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The Real Supreme Court Endgame for Abortion Foes - Slate
Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, conservative judges and politicians argued that the court was to blame for the polarization of the abortion issue in the first place. Roe, the argument went, ruled out compromises that might have cooled off the debate. And nearly three years ago, when the Supreme Court undid the right to choose abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the justices picked up on this claim too—suggesting that restoring abortion decisionmaking to voters and their elected representatives might make the conflict less ugly.
Today, the federal right to choose is gone. States are free to set their own abortion policies. In some instances, voters can bypass politicians and approve ballot initiatives. And yet with Roe a thing of the past, the nation’s abortion divide only seems deeper.
States have eschewed compromise measures and passed sweeping bans. Penalties under these laws are sometimes more severe than those in place before Roe. Physicians are refusing to treat patients with potentially life-threatening complications because they worry about inadvertently violating the law. States are launching a new war about travel, with jurisdictions passing shield laws that claim to protect residents from criminal prosecution and conservative states experimenting with the idea that they can punish their own citizens for facilitating an abortion in places where the procedure is legal. Rather than allowing voters to express preferences about abortion through ballot initiatives, some Republicans are experimenting with strategies that make it harder for voters to have a say. And ironically, it is abortion opponents who spent decades railing against the antidemocratic federal courts who have invested the most in the federal judiciary, litigating about the fate of the Comstock Act, access to abortion pills, and much more.
Overturning Roe has polarized the debate partly because most Americans deeply oppose the Dobbs decision. But the end of Roe did little to demobilize the anti-abortion movement. Many abortion foes rallied to the fight for fetal personhood before the Supreme Court intervened and saw constitutional protection for the unborn, not the mere elimination of an abortion right, as the endpoint of their struggle.
Today, the federal right to choose is gone. States are free to set their own abortion policies. In some instances, voters can bypass politicians and approve ballot initiatives. And yet with Roe a thing of the past, the nation’s abortion divide only seems deeper.
States have eschewed compromise measures and passed sweeping bans. Penalties under these laws are sometimes more severe than those in place before Roe. Physicians are refusing to treat patients with potentially life-threatening complications because they worry about inadvertently violating the law. States are launching a new war about travel, with jurisdictions passing shield laws that claim to protect residents from criminal prosecution and conservative states experimenting with the idea that they can punish their own citizens for facilitating an abortion in places where the procedure is legal. Rather than allowing voters to express preferences about abortion through ballot initiatives, some Republicans are experimenting with strategies that make it harder for voters to have a say. And ironically, it is abortion opponents who spent decades railing against the antidemocratic federal courts who have invested the most in the federal judiciary, litigating about the fate of the Comstock Act, access to abortion pills, and much more.
Overturning Roe has polarized the debate partly because most Americans deeply oppose the Dobbs decision. But the end of Roe did little to demobilize the anti-abortion movement. Many abortion foes rallied to the fight for fetal personhood before the Supreme Court intervened and saw constitutional protection for the unborn, not the mere elimination of an abortion right, as the endpoint of their struggle.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/04/supreme-court-abortion-fetal-personhood.html
