I’m on record as being pro-choice and for suggesting that abortion is Republicans’ Achilles Heel. In the latter blog, which was posted about a week before the leak of Justice Alito’s draft opinion, I stated that Republicans would be better served by reinforcing their brand as the party of freedom while Democrats have been aligning with groups in their tent that suppress freedom, such as the cancel culture in all of its forms.
I have spoken with so many people, particularly people in their 20’s, who believe that the Dobbs decision effectively outlawed abortion. All the Supreme Court did was to say that the original Roe decision was judicial over-reach and effectively created law when no law had been passed by congress. In the absence of a federal law on the subject, the states have the right to make their own laws. Dobbs did not change any state’s current abortion laws. It simply allows for states to make or re-define their own laws.
When looking at this logically, the Dobbs decision makes sense. Even liberal Justice Ginzberg felt that Roe was bad law from a purely legal perspective. So the activists who are terrorizing the conservative justices both in their neighborhoods and in public are out of line. Pro-choice activists should focus their attention on winning the legislative battles at either the state level or at the federal level. Terrorizing judges, churches, and pro-life counseling centers is an inappropriate response.
That being said, Republicans in red states are already jumping on the opportunity by pushing to restrict or completely outlaw abortions at the state level. As I stated in Achilles, this is a huge mistake. Democrats are already using the Dobbs decision to frame Republicans as the party of repression. As red states pass more restrictive abortion laws, more and more young people, particularly young women, but also men with daughters, will abandon Republican candidates. Many independent voters left the Republicans in 2020 based solely on their hatred of / concerns about the cult of Trump. Those voters are ripe to return to the more sensible economic policies of the Trump era after seeing how Biden policies that sounded OK on the debate stage have actually impacted their personal financial situations. But red state over-exuberance over the Dobbs ruling is effectively “building a wall” that will make it difficult for many of them to return.