority opinions of cases after oral arguments take place, and the draft opinions are sent to colleagues to help negotiate changes and use their votes to shape the outcome.
Gorsuch made no edits to the opinion, according to two sources who reviewed messages from people close to the justices, the New York Times reported. The next day, Justice Clarence Thomas joined the draft opinion without requesting edits, followed by Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh joining just a few days later.
Barrett was the newest member of the high court at the time, having been confirmed to the bench on Oct. 26, 2020, and was also the fourth woman ever named to the high court. The New York Times pointed out in its report that in 2006, she signed a statement in a newspaper advertisement stating she was against "abortion on demand."
But she may not have always been eager to weigh in on Dobbs.
Barrett at one point reversed her decision to grant cert, or her vote to hear the case, as the high court considered whether to take up the Dobbs dispute. Despite retracting her initial vote, the case was able to gain four votes from other members of the court to grant the case for oral arguments.
Barrett's reason for the reversal was never made clear. But as a law professor in 2013, she had written a law review article outlining a dilemma over the appearance of partisanship on the high court.
“If the court’s opinions change with its membership, public confidence in the court as an institution might decline,” Barrett wrote 10 years ago. “Its members might be seen as partisan rather than impartial and case law as fueled by power rather than reason.”
The Dobbs decision undid 50 years of abortion access precedent set under Roe, which was only narrowly paired back once, after the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The upshot of Dobbs allowed dozens of Republican-led states to impose laws that set greater limits on abortions, in some cases banning the procedure just a few weeks into pregnancy.
Following a leak of the Dobbs draft opinion in May, public outrage ensued and led to protests outside the Supreme Court building. The outcry prompted Chief Justice John Roberts to erect a metal barricade around the perimeter of the building. Protests also targeted the homes of conservative justices for months after the leak, and Kavanaugh even received a serious assassination threat.
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Reports in the wake of the leak of the draft opinion last year revealed the severe rift that the unprecedented event caused, as well as how the leak made it even more difficult for justices to consider adjusting their co-signing of Alito's majority opinion out of concern they could appear to be bending to public pressure, according to CNN.
Public faith in the high court also dropped to historic lows, dipping below 40% approval in July 2022. A recent Marquette Law School survey found that the Supreme Court's job approval remains in the low 40s.