The End of Roe v. Wade Was Easy to See Coming
The right to legal abortion in all 50 states has been in crisis for years. Why weren’t we panicking?
Last Wednesday night — a few hours after Justice Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, a few hours after the overturn of Roe v. Wade had become inevitable — I realized that my relationship to my body had changed.
I’m speaking as if the loss of Roe is a foregone conclusion, because it mostly is. Donald Trump has said that any justice he appoints will overturn Roe. There are not enough Democrats in Congress to block Trump’s nominee or delay the vote until after the 2018 midterms, and despite some remarks from the relatively moderate Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) about opposing any nominee who has demonstrated “hostility” toward abortion rights (unlikely, given her support of Trump’s last appointee, Neil Gorsuch), neither course of action is realistic. Barring an act of God, Roe is gone. Once it’s been overturned, abortion will probably become illegal in 20 to 30 states.
This was easy to see coming. From the moment Antonin Scalia died, leaving an unexpected vacancy in a Supreme Court where three of the eight remaining members were over age 75, it was clear that SCOTUS would undergo a rapid overhaul. During his campaign, Trump promised…
