Tucker Carlson reminded Joe Biden that he once voted against Roe v. Wade as he slammed whoever was behind the leak of the draft SCOT...
Tucker Carlson reminded Joe Biden that he once voted against Roe v. Wade as he slammed whoever was behind the leak of the draft SCOTUS judgment to overturn it.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson called out the President for previously voting to allow individual states to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
'Joe Biden has always supported legal abortion, but nine years after the Roe decision was handed down, he was still willing to admit it was indefensible as a legal decision,' Carlson said.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson called out the President for previously voting to allow individual states overturn Roe v. Wade
In 1982, the then 39-year-old senator supported a constitutional amendment to the ruling, citing his Roman Catholic religion for his support
President Joe Biden vowed the White House would be 'ready' whenever the Supreme Court did deliver an opinion on Roe v. Wade
'Pregnant women, Biden explained in 1982 as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, should not have "the sole right to say what should happen" to their unborn children, because, after all, no one creates children alone. It takes two people. That's obvious,' Carlson continued.
'In fact, Biden concluded Roe had gone 'too far.' And of course, it had gone too far. That was obvious then. It's obvious now. Then, as now, many Americans believe that abortion is murder. Many other Americans consider abortion a prerequisite to happiness,' Carlson added.
In 1982, the then 39-year-old senator supported a constitutional amendment to the ruling, citing his Roman Catholic religion for his support.
'I'm probably a victim, or a product, however you want to phrase it, of my background,' Biden said at the time, calling the decision 'the single most difficult vote I've cast as a U.S. senator.'
But the bill never made it to the full Senate, and when it came back up the following year, Biden voted against it and has since supported women's rights to abortion, the New York Times reported.
Now Justice Samuel Alito, one of six justices appointed by Republican presidents on the nine-member court, wrote a majority draft opinion in February repudiating both Roe and the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey decision.
Pro-life and pro-choice demonstrators gather in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on May 3
The court is expected to issue a decision by June. The draft opinion calls the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision 'egregiously wrong from the start'
There are 18 states that have near-total bans on their books, while four more have time-limit band and four others are likely to pass new bans if Roe is overturned
'Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,' Alito writes in the opinion, which was reportedly circulated among the court members and leaked to the public on Monday. 'We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,' he continues in the document, titled 'Opinion of the Court.'
'It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives.'
Carlson celebrated the potential upending of Roe, which he called 'the most embarrassing court decision handed down in the last century,' but slammed whoever was behind the leak of the draft opinion.
'It's not for public consumption,' he said. 'A final official decision on Roe is supposed to be months away and yet an unnamed liberal operative short-circuited this ancient process, which has worked well for hundreds of years. This person leaked the opinion and not by accident.'
The opinion draft - originally obtained by Politico - was written by Justice Samuel Alito, one of the six justices appointed by Republican presidents on the nine-member court
According to Carlson the leak was an effort to pressure conservative justices to not go through with overturning Roe.
'The point of leaking the opinion was to intimidate conservative justices into reversing course. Mob justice,' he wrote. 'Now, if you're shocked by that, you shouldn't be. Remember that it's not so different from what we saw this January when another unnamed liberal operative leaked the news that Justice Stephen Breyer was planning on retiring, and that news for Stephen Breyer to retire, which liberal operatives wanted him to do because he was a White man.'
Alito's draft does not necessarily represent the sentiments of other justices who did not pen the opinion, but it's been suggested that the court's 5-3 conservative supermajority will likely deliver on the historic reversal.
The Supreme Court confirmed the draft was authentic in a late Tuesday morning statement but defended it as 'a routine and essential part of the Court's confidential deliberative work,' nor does it 'represent a decision by the court or the final position of any member.'
'To the extent this betrayal of confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way,' Chief Justice John Roberts said in the statement.
'We at the Court are blessed to have a workforce -- permanent employees and law clerks alike -- intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law. Court employees are an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the court.'
Roberts announced that the court would open an investigation into the source of the leak.
Conservatives throughout the country celebrated the news of a Supreme Court draft opinion that is set to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case - but have denounced the leak as an attempt to 'intimidate' the justices into changing their minds.
Hours after the leak Biden said women have a 'fundamental' right to an abortion and called on American voters to 'elect pro-choice officials this November'
He also pledged the White House would be 'ready when any ruling is issued.'
Biden reasserted his position after the leak was confirmed, telling reporters just before boarding Air Force one that it was 'really quite a radical decision' and 'a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence.'
The president also said it could regulate all the decisions in an American's private life such as 'who you marry, whether or not you decide to conceive a child or not, whether or not you can have a abortion, a range of other decisions.'
Less than 12 hours earlier, the Democratic leaders of Congress released a joint statement blasting the leaked opinion as an 'abomination' and accusing the high court's conservatives of 'ripping up the Constitution.'
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then took to the Senate floor and delivered a searing rebuke echoing his Monday night statement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and announcing the Senate will hold a vote on federal abortion legislation -- after a similar effort tanked earlier this year.
It comes as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other conservative lawmakers cheered the potential ruling, while calling for investigations and even criminal charges for the source of the historic leak.
'I just got a call saying that it's been announced that it is a real draft but it doesn't represent who's gonna vote for it yet. I hope there are not enough votes for it,' Biden said of the drafted opinion, which does not represent a final decision by the court.
Referencing his career on the Senate Judiciary committee, which included the torpedoed confirmation hearings of right-wing former Solicitor General Robert Bork, Biden continued: 'It's the main reason why I worked so hard to keep Robert Bork off the court, it reflects his view almost -- almost-- anyway, look. The idea that -- it concerns me a great deal that we’re gonna, after 50 years, decide that a woman does not have the right to choose.'
'Equally profound is the rationale used -- it would mean that every other decision relating to the notion of privacy is thrown into question.'
'If the rationale of the decision as released were to be sustained, a whole range of rights would be in question,' Biden continued. 'If it becomes a law and if what is written is remained, it goes far beyond the concern of whether or not there is the right to choose. It goes to other basic rights.'
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