ANDREW MCCARTHY: The Supreme Court’s integrity demands its leaker be prosecuted — and the decision released now.

It was entirely appropriate for the court to confirm that Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in the Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, is not at this point an authoritative ruling of the court. There could understandably be public confusion on that point, so it was incumbent on the court to clarify.

But there are unwelcome consequences to even appropriate actions. The obvious one here is that with the court having assured everyone that there is a draft opinion but it is not yet a final ruling, radicals prone to intimidation tactics know that now is the time to act.

Moreover, they have targets. Besides Alito, four conservative justices have been reported as members of a majority that favors overruling Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey — Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

This is why the opinion must be formally issued forthwith. The viability of the court as a deliberative judicial institution is at stake. If the opinion or the vote tabulation were to change in any meaningful way, it would appear that the justices caved to intimidation tactics — which would simply breed more intimidation tactics. We’d have not the rule of law but the law of the jungle.

To be fair, that’s what the Democrats want. Or think that they do.