Roe v Wade, 1973-2022? -- updated

Politico claims to have obtained a draft Supreme Court ruling which overturns Roe v Wade.  It's possible that the ruling could change between now and being finalized, or a vote could change (currently the justices are said to support the ruling 5-to-3, with Roberts's position not yet clear).  Or the report could simply be wrong, though that looks unlikely.  However, if the draft is real and winds up being the actual ruling, we shouldn't be surprised.  Since the rise of the Christian Right in the 1970s as a growing political force, American conservatism has increasingly made the use of government power to enforce Christian religious taboos one of its core tenets.  Overturning Roe would enable state governments -- and possibly the federal government, if it came under full Republican control in the future -- to do that in the case of abortion.

A few observations come to mind:

1. If this is the real ruling, then as soon as it takes effect, abortion will become illegal in many red states as existing laws become enforceable or new ones are passed.  Abortion is already severely restricted in many of those states anyway, but the situation will certainly be worse than it is now.

2. Some feminists like to present abortion restrictions as something men impose on women, but in fact, there's almost no difference between men and women in attitudes about abortion rights.  So all those slogans suggesting that men shouldn't have an opinion on the issue are silly.  Even if only women could vote, the trajectory of the abortion debate and legislation in this country would still be pretty much the same as it has been.  Taking away freedom is taking away freedom, regardless of the sex of the people doing it.

3. Enforced anti-abortion laws mean horror stories, which will keep the issue endlessly in the headlines and prevent such laws from being normalized.  In Ireland, the case of Savita Halappanavar, who died in 2012 after being denied an abortion, highlighted the inhumanity of the law and probably contributed to the repeal of the Eighth Amendment (which banned abortion) by a two-to-one margin in the referendum of 2018.  The more anti-abortion laws in the US are enforced, the more ugly cases of pregnant 12-year-old rape victims, deaths due to denied abortions (at least one law bans abortion even for ectopic pregnancies, which are non-viable and extremely dangerous), "back-alley" abortions causing terrible injuries, etc, will occur, maintaining an atmosphere of ongoing crisis.

4. Pills obtainable by mail are already overtaking surgery as the most prevalent form of abortion in the US.  Obviously this trend will now escalate.  Republicans will try to ban such pills, but this will be very hard to enforce.  Unjust laws erode respect for law and normalize efforts to circumvent it.

5. There will be political consequences.  Democrats could campaign on the basis that if they keep the House and win an enlarged Senate majority, they will pass federal legislation to protect abortion rights, overriding state-level restrictions.  This would presumably require the filibuster to be abolished, but a 52-48 Senate majority could do that, since the opposition of Manchin and Sinema would no longer block action.  Of course, the Supreme Court might eventually strike down such a federal law, but that would take time, since a challenge to the law would need to work its way up through the court system.  This possibility would raise the issue of passing legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court.  If the Democrats used such measures to protect abortion rights, the Christian Right would go completely apeshit, but they never vote for Democrats anyway.

(Enlarging the Senate majority this year is quite possible, even though it looks like a very bad year for Democrats.  Several Republican seats are vulnerable, and they're beset by infighting between Trumpist and non-Trumpist factions, the risk of dud extremist candidates getting nominated, etc.  It's in the House that a Republican majority currently looks inevitable.  Conceivably a promise of radical action to protect abortion rights could energize enough voters to forestall this.  By the way, there is zero chance of picking up any new Senate seats in 2024 because all the Republican senators up for re-election that year are in solidly red states.)

6. If Democrats don't commit to such radical steps to protect abortion rights if they gain the power to do so, then a lot of their base will be de-motivated and the collapse in November will be even worse than the current polling anticipates.  It's put-up-or-shut-up time.

In the meantime, the theocrats have just scored a major win in their campaign to return women and girls to their Old Testament status as livestock available for involuntary breeding.  What happens next is ultimately up to the voters.

Updates:

See posts on the leaked draft by Atheist Revolution, SickoRicko, Lo Imprescindible, Progressive Eruptions (comparing laws in different countries), Mock Paper Scissors, Paul Wartenberg, Eclectablog, Voenix Rising, Grun_e_Gene, Ovarit (discussion thread), and Natasha Chart at 4W (must-read on how things got to this point; discussion here).

There's also this post of mine from December, which explains why the attack on abortion rights may not be the electoral game-changer some activists expect (scroll down a bit).

Democratic candidates call on the Senate to abolish the filibuster so it can pass a federal law protecting abortion rights.

Valerie Tarico discusses how to mitigate harm and fight back (found via Silverapplequeen).