The day has come. The Sword of Damocles has crashed down on the constitutional right to an abortion. The Court's decision is the most consequential in generations, and will make the abortion issue even more contentious and controversial than it's been already.
But contra the Democrats, especially President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it's doubtful that "abortion will be on the ballot" this fall. Bread and butter issues, kitchen table issues, will be on the ballot, and what better way for the radical Democrat Party to try to change the subject, try to turn the page on the misery the great majority of Americans are feeling amid the worst economy since the 1980s.
It's a big day.
At the Los Angeles Times, "In historic reversal, Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade, frees states to outlaw abortion: The ruling marks the most significant curtailing of an established constitutional right in the Supreme Court’s history":
WASHINGTON — In a historic reversal, the Supreme Court on Friday overturned the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision and ruled states may again outlaw abortion. The court’s conservative majority said the Constitution does not protect the rights of women to choose abortion and instead leaves these decisions in the hands of state lawmakers. The 5-4 ruling marks the most significant curtailing of an established constitutional right in the court’s history. The opinion written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. closely tracks a draft that was leaked by Politico in May. “We hold that Roe and [the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs.] Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.” The opinion was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. concurred but did not join the majority opinion in overturning Roe, saying he would have upheld only a Mississippi 15-week ban on abortion. That made the decision to uphold Mississippi’s law a 6-3 opinion. “The court’s decision to overrule Roe and Casey is a serious jolt to the legal system,” Roberts wrote. The court’s three liberal justices — Justice Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — dissented. “Today, the court ... says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of,” their dissent read. “A state can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs.” The dissenting justices concluded, “Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.” The ruling figures to set off a fierce political fight nationwide and state by state as politicians and voters weigh in on whether abortion should be restricted or prohibited entirely. Opinion polls show most Americans support access to abortion, at least in the early months of a pregnancy. Nevertheless, half the states are expected to seek to quickly enforce laws that make most abortions illegal. The decision is the high court’s most far-reaching reversal on a matter of constitutional rights since 1954, when the justices reversed six decades of precedent and struck down laws authorizing racial segregation. But that unanimous decision in Brown vs. Board of Education expanded the rights of individuals and rejected conservative state laws, while today’s does the opposite. It empowers states and reverses what had been the most significant women’s rights ruling in the court’s history. For the U.S. Catholic bishops as well as evangelical Christians who believe abortion ends a human life and is immoral, the ruling is a triumph decades in the making. They had refused to accept the idea the Constitution protected abortion as a fundamental right...
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