They're doing some weird live-posting thing where new paragraphs bury the old ones, so here's the text:
Foreign officials and observers have expressed surprise at the news coming from the US Supreme Court.
A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that while the issue should be decided by the US, the UK - where abortions are legal until the 24-week mark - "defends the productive rights of women globally".
Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, tweeted that "the right of women to decide what happens to our bodies is a human right".
In Spain - where abortions are broadly legal until 14 weeks of pregnancy - a senior government official said that the overturning of Roe v Wade would be "an alarming step back with terrible consequence for American women".
"We need to continue protecting sexual and reproductive rights, in the US and in all the world," said Yolanda Diaz, the country's second deputy prime minister.
In Canada, commentator and political consultant Warren Kinsella wrote in the Toronto Sun that the overturn of Roe v Wade would have "big Canadian political consequences".
"Abortion is the ultimate political wedge — one that mobilizes most Canadian women, of all stripes, to vote to maintain control over their bodies," he wrote. Article share tools
It's fascinating to see the US Gov't described in the same language that has been/is currently levied against, say, Saudi Arabia banning women from driving. I get the sense most Americans haven't noticed how much international perception of us has shifted in the last few years.
I saw this floated by a former liberal SCOTUS clerk. On one hand, I'm not super keen to trust a liberal to understand power. But I do think a former clerk, lib or no, is likely to understand how the processes work.
According to them, it's been the strategy of liberals in the court to use this time to negotiate to make bad decisions slightly slightly less bad, which is just pathetic enough that I'm completely willing to believe it. Because of that, they think that liberal clerks would see leaking this as counterproductive to their whole strategy. You would also expect a lib to have leaked this back in February, when it would have first dropped- the timing of how this actually went makes it likely that this was in response to Roberts having written a separate opinion that still overturns Roe, but does so in a less complete way. That would still be enough to overturn it, but this person guessed that Roberts's opinion would have been enough to make Kavanaugh waver- not enough to sign on with Roberts, but enough to want to soften the majority opinion slightly.
interesting points.
so the idea there is that Roberts plus Kav could agree in the judgment but write separately, leaving the other conservatives with only a plurality opinion, meaning, probably, that the holding of the case is the narrower articulation by Rob/Kav, yes?
I believe that's the idea, yeah
EDIT: Oh wait, no. What this person suggested was that Kav wouldn't actually sign on with Roberts, but that Roberts's argument would sway him enough to argue to lighten the majority opinion slightly