Dear Reader,

What’s that sound? Yes, that sound. That drip drip drip sound. Sounds like a leak to me! 

I’m just messing with you. But if you’ve been even remotely sentient for the last year, you know about the leak heard ‘round the world.  For those of you who were otherwise occupied, let me recap. On May 2nd, just a month or so before the Supreme Court was scheduled to end its term—and issue a slew of opinions on its major cases—Politico breathlessly reported the leak of a draft of one of those opinions. And not just any draft opinion. It was the draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to a Mississippi abortion law that gave the Court’s newly constituted conservative super-majority its first clear opportunity to overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that first recognized the right to choose an abortion. 

And as the leaked draft opinion made clear, the Court’s conservative super-majority was making the most of this opportunity. Written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, the draft opinion not only upheld the challenged Mississippi law, it went even further, overruling Roe and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the twin pillars of nearly 50 years’ worth of the Court’s abortion jurisprudence.