Since the infamous leak of the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last month, Americans have waited with bated breath for the high court to issue its verdict on the constitutionality of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which federally legalized abortion in the United States.
Despite high expectations that the court would release its final Dobbs opinion—which is expected to deem Roe unconstitutional—on Monday SCOTUS instead issued a series of less contentious opinions, once again leaving millions of Americans in limbo. The high court is set to release more legal opinions on Wednesday, with notable cases pertaining to gun rights, school choice, and the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency also awaiting publication.
While the leaked Dobbs majority draft opinion striking down federally legalized abortion has generated enthusiasm from pro-life activists, the prospect of SCOTUS overturning Roe has pushed an already unhinged left to the breaking point. Since the draft’s publication in Politico, leftists have repeatedly shown up in droves at the homes of the Republican-appointed members of the court in order to harass and intimidate the justices into keeping Roe in place.
Last month, the left-wing activist group Shut Down D.C. organized a demonstration outside of Justice Samuel Alito’s Virginia home “because it’s been impossible to reach him at the Supreme Court,” with participants shouting phrases such as “our bodies, our voice!” and “Alito is a coward.” Threatening demonstrations have also taken place at the Virginia home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, with the radical pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us recently encouraging its supporters to target Barrett’s home, children, and church.
“If you’re in the DC metro area, join us. Our protests at Barrett’s home moved the needle to this coverage,” the group said in a tweet. “Falls Church is a People of Praise stronghold. She sends her seven kids to a People of Praise school that she sat on the Board of Directors for. She attends church DAILY.”
While possessing the power to arrest and charge demonstrators, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who himself was once a SCOTUS nominee, has instead chosen not to prosecute violators of 18 U.S. Code § 1507, which outlaws picketing outside a judge’s home “with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice.”
The most heinous of the left’s intimidation tactics, however, came last week when a deranged leftist was arrested outside the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh for planning to assassinate the judge for his purported support of overturning Roe. In addition to being buried by the New York Times, the story received no coverage by any of the major Sunday news shows on ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN.
President Joe Biden has also neglected to directly acknowledge the attempt on Kavanaugh’s life, with the only response from the White House being a statement from Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates that said Biden “condemns the actions of this individual in the strongest terms.”
John Roberts Has Failed His Fellow Justices
After the Dobbs draft opinion was released, Chief Justice John Roberts announced the launch of an investigation to find the individual who leaked the majority opinion to Politico. Not only has Roberts’ investigation cataclysmically failed to out the leaker and hold this person accountable for his or her actions a month later, the chief justice’s continued withholding of the Dobbs decision has concurrently endangered the lives of his colleagues.
As noted by Federalist CEO Sean Davis, Roberts “could issue Dobbs today and eliminate threats of violence to prevent its release,” but is instead “deliberately doing nothing.”
“What conclusions can be drawn other than that Roberts is fine with what the leak has wrought, and that he’s fine with the prospect of violence and assassinations precluding the release of a Dobbs release overturning Roe v. Wade?,” Davis said.
According to prior reporting, Roberts plans to oppose the overturning of Roe alongside the court’s Democrat appointees, with the chief justice allegedly attempting to sway Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh to join him.
Rather than releasing the Dobbs opinion as soon as possible, Roberts appears to be withholding the decision until the end of the court’s term, which would mean the ultimate fate of Roe wouldn’t be publicly known until late June or early July. If this is the case, such irresponsible and feckless decision-making indicates that Roberts is seemingly fine with the ongoing threats against his colleagues, some of whom (like Barrett and Kavanaugh) are parents of young children.
Just as his caving to public pressure on the court’s 2012 Obamacare case gave Democrats license to harass and bully SCOTUS, Roberts’ refusal to issue the Dobbs decision has opened the floodgates for a bevy of continued threats and acts of violence against sitting members of the court from left-wing anarchists until the opinion is released. If Roberts truly cared about the institution of the high court and the safety of his fellow justices, he would quit whatever political game he’s playing and release the opinion that could end the trigger for these threats to the justices and save millions of innocent babies across the country.