WASHINGTON (WV News) — The leak of a draft Supreme Court decision earlier this week indicating the high court is poised to strike down protections guaranteeing access to abortion procedures was an “egregious breach of security,” according to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.
Capito, speaking during her weekly virtual press call Thursday, said the leak of the draft opinion to Politico was “shocking.”
“I can never remember this happening,” she said. “I’m sure that whoever has done this, when they get to the bottom of it, will have a pretty high price to pay, and they should because of the breach of security. These are very closely held documents.”
The court’s decision is not yet final and could change, Capito said.
“It’s just a draft opinion,” she said. “So I think we should wait and see what the real opinion is, at, probably, projected into June, to see where the Supreme Court has gone and if there is any changes to that.”
The leaker may have been attempting to motivate liberal voters ahead of this year’s elections, Capito said.
“I think that’s the reason this was leaked; it was leaked to galvanize the left, because the president and his party are falling very short in terms of meeting inflation and trying to deal with the issues of immigration and others that are very important to the American people,” she said. “I think it’s a political move, but we’ll see what happens. Pro-life and pro-choice folks have just as much passion, so it’s hard to tell politically what the effect will be.”
Since the draft leaked, which indicates the court is leaning toward a 5-to-4 decision with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the minority, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has asserted she now feels former President Donald Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees misrepresented their stances on abortion during their confirmation processes.
Capito, who met with Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett before their respective confirmation hearings, said all three nominees indicated they would “have a strict interpretation” of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
“But I didn’t ask for a plain-out yes or no on this, because I knew I wouldn’t get that from the justices because they probably knew that at some point in their careers, they may have this question before them,” she said. “I know that Susan Collins has expressed her disappointment with the impressions that she had, (but) I wouldn’t say that either one of them went so far as to assure me that Roe will stay in effect, but they did assure me that they would look at a strict interpretation.”
In its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court interpreted the “right to privacy” guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment as protecting access to abortion procedures.