In the course of investigating the leak this spring of a draft opinion overturning the right to body autonomy and the right to access birth control, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts got a letter from a DC-area evangelical minister telling him he learned of a 2014 Supreme Court decision that allowed employers to exclude birth control from health care coverage before it was released because Justice Samuel Alito told a dinner guest.
According to the New York Times, Rev. Rob Schenck said that in June 2014, one of his donors told him she might be able to learn the unreleased outcome of the Burrell v. Hobby Lobby case because she was having dinner at Alito’s house in the coming days. The donor knew Schenck had an interest in the case, and after her dinner, she called Schenck to say Alito told her it was decided in Hobby Lobby’s favor. This knowledge allowed Schenck and other anti-choice/anti-birth control advocates to prepare a media blitz.
The Supreme Court is investing the leak of the draft of the decision of the Dobbs decision that eliminated a medical right to privacy for pregnant people, overturning the right to an abortion decided in the Roe v Wade case. Alito also wrote the Dobbs decision draft, which was leaked and later published by Politico, who did not disclose the source of the text.