In the same Politico piece in which it was leaked, it was said that as of that past week there were still five votes to overrule Roe.
“ A person familiar with the court’s deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices — Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.”
I could see the others in the majority suggesting this or that edit to the Alito draft, as they often do, but someone else in the “overrule Roe” majority writing the opinion for the Court? Seems unlikely.
I have done a lot of writing in my life. The first draft is usually a mess. It is usually where I just “dump” ideas in a “clumsy” way. The final draft looks nothing like the first.
I would expect this would be what we’ve seen.
Roe was a bad technical decision. The politicians can’t pass federal law. And most folks don’t even know their state reps.