What the backlash will look like

Republicans might pause for a moment to consider whether that is a political reality they want to bring about. It’s one thing to aspire to end abortion and rail at activist courts when the potential for overturning Roe was negligible; it is quite another to take the heat and the blowback from millions of voters when that power is transferred to the hands of politicians. The “War Against Women” will take on new meaning and importance in American politics. Are Republicans going to demand that women and/or doctors be sent to jail for having or performing an impermissible abortion? That is where this inevitably leads.

Yet we really do not know how all of this will play out. Perhaps Republicans lose the ability to win in places (i.e. outside the Deep South) where outlawing abortion is an anathema. (Anyone think Trump could carry Pennsylvania if the issue is criminalizing abortion?) Millions of women, especially younger women, could well consider installation of an antiabortion justice to be an attack on their autonomy, radicalizing them into anti-Republican crusaders. It will take years for the political storm to subside, if ever. And the spark for all this will be the Supreme Court, which will have made one of the most controversial and consequential decisions in decades.

One wonders what Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who did legal backflips to avoid overruling Obamacare for fear of damaging the legitimacy of the court, would feel about that. If five male justices with a stroke of the pen decide that women no longer have leeway to terminate their pregnancy or select the contraception of their choice, the court’s image as an impartial arbiter will be lost, maybe permanently. What legal ruse will Roberts resort to in order to keep the court out of that political inferno?

No one should discount the potential for social upheaval and unrest. The events that ensue will be the most important part of the legacy of every senator who votes for a justice who will vote to undo 45 years of constitutional law. It would be quite something for Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who have maintained their pro-choice credentials over years and decades, to contemplate.==============================