Surprised that the Supreme Court, stacked 6-3 in favor of the conservatives, appears likely to gut or kill Roe v. Wade? Don’t be. This is what the right has been working toward for decades. It’s what Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail in the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton warned about. And it’s why Republicans rejoiced at the installation of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. None of this is sudden. None of this is accidental. It is the product of a systematic conservative campaign to make over the judicial system. It is the product of Republicans, openly hostile to abortion rights, being elected to positions of power.
That it has gotten to this point, where they’ve gotten Roe on the ropes, speaks to the extent of that political power and the persistence of the anti-abortion movement. But it should also be a wake-up call—to the Democrats, who must show the same level of urgency in protecting the right to choose that their counterparts have shown in attempting to take it away, and to voters, who should recognize the danger in handing even more power to the GOP. “There are American women who have lived their whole lives with the knowledge that their personal health decisions were protected,” Democratic Representative Val Demings wrote Wednesday. “We cannot go backwards.”
To be clear, Roe remains the law of the land—for now. But as they heard arguments in the high-stakes case of a draconian Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the high court’s six conservative justices signaled that they would at the very least side with the state when a decision comes down next summer—and maybe even go further, not only significantly scaling back Roe, but possibly dismantling its federal protections entirely. That would be devastating for reproductive rights in this country, which could soon be a patchwork of state-by-state abortion laws. (Already, 22 states would “outlaw the procedure in all or most cases” if Roe is overturned and more could follow.) But even as conservatives giddily anticipated their victory, some in the GOP worried that finally getting what they wanted could alienate the swing voters they need to take back Capitol Hill next year and motivate Democrats for the midterms and beyond. “Republicans and operatives in the party, I don’t think they’re ready,” a GOP operative told Axios Thursday, warning of a “big flare-up” that could “derail” the party’s plans for a sweeping victory in the 2022 midterms. “They better get ready before this decision comes out.”
A majority of Americans, including independents, support the protections afforded by Roe, though polling indicates that only about a third of Republicans do. In theory, then, the Supreme Court striking down the right to choose next year would be a cause for celebration among the GOP base, but an affront to moderates, including the suburban white women who have been a deciding factor in recent gains for the party, as seen most recently in Glenn Youngkin’s victory last month in the Virginia gubernatorial race. “We’re talking about rolling back the clock on health care for women 50 years,” Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow told the New York Times. “Obviously a whole generation of women have been able to get the health care they need and make their own reproductive choices, and I think you’ll be shocked to fully see what this means.”
But it’s hard to know how much of an impact that’ll have on Republicans’ electoral prospects. In an ideal world, it would turn reasonable voters against them, with a broad coalition of Democrats, independents, and even moderate Republicans recognizing the party as the destructive force that it is. Of course, one would also also hope that, say, supporting a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol would sink them politically. But less than a year after that insurrection, Republicans are considered favorites to take back the House and Senate. No matter how bad their behavior or how terrible their policies are, there are enough voters who will look past it or actively support it to give the abnormal GOP the power of a normal political party. And even if gutting abortion rights turns off some voters, Republicans’ restricting of voting rights could further insulate them from punishment at the polls.
This is what minority rule looks like: A Supreme Court reshaped by nominees of a president who did not win the popular vote, siding against half a century of precedent, while the party that’s won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections gets blocked from protecting rights that are widely supported by the public. Democrats hope that voters will buck Republicans and flock to them next year, particularly as they vow to affirm reproductive rights through legislation. “A woman’s right to make our own healthcare choices will be a defining issue in the 2022 midterms, and for voters it will reinforce the stakes of protecting and expanding our Democratic Senate Majority with the power to confirm or reject Supreme Court justices,” Jazmin Vargas, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Wednesday, per the Washington Post.
But merely electing Democratic majorities, as voters did in 2020, may not be enough. The influence of Trump and Mitch McConnell on the Supreme Court will likely be felt for decades to come, and the filibuster will continue to frustrate Democrats unless they can either gain 10 seats or change the rule. They appear no closer to doing the latter—two of their ranks, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, vehemently oppose even amending it—and that’s sure to doom the bill House Democrats passed earlier this year codifying Roe protections into law. So what we have, at present, is one party set on undoing five decades of precedent with the help of the high court, and another party that says it wants to stop them, but hasn’t been able to. Maybe that maddening state of play will inspire voters next November to rebel against Republicans at the ballot box. But that may be cold comfort for the setbacks to reproductive rights that could be suffered in the meantime. “I am really concerned,” Democratic Senator Patty Murray told the Post, “more than I ever have in my lifetime.”
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