It seems like everyone and their brother (or sister) has an opinion about the recent leak of an United States Supreme Court draft opinion suggesting that Roe v. Wade would be overturned soon. And in the case of the Spy’s publisher, it is my brother-in-law who certainly has had his own thoughts on the matter. But unlike many, if not most, in-laws, Tom Metzloff actually does know what he’s talking about.
A former Supreme Court law clerk under Byron “Whizzer” White, a classmate at Harvard Law with now Chief Justice John Roberts, and a professor at Duke University School of Law since 1985, Tom has been a student of the Court his entire professional career. And over the years, I have always enjoyed the moments during family gatherings when he was willing to forgo his more typical commentaries on his historically long-suffering Buffalo Bills and talk about his day job.
One of those times was many years ago when Tom was the first to alert me that Roe v. Wade was considered to be severely, and potentially fatally, flawed by many legal scholars, entirely independent of whether they were pro-life or pro-abortion. While the majority of the Court had been successful so far in protecting the decision, Tom contended that a day might come when the constitutional protections of Roe v. Wade would face a serious challenge.
As everyone now knows, that day arrived a few weeks ago in the form of the leaked opinion by Justice Samuel Alito indicating that a majority of the Court would indeed vote to overrule the 1973 decision.
Rather than wait for another holiday gathering to talk about this stunning development, Tom agreed to sit down with me for the Spy newspapers using our long-form interview format to talk about the case, his related experience working at the Supreme Court, the now-famous leak, and the future of Roe v. Wade and the Court itself.
This video is approximately 15 minutes in length.
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