WASHINGTON (AP) — A draft opinion suggests the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a Politico report.

A decision to overrule Roe would lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states and could have huge ramifications for this year’s elections. But it’s unclear if the draft represents the court’s final word on the matter — opinions often change in ways big and small in the drafting process.

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the “basic fairness and the stability of our law demand” that the court not overturn Roe. While emphasizing that he couldn’t speak to the authenticity of the draft, Biden said his administration is preparing for all eventualities for when the court ultimate rules and that a decision overturning Roe would raise the stakes for voters in November’s heated midterm elections.

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces Tuesday began storming the steel mill that represented the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said, just as a convoy carrying scores of civilians evacuated from the plant over the weekend arrived in the relative safety of a Ukrainian-controlled city.

Osnat Lubrani, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said that thanks to the evacuation effort, “101 women, men, children and older persons could finally leave the bunkers below the Azovstal steelworks and see the daylight after two months.”

The news for those left behind was more grim. Ukrainian commanders said Russian forces were storming the sprawling plant, which includes a maze of tunnels and bunkers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court keeps secrets. Year after year, in major case after major case, there’s little beyond what the justices say during oral arguments that suggests how they will rule until they actually do.

That is, apparently, until Monday evening when Politico published what it said is a draft of an opinion in a major abortion case that was argued in the fall. While there have, on very rare occasions, been leaks of the outcomes in cases, the publication of an apparent draft running nearly 100 pages was without an evident modern parallel.

The draft says that a majority of the court is prepared to overrule the landmark 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, that legalized abortion nationwide. A decision in the case had been expected before the court begins its summer recess in late June or early July, so it could be more than a month before the court actually issues a final opinion. If the court does what the draft suggests, the ruling would upend a nearly 50-year-old decision; its advance publication would also disturb an almost unbroken tradition of secrecy at the court.

The disclosure of a draft majority opinion that indicates the Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade instantly jolted Democrats from a bout of political malaise Monday night — and many hope it could change the tide of the midterm elections.

Hours after POLITICO’s reporting on the high court’s draft opinion, Democrats privately predicted that the potential decision by its five-conservative majority to repeal the landmark abortion-rights ruling would energize their base and drive up turnout in November. The party’s governors, senators and House members took to social media and the airwaves with reactions that ranged from pleas to codify Roe to emotional personal stories.

Last week, Sen. Joe Manchin was angry.

The Democratic senator had seen a TV ad run by GOP Rep. Alex Mooney – the Trump-backed candidate in a primary for a US House seat in West Virginia – suggesting that his Republican opponent, Rep. David McKinley, backed President Joe Biden’s sprawling social spending agenda.

So he called up McKinley and told him he’d be willing to cut a TV ad and call out Mooney, a rare move to insert himself into a GOP primary.