Hey, hey, ho, ho: Here’s why Roe has got to go

July 16, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

It’s time to stop all of this foolishness about “consultation” over the next Supreme Court justice. Let’s be sensible, grown-up progressives and live in the real world: With so much at stake, there is no way Bush and his gang are seriously going to consider any moderate judges put forth by Democrats.

Here’s what is going to happen: Bush is going to nominate Attila the Hun. Democrats will complain, as will a few moderate Republican senators. The former will be ignored; the latter will receive visits from Karl Rove who will tell them, “You are going to vote for Attila the Hun, and you’re going to like it.”

A few weeks later, Attila the Hun will win confirmation with no Republicans breaking ranks (well, maybe Lincoln Chafee) and with the support of several Democratic senators. (James Dobson has Sen. Ben Nelson so terrified he’d vote to put Darth Vader on the court.)

The only good thing to come out of this is that within a few years, Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

Don’t get me wrong: I am pro-choice and support the central finding of Roe. I’ve marched for abortion rights and have supported Planned Parenthood. Yet I’ve come to the conclusion that the sooner the post-Sandra Day O’Connor court overturns Roe the better. As bad as it will be for the women of America, I’m looking forward to that day.

Here’s why: Remember, the high court won’t declare abortion illegal, it will merely toss the issue back to the states. Several will immediately pass laws banning all abortions. That’s when all hell will break loose. Legal abortion and the larger question of women’s reproductive rights will immediately become political questions again. And from where I’m sitting, that helps our side. A USA Today poll reported on Thursday lays out the numbers: Sixty-eight percent say Roe should not be overturned, while 29 percent say it should.

Let the Republicans side with the 29 percent.

As Yale law professor Jack M. Balkin wrote recently:

Bush must decide if he wants to overturn Roe or preserve the Republicans as the majority party. With Roe gone, the pro-choice movement will be energized and Republican politicians will have to state on the record whether they want to criminalize abortion. Women, libertarians, and moderates may bolt the party, destroying Bush’s winning coalition. Republicans may dislike Roe, but they may dislike losing elections even more.

The sight of police padlocking abortion clinics and arresting doctors who provide abortions and the women who seek them will not be pretty. But America needs to experience that. Democrats need to be able to stand back and say, “You wanted the Republican agenda? Here it is in all of its glory. Is this what you signed on for?”

In short, a Bushified Supreme Court that starts trashing precedent in the area of reproductive choice might possibly provide the shock our political system needs to make people realize how scary the Republican Party’s agenda really is. (Currently there are six pro-Roe votes on the court, so Bush will need one more liberal or moderate resignation after O’Connor to begin the assault. That’s likely to be Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 85.)

For too long, some moderates have felt they could vote for the GOP for fiscal reasons, even if they disagreed with that party’s rigid stance on social issues. Pro-choice Republican women even formed their own organization and dutifully pulled the lever for Bush I and Bush II, confident that the Supreme Court would continue to protect legal abortion. (Likewise, “Log Cabin” Republicans vote for the GOP despite that party’s embrace of reactionary Religious Right homophobes. Get a clue, dudes: They hate your guts.)

Perhaps when the Supreme Court can no longer be counted on to take a moderate course, members of these groups will wake up, start living in the real world and confront the question they have so far evaded: What matters more to me — my fundamental rights as a human being or a tax cut?

Americans just don’t seem to get how the system operates. Supreme Court justices don’t just drop out of the sky and land on the bench. They are appointed by the president and confirmed or denied (usually the former) by the Senate. For too long, Americans have been able to pretend that their voting behavior had no real connection to the courts. That’s not going to possible any longer.

Americans have also taken refuge in the comforting lie that the Supreme Court is reluctant to overturn precedent. Legal abortion is a fact of life, right? The court already settled the matter.

But the myth of stare decisis — respect for precedent — is exactly that, a myth. The high court frequently overturns previous rulings either overtly or simply by issuing new rulings that undermine precedent to the point where, as a practical matter, it no longer exists. An activist right wing court won’t hesitate to trash Roe the first chance it gets. It would have happened long ago if Justice Anthony M. Kennedy hadn’t turned out to be not quite as conservative as everyone thought.

It will be a sad day when that happens. Good people will suffer, and I hate that young, mostly poor, women of America will have to take this hit. But that action is bound to spark a political backlash. The contrast between the two parties on this issue could not be sharper. Perhaps people who value reproductive freedom will finally wake up and realize that they can no longer afford to vote GOP.

Will this create a seismic realignment in American politics? Probably not — but that’s not necessary. The last two presidential elections were so close that even minor shifts would have changed the outcome.

Chances are, the Religious Right and its “value voters” are close to maxing out their potential. The GOP needs its moderates. An exodus of moderates accounting for just a few percentage points of the Republican vote could change everything.

For too long, these voters have seen no reason to leave the GOP. Maybe they didn’t like some of the far-right rhetoric, but in the end they held their noses and backed the party. The overturning of Roe may be just the push they need to switch sides.

Ditch Roe? I say bring it on.

Just a week ago my wife express the same sentiment: that losing Roe would force Americans to wake up and the Republicans would (hopefully) pay the political price.

  • Don’t kid yourself about this staying a state issue. In the wake of overturning Roe, the issue would be federalized within nanoseconds. The House would immedately write a law criminalizing abortion all over the country, and every Republican that wanted to stay alive would vote for it. (States rights be damned; there are LIVES at stake, they’d say.)

    I think think the next few years are going to be one long wake-up call about letting a theocratic plutocracy take over. But it’ll be too late by then.

  • One might also note that there’s a real possibility that a Republican Fundamentalist majority might skip straight to declaring an embryo a person, who cannot be deprived of life without due process, extend that to the states through the 14th amendment, and end the debate on the side of the Republican Fundamentalists for a generation at least. Right now, there’s Scalia and Thomas who would do that for sure. The Bush replacements for O’Connor and Rehnquist (that’s a near-term replacement for sure) probably would. It basically hangs on how long any of the other justices stay alive.

  • I agree with jimBOB, I see no reason this will stay a “state’s rights” issue. They don’t give a damn about state’s rights. That was just the rhetoric they used to have a better argument. But once Roe is overturned, I could easily see them passing a federal law against abortion. And if they really were serious about abortion, they’d have no other choice.

    Of course, more likely than not, they’ll do the old Partial Birth Abortion scam of making sure that the anti-abortion bill doesn’t have provisions for the health of the mother, so that “activist” judges will still shoot it down. This way, they get the three-fer of appearing to take the hardline position against abortion, yet still not have to pass an abortion bill; while getting to rail against Democrats and “activist” judges. They really know how to milk votes out of an issue, don’t they.

  • Somehow, I don’t like speculating about the political
    good that might come out of a terrible blow to
    women’s rights. Millions of women would suffer,
    as well as millions of unwanted children brought
    into a Republican world that doesn’t give two
    damns about human beings once they’re out of the
    womb, until, of course, they reach a certain level
    of vegetative decay.

    I also agree with jimBOB that federal legislation
    would ensue. Remember, they already have their mitts
    in it with partial birth abortion legislation.

    We must remember that Republicans, consisting of
    the wealthy, angry white men and religious fanatics,
    can’t possibly win without the whole-hearted support
    of the latter two groups, and they will pander to
    them shamelessly. The wealthy, of course, don’t
    give a damn about these issues. They’ve always been
    able to buy their safe abortions, legal or not.

  • Go look at the front page of the New York Times today. Three Republicans on a Federal Appeals Court have ruled that the Bush kangaroo courts at Gitmo don’t violate the Constitution, don’t violate the Uniform Code or the Geneva Conventions. Of course, they do violate all three, but the more important lesson is the jurisprudence involved. Basically, these Republican judges have embraced the fuhrer principle — Bush has all power, and there’s nothing anyone else can do about it, so there.

    Roe v. Wade may be overturned, but long before it happens, if it ever happens, a whole slew of other laws, affecting business, will have been modified to eliminate all protections for labor or the individual or the environment. And, when Roe is overturned, the Court will not return the country to a status quo ante. No, they will rule that the States have to ban abortion, to protect the rights of the unborn.

    The rule of law is being eclipsed, permanently. Bush is building a fascist State, and we are powerless to stop him. That’s the way of it.

  • It’s entirely possible, as Scott Lemieux would argue, that the upper-middle class Republican women will find that they’re able to get abortions just fine even if it’s illegal. There may not be a backlash in that case. There are a whole lot of other issues to worry about. If Janice Rogers Brown got on, we’d have to worry about her striking down the New Deal. If that happens, then Dems or progressives could get into power, and we wouldn’t be able to legislate the changes we’d like to see at the Federal level, and with life-time tenure on the Federal bench, we’d be stuck with that for a generation or more.

  • The overturning of Roe v. Wade now seems inevitable, and I agree with other posters that the prohibition of abortion will be federalized and that lots of rulings that liberals like are going to be thrown out. However, I don’t see your silver lining, as much as I’d like it to exist. I thought Reagan’s administration was so corrupt and off-the-mainstream, his invasions were so unwarranted, and his trashing of the national budget was so outrageous that Americans would have to wake up and vote sensibly for at least a couple of generations before Republicans would ever again be trusted with the reins. You can see how right I was on that call. SAdly, America does not turn on a dime, Bush’s legacy will be with us for a long time, and a majority of Americans seem to be happy to go along with Republican unreality, irresponsibility, and wishful thinking.

  • I am 100% pro-choice. However, if Roe is overturned, I won’t be too upset. Right now, most people assume that if Roe is overturned, that Congress will legislate against choice. I’m not too sure about that. It is easy now for the members of Congress to hide behind their rhetoric of being anti-choice. It is safe for them to blame the “activist judiciaryâ€? for creating laws such as Roe. However, when it comes to them casting a vote, going on record, how many of them will have the courage to vote to take away a basic right for half of the population. When push comes to shove, how will this play out?

    I see this debate not only about choice, but about power – power of men over women. As women assert their rights and become more independent, I believe that some men feel threatened. They want to keep the woman “in her proper placeâ€? that is, one which they believe is biologically predetermined.

    Let’s face it. We still live in a patriarchal society. Even though women have made great strides, there is still a long way to go.

  • Morbo, I’m inclined to agree with you. Something has got to begin to penetrate what’s left of the tv-mushed brains of “too busy” ordinary Americans. Bankrupting future generations hasn’t done it. Massive corporate and super-wealth giveaways haven’t done it. Widespread homelessness hasn’t done it. Thumbing our nose at the rest of the planet hasn’t done it. Cavalier ignorance of the world ecosystem hasn’t done it. Federal support of “faith”-based programs and idiot-“science” hasn’t done it. The Patriot Act hasn’t done it. An illegal, lied-into and lied-about War/Quagmire hasn’t done it.

    Maybe overturning Roe will do it (though, based on remarks above, I’m not ready to bet the farm on that). Your proposal is a little reminiscent of Lenin’s “What is to be done?”, hinting a willingness to allow some hurt in view of winning the larger struggle, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Much. As I’ve suggested here before (hardly to overwhelming agreement) the blue places will just tell the SCOTUS, and the Congress, to go screw themselves.

    Nation-wide Prohibition required amending the Constitution twice (once to start it, once to stop it) . Throughout its 13-year operation anyone who wanted booze could get it. Society paid a terrible price for that “noble experiment” — notably the emergence of Organized Crime and, for those of us who still appreciate Jefferson’s fear of police states, the growth of the F.B.I. to counter the mob. I’m sure the “lips that touch liquor” crowd never intended their Christian concern for our besotted souls to produce the US mafia and a federal state police, but they did. We’ve been there. We’ll survive no-Roe.

    If anyone doesn’t want that to happen, there are political means at hand to prevent it. That means more than hoping/praying Bush will suddenly decide to do the right thing. He’s not capable.

  • Hmmmn. I was inclined to your scenario of what will go down until you mentioned the result — overturning Roe v. Wade. Remember that the Cheney Administration is in an alliance with the Christian conservatives — that’s not the same as being one. My feeling is that Cheney has pulled off a corporate takeover of America that guarantees he and his friends make a lot of money and to hell with everything else. I don’t think they’re that interested in seeing Roe v. Wade overturned, especially as they can also foresee the political fallout. They’ve destroyed the country in a million ways and still control the presidency and the congress — why mess with a good thing? If they appoint a Repub to the bench who won’t overturn Roe v. Wade that would be in their best interest. It’s been noted that this administration decides policy entirely according to its political expediency. They have no bedrock morality, no dedication to pro-life, just a dedication to lining their pockets.

  • Here’s my prediction: yes, Roe v. Wade is overturned in the next session and a federal law banning abortion for any reason is passed the next day (the two will be created as a package deal) with all Republicans on board. But here’s what will happen next: Republicans, like that AG in Kansas, will seek the records of everyone whoever had, performed or facilitated in any way an abortion. There names and addresses will be published as part of a “Megan’s Law” of anti-abortion, and rabid Republicans everywhere will try to prosecute them for something, even if it means overturning protections against ex post facto prosecutions. Don’t forget: the Republicans are the party of revenge. They will cheerfully exact theirs.

  • Ed writes: Something has got to begin to penetrate what’s left of the tv-mushed brains of “too busy” ordinary Americans. Bankrupting future generations hasn’t done it. Massive corporate and super-wealth giveaways haven’t done it. Widespread homelessness hasn’t done it. Thumbing our nose at the rest of the planet hasn’t done it. Cavalier ignorance of the world ecosystem hasn’t done it. Federal support of “faith”-based programs and idiot-“science” hasn’t done it. The Patriot Act hasn’t done it. An illegal, lied-into and lied-about War/Quagmire hasn’t done it.

    Ed, your very long list of things that should have penetrated the TV-mushed brains—and the list could easily have been even longer—makes me think that one more outrage isn’t going to do it either. I think reinstituting the draft would create the shock, but I think the Repubs know that and thus will do whatever they can to avoid that, such as relying more and more on mercenaries.

    I fear that what we’re witnessing is a party which controls the voting system and can thus assure their continuance in power. Why are the Dems not raising hell every day about this? What could be more crucial to their ever possessing real political power again? It boggles my mind.

    Add to this the fact that propaganda has gotten sophisticated enough and has been integrated completely into the circus portion of the old Roman controlling system of “bread and circus” for the masses, to keep the citizens pacified. Our circus is primarily television, and that is a powerful tool for propaganda dissemination, which the right is using with great and dismaying effect.

    I frankly can’t see a scenario unfolding in the near future which could realistically change all this for the better. Overturning Roe will be a blip on the radar screen. Even if abortion if federally outlawed, unless Canada refuses to perform abortions on American women then the middle and upper class women who need them will head north of the border—an inconvenience, sure, but nothing that’ll translate into political outrage. Once again the poor will be the victims. But the poor have no political clout anyway.

    I frankly think that secession by California is probably the best option, maybe taking the portions of Oregon and Washington west of the Cascades along in the bargain. The old Ecotopia idea. Whether that could be done peacefully is another matter, but it certainly would be something that would appeal to a lot of Californians. Let the rest of the nation cook in their theocratic juices (sorry about that, Northeast!). I’m sure Ecotopia would create some sort of political refugee classification for those progressives who want to immigrate, and maybe provide some incentives for rednecks to emigrate (tar & feathers maybe?) to make room.

    Oops, got off on a tangent there. It’s what happens sometimes when things look so dismal with no plausible solution, as things look now to this liberal’s eye.

  • Although I’d like to agree with the assessment that Cheney / Corporate America would not like to lose control it’s just as likely that they might be able to find ‘cover’ in the smokescreen created by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Building a movement to reinstate the right to choose will necessitate the support of women, and men, from all sides of the political spectrum, including the corporate power and money interests. In either scenario – moderate appointee who loves corporate unregulated markets, or the uber Christian Right, who also hates ‘regulation’ the Unions will suffer as much if not more than poor women. Our only hope is that there are enough leaders energized (and created) to help people make the connection between the rights of women and gays, and the corruption that occurs when corporations have more rights than well off white males. We are all in trouble if this connection is not made, made clearly, and made to a broad enough spectrum of society to counter massive Corporate power.

    International Corporations have managed, with the assistance of the media, to persuade a majority of Americans that they are our economic and legal saviors, that government is bloated, inefficient and evil, that Christians are discriminated against. Never mind the number of gays and lesbians beaten, dismissed from jobs and housing. Never mind the outrage that would result if ‘Christians’ suffered this treatment. Never mind the biggest growth industries of the last decade, prisons that absorb a greater share of the black male population, pharmaceutical and health insurance companies whose profits go through the roof, leaving many young families, poor, and elderly with no real health care but for the end of their lives, and, there’s the military and their minions in contracting, whose only real competition is China’s military and manufacturing, currently positioning itself to survive Peak Oil. Never mind the earliest Hurricane season on record or the loss of marine life on the west coast due to the warming of the eastern Pacific ocean.

    As long as each of these impending disasters is viewed from a single perspective based upon analysis of the symptoms, as is Roe v. Wade, and not viewed from a systematic perspective, from the perspective of ‘solving’ the crisis, we face a generation of horrors that may not be as bad as our worst doomsayers would have us believe, but will not be as bearable as our optimists predict.

    We are at a tipping point. This tipping point is the tip of the iceberg. Let’s look below the surface.

  • I don’t think overturning Roe v. Wade will act as some watershed for politcal consciousness. I mean, somebody in the Bush Admin committed treason, IMHO, vis a vis the Plame Affair. However, I do think overturning Roe v. Wade will badly hurt the Republicans. Abortion is THE motivating factor for all those “culture” voters. They mostly understand that their economic interest lies with the Democrats, with Roe v. Wade defeated, I don’t think the Republicans can retain these voters.

    People might say that gay rights or something along those lines will replace it, but I doubt it. There are many, many people for whom abortion is the deciding factor. They may be opposed to homosexuality, but it doesn’t keep them up at nights, writing checks and planning protests. Remove abortion from the table, and how many votes do they have left?

    Alas, dark days on the horizon — hope you guys are not burdened with too much debt.

  • I’ve started leaving the same comment whenever I see the old “if things get bad enough voters will wake up” argument. I don’t like the “give them enough rope to hang themselves” because I really don’t like the image of fascists with ropes. But the comment I leave now came from someone else:

    Ernst Thalmann thought the same thing.

    He died in Buchenwald.

  • So, once again, women’s rights – and possibly even their lives – must be sacrificed for “the team.” Sure, it’ll be hard on the wimmin-folk, but hey, there are more important things at stake, right?

    I’ll buy this argument when you can tell me what equivalent sacrifice men will be making. By “equivalent,” I mean a sacrifice that can force them to drop out of school (many schools consider it a “bad example” to have pregnant students loitering about in plain sight, and force pregnant girls to either drop out, or attend “special” (sub-par academically) schools), or get fired if they have a low-level job (yes, it happens all the time, “legal” or not), and just generally has the potential to destroy their hopes and dreams for the future, lock them into poverty for the rest of their lives, and possibly even take their lives.

    Get back to me on that, ‘k?

  • Thanks for the excellent Carpetbagger post. By and large, I find that the discussion
    here has been fascinating as well.

    If Roe gets “sacrificed” it will be because of women as much as men. This is not
    a single gender issue. If women voted heavily against the Republicans then
    they would lose. Further, women have a lot more economic power now than they
    used to. Yes I know that womens wages still lag, but its better than it was in 1960.
    And again, if women give money where the political beliefs lie, the Republicans will
    go down.

    But sadly, women, like many of our other fellow citizens bought into the “be afraid
    of terrorists” line that the Bushies spread in the lead up to the election. Women
    like men have bought into the culture war. Women did not support Bush in
    quite the same numbers as men, but there is no way that anyone can take the
    line that the “sisterhood” came out against the Republicans.

    I agree that men keep women down by trying to control reproduction. But choice is not
    a simple gender issue. Unfortunately in this women are keeping each other down
    as much as men. And it is women, just as much as men, that need to wake up and
    start paying attention and realizing that they’ve been lied to and used.

    Ian

  • Your whole post almost made sense, and then, in your last sentence, you ruined it for me.

    “Bring it on”? Sorry, no. That kind of machismo is false courage, and based on shaky theory. It’s the same kind of foolishness that caused the NeoCons to rush into a war with Iraq, thinking pretty much exactly along the lines you lay out: a real war with our military committed will convince Americans to “wake up” to the fight against terrorism. They arguably let 9/11 happen so as to “wake up” America, instead of quietly thwarting terrorists as Clinton/Gore had done, and instead fight an overt war.

    Both are flawed theories. We’ve seen one play out in the disaster of Iraq and soon-to-be disaster of Afghanistan.

    No, I don’t think we should “take the war to the religious wingnuts, choosing to fight them in Oklahoma and Kansas so that they don’t attack us here in California and New York”, so to speak.

    I don’t believe “flypaper” stops terrorists; rather it emboldens, trains, and recruits them. Nor do I believe that “flypaper” will stop James Dobson and Pat Robertson either.

    Be careful what you wish for. We all might get it. And I, for one, don’t want it.

  • I frankly think that secession by California is probably the best option, maybe taking the portions of Oregon and Washington west of the Cascades along in the bargain.

    Rightly or wrongly, I state as a Washingtonian that we ain’t following California nowhere.

  • I completely agree, and have for years now — in part because Roe is considered to be legally weak, in part because abortion rights needs to be connected in everyone’s mind with the will of the people (and polls show the will is there, without question), and mostly because right wing support for outlawing abortion will, as it were, hit the fan. And get chopped up into little bits and disperse into useless heaps out of sight. The fragmentation of the Republican Party and the reexamination of the power of religious sects over government, state and federal, would be a pleasure to observe — finally.

    In the short term, we might do better fighting for a better Congress than for a particular shade of Supreme Court.

  • Let’s see if Republicans are able to appoint two far right Judges to the Supreme Court we have to pretend that we have a “winningâ€? strategy and that the repeal of Roe vs. Wade will benefit the progressives cause some time in the future? Sounds weak to me, as a concession that since the Democrats in Congress are very likely unable to stop the Republican Agenda we have to find some way to comfort our selves, no matter how absurd the argument could be. The reasoning that if Republican are successful to push their “pro-lifeâ€? agenda they would be repudiated by the American people is the equivalent of those fringe groups in the extreme left that believe that worse is better, because harsher social conditions will radicalize the masses. Following that line of logic, we can hope that Social Security get privatized, labor unions outlawed and freedom of the press suppressed; sound idiotic, doesn’t? Well for most women in the USA the idea that losing Roe Vs Wade is potentially “goodâ€? for the cause will never fly.

  • (I wish there was a preview function! I think I fixed the formatting goofs in this version. Any way to delete the previous version?) [It’s deleted – CB]

    Ok, I have to respond to Ian Kaplan’s post even though it wasn’t specifically directed at me.

    First, yeah, I got a little snarky. Sorry (mostly) about that. It’s just that I’ve seen this “argument” about having to destroy women’s rights in order to save women’s rights so much, especially lately, that I’m getting pretty tired of it.

    If Roe gets ‘sacrificed’ it will be because of women as much as men. This is not
    a single gender issue. If women voted heavily against the Republicans then
    they would lose. [snip] Women did not support Bush in
    quite the same numbers as men, but there is no way that anyone can take the
    line that the ‘sisterhood’ came out against the Republicans.

    But I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about people who are supposedly on “my” side arguing that we have throw women overboard (and children, since unwanted children are much more likely to live in poverty and/or be abused than wanted children are) for “the greater Democratic good.”

    Look, I’m not an idiot, or a Donna Quixote – I know that either Roe will fall, or abortion will become so inaccessable that it doesn’t matter if it’s still legal, because “average women” won’t be able to get one. And, maybe even a few Republican women will “see the light” in that eventuality. (And, I have to say, my heart has been considerably hardened against those women who actually voted for Bush – In the deepest, darkest, snarky-ist part of my mind, I think they deserve whatever suffering they get for doing so. And it seems my better angels don’t have a prayer of converting my inner snark demon on this issue.OTOH, I suspect they’re not trying all that hard.)

    But if all of the outrages of the first Bush term didn’t wake “moderates” up, the loss of women’s reproductive choice won’t either. First, as noted, a lot of Bush voters WANT that to happen. Second, a lot of the “moderates” won’t be personally affected (either being men, or well-off enough to travel out of the country for abortions or birth control), and so just aren’t that concerned about it. I don’t say this with any anger – It’s just human nature to pay more attention to things that directly threaten you than to things that don’t.

    So, I know Roe is gone, one way or the other (and we’re not just talking abortion – the “privacy” right to contraception is part of the same chain of legal reasoning). I just don’t think our side should be cheering while it happens. I”m more of the Dylan Thomas school of thought. I think that, while we may not be able to stop it, we should still “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” At the very least, we most certainly should not be welcoming the coming dark ages for women.

  • See NO. 5, KarenJG. I agree with you. But I happen to believe
    that Roe vs. Wade won’t be overturned. I also don’t believe that
    abortion rights will become so restricted that it will be as if it were
    overturned. But I don’t want to get caught up in speculative
    scenarios. I’ll leave it that I just don’t see it happening.

  • The number of medical institutions (hospitals and clinics) that will perform abortions
    had declined significantly. In many states there are only small numbers of providers
    for abortions. In effect, access has been restricted. The violence directed against
    doctors who perform abortions has, obviously, not helped. In some states if you don’t
    have money, there is a de facto ban on abortion.

    I did not read the original Carpetbagger post as “Oh wonderful, abortion will be
    make illegal”. I read it as “When this terrible thing happens it will have the effect
    of fracturing the Republican Party and delivering more electoral wins to the
    Democrats”.

    This gets to Thomas Frank’s (“What’s the Matter with Kansas”) point that people
    are voting against their economic interests for two reasons:

    1. The Democrats have not really provided an alternative. The Democrats have
    been just as willing to sell working people out as the Republicans. The
    recent bankrupcy bill is just one example. Senator Robert Byrd voted FOR
    this bill, for example.

    2. The Democrats have supported choice and civil rights for gay people which
    some find offensive.

    If choice is removed from the equation, then the concentration, in theory, will
    naturally return to economics. So, the argument goes, the Republicans are
    shooting themselves in the foot. But I don’t think that anyone where is
    suggesting that overturning a women’s right to reproductive choices is a good
    thing.

    Ian

  • While we engage in these navel-gazing dialogues about a single (not unimportant, but definitely a singular and relatively small) issue, the rest of the world is looking through a lens with a wider angle.

    We are distracted from our coming financial crises–both the international and the collective personal debt of Americans; the stubborn refusal to recognize coming ecological armageddon; the increasing reduction of a large percentage of the the graduates of our schools and universities to primordial stupidity; the hubris that still toots our status as “the last remaining superpower”; the descent into ever more superstition and religious fundamentalism; the increasing racial polarization….on and on.

    The Europeans are to content to let us finance the military adventurism that took us to the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan. They have used the experience of the “Great” war and the “Good” war to cautiously allow the Americans to throw their resources into bloody battles, and conclude that they can stand on the sidelines and wait to see who wins.

    Ok. Argue about coming SCOTUS appointments. This issue deserves to be in the background. Not to say that is is an inconsequential issue, just that it is small in comparison to the overarching issus that go to our survival as a nation.

  • CB – Thank you!

    Hark – You’re probably right that getting caught up in speculative scenarios is counter productive, but I can’t help pointing out the real consequences of overturning Roe to those who seem so cavalier about the possibility of it happening

    Ian – I get the “Kansas” theory of taking choice out of the equation, but I don’t think that’s going to be enough to change the focus of the “social conservatives” to economics. I think your No. 1 – Democrats haven’t offered a real alternative vision – is much more important. And I completely agree that the Congressional excrement known as “Bankruptcy Reform” (and more importantly, the Dem support for cloture that enabled it to come to a vote) is a perfect example of why those social conservatives shrug and say “well, neither party is looking out for my economic interests, so I might as well go with my “values” when I pull the lever.”

    Jim – I disagree that it’s a “small issue,” but I do believe that it’s been artifically narrowed, and the debate needs to be broadened. We (well, I’m thinking me, specifically) get sucked into discussing this issue as if it were ONLY about the right for a woman to choose to have an abortion. But, the “right to abortion” (and the “right to purchase contraception”) both rest on a finding a ‘right to privacy” implicit in the Constitution. Overturning Roe would mean a Supreme Court ruling that there is no “right to privacy” implicit in the Constitution. That, IMHO, is huge, and would effect *everyone* – not just women, and would affect virtually every aspect of our lives, not just reproductive decisions.

  • I think you are right to some extent about what would happen if Roe were over turned. It would go to the states and some (not all) would make it illegal. As for the issue being federalized – I don’t know. Since this would likely go to the states – they can opt out of the debate while able to say it is is good thing. As for federal level legislation – abortion is such a hot potato that only those with elections they won by 90% would even try and and then only because they can pontificate.

    I definitely moderate GOP voters do need to wake up. The country in the mold of the hard core Christian GOPers is not a country they would like. It is time they get a taste of it.

  • I can’t believe that in this entire debate, no one has mentioned Casey. Nearly every post has been a statement of “I fully expect Roe to be overturned immediately if not sooner.” Has *everyone* forgotten to actually look at the justices on the Court, as opposed to those who might soon join it?

    Casey was a 5-4 decision, but one of the 4 (Byron White) was replaced by a pro-abortion justice in Breyer. Put Attila the Hun on the court and there are still 5 pro-Roe justices as proven by Casey’s affirmation of Roe — Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens, and Kennedy. Replace Rehnquist, too, and nothing changes.

    So can we please stop talking like the end of Roe is imminent?

  • According to recent reports, Kennedy was iffy on Casey, and was strongly influenced by O’Connor. Kennedy also voted against the majority in Carhart v. Nebraska – the most recent abortion case in which the majority struck down restrictions on “partial birth” abortions that did not include a health exemption.

    This article has more info on the relationship of abortion (and contraception) to privacy: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050711/whats_at_stake_for_women.php

  • Karen,

    Kennedy was iffy, sure, I’ll grant that — Kennedy is usually iffy on every single vote he casts. But iffy doesn’t mean he’s going to reverse himself entirely; it seems likely, Casey being a relatively recent decision (in the judicial scope of things), that Kennedy will stick with the same decision he made in Casey and will uphold Roe. I’m certain that O’Connor did influence him, but even though she’s now retired, it seems a stretch to think he’s just going to revert entirely to his pre-O’Connor judicial stances — the influence isn’t that ephemeral. In short, it seems reaching to think he’s going to completely reverse course here.

    The point about Carhart is a valid one — but not with regards to Roe. After all, plenty of people who fully support Roe oppose partial birth abortions. Logically speaking, and judicially speaking, it doesn’t strike me as unlikely in the least that Justice Kennedy could continue to support Roe/Casey while continuing to oppose Carhart. No, the main reason why bringing up that case is salient is because it illustrates how fully O’Connor supported women’s rights and how women’s rights — and rights in general, many important issues decided in many important cases — *were* decided by O’Connor but are continually ignored due to the 100% focus on one case. Roe may not be in jeopardy, but plenty of other important things are, and the fact that the media — and the blog commenters and blog writers and pundits and politicians — talks about *nothing except Roe* detracts from the severe importance of all these other issues.

    Hence, I reiterate my desire that everyone stop talking about Roe being a dead case walking, and start talking about all the decisions that are and how they’ll impact people.

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