Here’s what’s unprecedented about the Supreme Court’s coming reversal of abortion rights

The shocking leak Monday of a draft of a Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe v. Wade confirms what we have suspected was coming. What’s more surprising is that someone at the court took the unprecedented step of giving Politico a draft of a decision before it was officially released. Even in a city known for its leaks, one of this magnitude has never come out of the court.

The draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, could not be more emphatic in overruling Roe. It declares: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

What will it mean for Roe to be overruled? The opinion says abortion will be left to the political process. Initially, this means it will be left to each state to decide whether to allow or prohibit abortion.

In California, abortion will remain legal. There’s no statute prohibiting abortions in the state, and, politically, it’s highly unlikely that one would be enacted. Moreover, the California Constitution explicitly protects a right to privacy, which has been held to protect a right to abortion.

But many other states have laws that prohibit all or virtually all abortions. Alabama, for example, has a law that outlaws abortions from the moment of conception. Other states have laws that prohibit abortions from early in pregnancy, like a Texas statute the forbids abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. Many of these laws have no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

Some of the laws on the books say they will go into effect if Roe is overruled. Once Roe is overruled, more states will adopt such laws.

Women in these states who want abortions and have money will travel to places where abortion remains legal. But poor women and teenagers will yet again face a cruel choice between an unsafe, back-alley abortion and an unwanted child.

Congress, however, could enact a law creating a right to abortion — or a law outlawing all abortions. Indeed, there is a precedent for such congressional action. Nineteen years ago, Congress enacted the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which criminalizes a particular form of abortion nationwide.

A Democratic Congress might try to protect the right to an abortion, but Senate Republicans are sure to filibuster such a bill to prevent it from being enacted. When a Republican president and Congress are in place, they are sure to try to enact a law forbidding all abortions — and a Republican Senate might be willing to end the filibuster to do so. Laws in California and other states allowing abortion would then be preempted by federal law.

Ironically, Alito’s draft opinion laments political fights over abortion even though overruling Roe will enormously intensify those battles. In every state where judges are elected, abortion is now likely to be an issue, as state courts can interpret state constitutions to protect a right even if it is not safeguarded by the U.S. Constitution. The dominant issue in countless elections — for Congress, for state legislatures and even for city councils — will be abortion.

For 49 years, women have had the right to choose for themselves whether to terminate a pregnancy. Never before has the court taken away a right that has existed for so long and been so important for so many people. If the draft opinion becomes the court’s ruling, the consequences — for the political process, for the law and, most of all, for women’s lives — will be enormous.