What's Going On With Roe v Wade (5/3/2022 - 2:45am EDT)
On the night of 5/2/2022, Politico released a leaked draft abortion opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative justice on the Supreme Court, that would overturn Roe v. Wade--this was a majority opinion, meaning that, in a preliminary vote, at least 5 justices had voted for it.
A majority of the Supreme Court (at least 5 of the 9 members) are currently voting on the side of overturning Roe v. Wade. Given that the conservatives have a super-majority (6 members) on the court, this is not a huge surprise. Justice Stephen Breyer is the one who will be voting on this, not Ketanji Jackson Brown. This will make no difference in the vote--they are both liberal votes.
If the result of this vote holds, Roe will be overturned. The New York Times covers what the end of Roe would mean (likely behind a paywall, you can likely get around that by using Incognito mode).
Someone leaked this opinion. That is very small compared to the massive impact of Roe potentially being overturned, but in the history of the Court it is a huge deal. Whoever did this is incredibly brave and will most likely lose their job and their career from this.
That the Supreme Court has released a decision. June is the last month of the Supreme Court's term, and it's when they release a lot of their decisions, especially the major ones. This was a leaked draft opinion.
That Roe has been overturned. Again, no decision has been released, and the vote is not final.
That this means that abortion will become illegal nationwide. You can look at the NYT explanation above, but in summary, there are 13 states with "trigger laws" which will make abortion illegal if/when Roe is overturned, and there is an estimate of somewhere between 24 and 26 states that will ban abortion if Roe is overturned.
That the majority of the country wants this. Based on basically every recent poll I can find, the majority of the country opposes overturning Roe, including many Republicans.
The Women's March is calling for nationwide protests on 5/3/2022 at 5pm local time. (not sure if there's alt text on the image, but the tweet it's replying to links to the details)
As of 1:30am EDT people had gathered outside of the Supreme Court. Barricades have been up in front of the Court since a scientist self-immolated in front of the Court on 4/24/2022 to bring attention to climate change.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer (D-NY) put out a statement condemning the draft opinion.
There will almost certainly be a huge amount of movement on this in the next few days and weeks, including a resources on what you can do to help support reproductive rights in the United States.
New York Times: Live reporting
Women's March: Info on 5/3/2022 protests
Planned Parenthood