On May’s first Monday night, Politico, a political journalism company, leaked a draft that implied that the Supreme Court was moving towards overturning the infamous Roe v. Wade case.  

To keep it simple, the Roe v. Wade court decision establishes federal protection for women’s right to participate in abortion. The decision was ruled under the American right to privacy, liberty guaranteed by the 14th amendment. 

The decision to overturn this case will grant state governments to make their own legalities on abortion. . The breach of privacy regarding the supreme court decision is extremely rare. While there have been a small number of leaks in history concerning how some outcomes may be theorized, this is the first time a serious compromise of the court’s work has been breached. 

However, this is not the first time a court has had a leak concerning this case. Coincidentally, in 1973, the original Roe decision was breached before the ruling was announced. Time magazine published the results of the court decision a few hours before the delayed official announcement came out from the Court. 

With the leak of the supreme court draft opinion, there have been arguments that these leaks of privacy should be considered crimes that should be investigated by the FBI. There have been arguments that the leak of the draft isn’t just a breach of privacy, but a crime against documents owned by the United States. In debate, the drafts are not for the officials to leak as the drafts belong to the country. 

There has also been speculation about whether the leak came from those who oppose the draft, with the purpose to gain a majority opinion to put pressure on Congress. Currently, the leaker’s purpose in leaking the court decisions seems to have been meeting the speculated goal, as there have been a number of protests and gatherings in response to the draft. 

Since it is the first time in history a breach of Congress of this scale has occurred, chaos has ensued. Security has been questioned, and the illusion of confidentiality that Congress has maintained has been undermined. It will be interesting to see Congress’s plan of action for the future after this breach of privacy.