America doesn't miss the wood for trees

The US has been rocked by the possibility of the Supreme Court deciding to make abortion illegal in individual states. This, if the decision due in June-July does match its leaked deliberations, will overturn the landmark 1973 Roe vs Wade ruling, thereby denying millions of American women control over their own body. But the leak published in Politico - since verified as authentic by the chief justice - has itself created a ruckus leading to an investigation. What is telling, however, is that outrage over the contents of the leak has not been hijacked by outrage of the act of the leak itself. Dissemination of information, however unpalatable but not illegally obtained, trumps over procedure.

While in many other democracies, all efforts would have been made to bludgeon the 'leaker' and, thereby, make the act of the leak of a Supreme Court deliberation the real 'offence', America seems to prioritise the truth - at least in this case, the in-camera deliberations that may lead to a pivotal law being overturned. This, ironically, is not the first leak involving Roe vs Wade. The Washington Post had first published a story of the internal deliberations of the still-undeclared original ruling that came via a leak. Time magazine published the final decision and vote rulings some hours before the actual ruling - owing to a delay in the judgment - that was brought to light by a Supreme Court clerk. Action was sought to be taken against the clerk as well as Time. But decriminalising abortion swept any outrage against the 'travesty' of leaks to the press firmly aside.

That maturity is being repeated today. Whatever be the final verdict on the matter, the reaction to the latest leak certainly reflects a democracy that knows its wood from the trees.