The demise of Roe is going to tear America apart
In his draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito blamed that 1973 abortion decision for sparking “a national controversy that has embittered our political culture for a half century.” He quoted Justice Antonin Scalia: “Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national politics in general, and has obscured with its smoke the selection of justices to this court in particular, ever since.”
As a matter of history, the idea that Roe ignited America’s culture wars is, at best, a distortion. The 7-2 decision was not nearly as politically divisive when it was decided as it is today. Catholics opposed it, but many conservative evangelicals did not; the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution calling for legal abortion in some circumstances in 1971, and then reaffirmed it in 1974. As the Dartmouth historian Randall Balmer has argued, evangelical leaders didn’t seize on Roe until the contemporary religious right began to coalesce at the end of the 1970s, largely in response to the I.R.S. stripping segregated Christian schools of their tax exemptions.
But even if Roe had let loose the forces ripping this country apart, its end still wouldn’t bring détente. Instead, the demise of Roe will exacerbate America’s antagonisms, creating more furious legal rifts between states than we’ve seen in modern times.
“If you think it’s polarized now, you haven’t seen anything yet,” said Mary Ziegler, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and author of the forthcoming book “Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment.”
Very soon, if the Supreme Court really discards Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision partly upholding it, we will have two wildly different abortion regimes in this country. About half of states are expected to mostly prohibit abortion; according to the Guttmacher Institute, in 11 states there won’t even be exemptions for rape and incest. A bill moving through the Louisiana Legislature would allow prosecutors to charge those having abortions with homicide.
Blue states, meanwhile, are setting themselves as abortion sanctuaries. [Continue reading…]