On Monday evening, Politico released an unprecedented report that contained an entire drafted opinion of the United States Supreme Court, which unequivocally strikes down Roe v. Wade.

Written by Justice Alito, the leaked 98-page opinion dismantles the Constitutional right to an abortion that Americans have held since 1973. One would think there would be robust public support for the Court to make such a monumental move, yet polling has consistently shown the opposite to be true.

Is the judicial branch utilizing its independence, or is it acting in direct opposition to the will of the people?

To begin, I can not overstate the support that Roe v. Wade has garnered in the almost 50 years since its creation. A 2018 poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal found that support reached an all-time high in the summer of that year, with 71 percent of Americans backing the historic case.

That sentiment is further proven by more recent data from the Pew Research Center and Gallup that shows support at 70 percent and 58 percent, respectively.

And these are not recent developments. Each poll shows that the public opposition to the overturning of Roe goes back decades, and two of the three show it has seen a long and steady strengthening.

Now, I recognize that the judicial branch is carefully crafted to be independent of the teeter-tottering of public opinion.

If the courts ruled according to the day-to-day sway of the public, we would have a legal system that would be impossible to navigate and govern. But as I just said, the public support for Roe has been a constant for decades at this point.

It is not an issue that the public has flip-flopped on, nor is there any indication that broad support for Roe is turning into opposition. What we now have is a court that is going to take away a Constitutional right against the broad and unwavering will of the people.

How is this possible? How did we find ourselves with a SCOTUS so out of touch with the will of Americans?

We got here because a man who twice failed to win the most votes in a presidential election was allowed to seat an incredible three justices. Someone who the majority of the country voted against installed a Court that is now taking away a Constitutional right from a nation that overwhelmingly wants to keep it.

It is an enormously frustrating development that I believe highlights some of the flaws within the core pillars of our system. This report has made it painfully clear that a system that allows the candidate with fewer votes to win an election has major consequences and can quickly move the government out of alignment with the people. 

But now it is time to start looking to the future. Which states will protect a women’s right to privacy? How will the country deal with the inevitable jump in poverty and later crime? It may be a new era in America, whether we want it to be or not.