The US Supreme Court’s legitimacy has been deeply pierced, and it may never recover its stature in the eyes of America.

For Chief Justice John Roberts, whose concern for the institution’s reputation is manifest in nearly every opinion he writes and every public speech he makes, the developments are a disaster of the highest order.

Not only does it appear that the five most conservative members of the court, including the three new appointees of former President Donald Trump, are ready to overturn a half century of constitutionally grounded abortion rights. It further appears that Politico, which published the first draft of the opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, had surmounted the court’s longstanding protocols of secrecy and security.

Such a breach of an opinion at this early stage of drafting is unprecedented. And that it occurred in a case of seismic importance to American life, a case that could affect so many women and their families, and in a case that could reorder the political landscape, only makes the entire episode more startling.