- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
US faces seismic abortion shift, Biden backs 'fundamental' right
President Joe Biden called on American voters Tuesday to defend the "fundamental" right to abortion after a leaked draft suggested the Supreme Court is poised to strike down the longstanding decision protecting a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy.
The opinion by the court's conservative majority hit Washington like a thunderclap late Monday, setting up a potentially historic turning point on a hot-button issue that is now certain to dominate November's midterm elections.
If the draft is made official -- which could happen within months -- it would shred half a century of constitutional protections for abortion rights, and give free rein to Republican-controlled states which are already leading an all-out push to curtail the procedure.
Biden's Democrats stand broadly united in support of abortion rights -- and rallied immediately in defense of the watershed 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
While he cautioned the draft had not been verified, Biden said US voters will have to step up in defense of the right if the Supreme Court moves ahead.
"I believe that a woman's right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned," the US leader said in a statement.
If the draft proves authentic, "it will fall on voters to elect" officials who back abortion rights in the coming midterm elections, he said, vowing to work to pass legislation in Congress that codifies Roe v. Wade.
- 'Roe v. Wade is going to go!' -
Crowds of protesters from both camps descended on the Supreme Court building in Washington in the wake of Monday's leak.
On Tuesday morning, two opposing groups -- small but vocal -- stood shouting chants at each other, with anti-abortion activists yelling "Abortion is violence. Abortion is oppression" and "Hey Hey Ho Ho Roe v. Wade is going to go!"
In Roe v. Wade, the nation's highest court held that access to abortion is a constitutional right.
In a subsequent 1992 ruling, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court guaranteed a woman's right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, which is typically around 22 to 24 weeks of gestation.
Most developed countries allow abortions on request up to a gestational limit, most often 12 weeks.
Roe v. Wade makes the United States one of a handful of nations to allow the procedure without restriction beyond 20 weeks of pregnancy -- although many others allow it past that point for specific reasons.
Reproductive rights have been under attack in many parts of the United States as Republican-led states move to tighten restrictions, with some seeking to ban all abortions after six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.
In December, hearing oral arguments about a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks, the Supreme Court appeared inclined to not only uphold that law but to toss out Roe v. Wade.
Overturning the ruling would spell a massive victory for generations of Republicans who have fought tooth and nail to curb abortion rights, and would effectively leave the nation's 50 individual states to determine whether to protect or outlaw the procedure.
Striking it down "would be an answer to prayer," House Republican Jackie Walorski tweeted following news of the leak.
- 'Wrong from the start' -
The draft opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito and according to news outlet Politico has been circulating since February inside the court -- dominated 6-3 by conservatives following the nomination of three justices by former president Donald Trump.
Politico stressed the document it obtained is a draft and justices do sometimes change their votes before a final ruling.
Such a leak while a case is still pending is an extraordinary breach of Supreme Court custom, and Republicans have demanded an investigation into how the draft was made public.
The 98-page draft majority opinion calls Roe v. Wade decision enshrining the right to abortion "egregiously wrong from the start."
"We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled," Alito writes in the document, labeled as the "Opinion of the Court" and published on Politico's website.
"It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives."
The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research group, has said 26 states are "certain or likely" to ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Democratic governors of several states including California, New Mexico and Michigan swiftly announced plans to enshrine abortion rights into law even if the court overturns Roe, with California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeting: "Women will remain protected here."
J.Williams--AMWN