Projections of how many states will ban most abortions run as high as nearly half of them. That won’t stop women with means from having the procedure; they’ll just travel to places where it’s still available. Women without means will rely on uncertain aid from organizations that may or may not have adequate resources. They’ll jump through extra hoops. Or their unplanned pregnancies will lead to unplanned families.
When that happens, will all of the judges, politicians and other Americans who have fought against abortion rights be there to offer social and financial support? It’s a rhetorical question.
We’re devolving further into minority rule.
There’s a difference between having moral qualms with abortion and wanting it banned, and poll after poll shows that most Americans don’t want it banned. A survey conducted just last week by The Washington Post and ABC News found that, according to an article published on Tuesday in The Post, “54 percent of Americans think the 1973 Roe decision should be upheld while 28 percent believe it should be overturned” — a ratio of roughly two to one.
So the Supreme Court doesn’t reflect most Americans’ beliefs. There’s a potent argument that it needn’t or even shouldn’t, but that doesn’t change its pronounced imbalance of six conservatives and three liberals. A Republican president who didn’t even come close to winning the popular vote got to appoint three of the nine justices, one because the Republican majority leader of the Senate redefined obstructionism by denying a second-term Democratic president who did win the popular vote (twice) what should have been his final appointment.
Oh, and Republicans had the Senate majority at least in part because the composition of the chamber favors rural areas in which Republicans now hold sway, not because they were and are in such exquisite sync with most Americans.
Some of what I’ve described is quirk. Some is flaw. But the sum is a reality in which many Americans feel increasingly — and dangerously — disenfranchised.
We were already on the edge. This could push us over.
Many Americans right now are feeling not only disenfranchised but also betrayed. Nearly a half-century of the status quo could be going out the window, just like that.