USA Today reports on the likely consequences if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
The conclusions:
•Twenty-two state legislatures are likely to impose significant new restrictions on abortion. They include nearly every state in the South and a swath of big states across the industrial Rust Belt, from Pennsylvania to Ohio and Michigan. These states have enacted most of the abortion restrictions now allowed…
•Sixteen state legislatures are likely to continue current access to abortion. They include every state on the West Coast and almost every state in the Northeast…
•Twelve states fall into a middle ground between those two categories. About half are in the Midwest, the rest scattered from Arizona to Rhode Island.
…All but four of the states likely to maintain access to abortion voted for Democrat John Kerry.
I take these analyses with a grain of salt. I suspect that the overturning of Roe v. Wade would significantly alter the political balance in the country…and not in favor of the anti-choice crowd. One indication that the GOP will be punished is polling. After Bush’s reelection, the LA Times asked what kind of Supreme Court nominations Bush should make:
59 percent say Bush should choose a nominee who would uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. About three in 10, 31 percent, said they want a nominee who would overturn the decision, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.”
Even with a strong majority of Americans opposing overturning Roe, a majority of politicians in many state legislative bodies have a different position. For example:
In fact, 63 of the 99 members of the Ohio House are committed, if Roe is overturned, to support a state ban on abortions except those needed to save the life of the woman. (Seven members add exceptions in cases of rape and incest.)
Another indicator is the polling for Governor Mike Rounds before and after he signed the anti-choice legislation in South Dakota. Rounds had a 72%-23% approval rating before he signed the legislation. Afterwards, his numbers fell to 58%-38%.
Politicians respond to polls. The anti-choice position has been working for the GOP. But it has been working because their activists are more motivated. Most Americans take reproductive rights for granted because they are constitutionally guaranteed. When they discover that those guarantees no longer exist, the intensity of reproductive rights advcocates will match, or perhaps even exceed, the intensity we currently see from the far right.
For these reasons, I don’t expect twenty-two states to “impose significant new restrictions on abortion”. Nevertheless, moving backwards on reproductive rights will erode the quality and accessibility of care for women all across the country. It will also expand the number of political offices where a stance on abortion is really relevant, thereby increasing the political polarization over the issue.