Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v. Wade
On Feb. 10 last year, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. showed his eight colleagues how he intended to uproot the constitutional right to abortion.
At 11:16 a.m., his clerk circulated a 98-page draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinize it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.
But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes, according to two people who reviewed the messages. The next morning, Justice Clarence Thomas added his name, then Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and days later, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. None requested a single alteration.
The author of the brief that transformed Dobbs into a full assault on Roe, Scott Stewart, the newly appointed solicitor general of Mississippi, was a former law clerk who, like many others, maintained close ties to the court.
The month it was filed, Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia, held a gathering for his former clerks and their families at a West Virginia resort. Mr. Stewart, who had worked for the justice from 2015 to 2016, was among them. He had attended reunions in previous years, and now he was about to argue his first case — one of surpassing importance — before his former boss and the other justices.
Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford law professor who helped represent the abortion clinic in the case, was struck when he read Mississippi’s brief. “The state’s going for the jugular,” he remembers thinking. “This is it.”
On Feb. 10 last year, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. showed his eight colleagues how he intended to uproot the constitutional right to abortion.
At 11:16 a.m., his clerk circulated a 98-page draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinize it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.
But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes, according to two people who reviewed the messages. The next morning, Justice Clarence Thomas added his name, then Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and days later, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. None requested a single alteration.
The author of the brief that transformed Dobbs into a full assault on Roe, Scott Stewart, the newly appointed solicitor general of Mississippi, was a former law clerk who, like many others, maintained close ties to the court.
The month it was filed, Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia, held a gathering for his former clerks and their families at a West Virginia resort. Mr. Stewart, who had worked for the justice from 2015 to 2016, was among them. He had attended reunions in previous years, and now he was about to argue his first case — one of surpassing importance — before his former boss and the other justices.
Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford law professor who helped represent the abortion clinic in the case, was struck when he read Mississippi’s brief. “The state’s going for the jugular,” he remembers thinking. “This is it.”
