> The seven to two judgment in Roe v. Wade declared “violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” a Texas criminal abortion statute that intolerably shackled a woman’s autonomy; the Texas law “except[ed] from criminality only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the [pregnant woman].” Suppose the Court had stopped there, rightly declaring unconstitutional the most extreme brand of law in the nation, and had not gone on, as the Court did in Roe, to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law then in force. Would there have been the twenty-year controversy we have witnessed[?]

[1] https://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/

(edited to add forgotten source)

> I can think of one person who said that:

congratulations, really pushing the boundaries of what is possible here.

Stop educating people on biology (and in the post genome sequencing world), stop women from having reproductive control, stop LGBTQ folks from participating without fear, stop the free thinking people, stop it all in the name of that olde time religion (which itself is mostly a modern nostalgic reconstruction).

Very harmful to our ability to focus and succeed on technological transformation.

While today is certainly a dark day for the US, that paints an inaccurately rosy picture of the past to make us look even worse than we are today.

Our literacy rate has never been higher, belief in evolution is at an all time high, more people have college degrees, and access to accurate information has never been easier. We are in a short-term downswing on many axes, but the long term trends are towards science and education.

You are absolutely correct that we are more polarized than we have been since the Civil War.

22 years of downhill might be short term for a nation but it’s not for people

And yet, without knowing it, ahead of you was the Civil Rights Act, the women's liberation movement, the environmental movement and the Clean Air Act, increased support for interacial relationships, gay rights.

In the midst of that dark time, it would have been hard to believe any of those could be ahead of you. Who knows what could be ahead of us now?

I have elementary age kids and it is fascinating seeing how that generation is growing up. They are so much more community oriented and caring that my generation was. They seem to understand that there are hard problems to be solved and that they won't be solved alone.

I'm filled with sorrow at the world they are inheriting, but I have a lot of optimism that they will do a better job with it than we have.

There's nothing metaphysical about observing that we have imperfect knowledge of the future and some potentialities are positive.

> I've already discounted the idea.

That's a personal choice of attitude and perspective, not an objective property of the universe. You're welcome to it, of course, but it's probably not accomplishing much for you.

> Everything ends eventually.

All the more reason to make the most of it and find the joy we can while it lasts. If it's going to end either way, why obsess about it?

Also, due to having to argue basic shit like the value of a pluralistic educated democracy when we have the physical problem of climate change bearing down and really wanting our attention. I marched for Roe v Wade in 1988 the first time, protested against stupid wars in 1986, helped build what I thought would tie humanity together in an enlighten network of discourse in the 90s as a programmer, had kids in the 2000#, and now back to Roe v Wade. Meanwhile the CO2 is 420 ppm and we haven’t got a damn Mars 100 picked out yet (Sci fi reference there). I want Red Mars with more realistic population distribution, not Parable of the Sower.

Most Americans support some form of universal access to health care as well - some variation of single payer, or public option, or similar. That is nowhere reflected in state-level policy in many many states.

The distribution of Americans who support the right to abortion is also not even.

In States where the distribution of "anti" outweighs "pro" all citizens will lose the right. So human rights are lessened in the United States.

It is a tragic day.

13 states have trigger laws going into effect with this. It’s not going to move the needle at all. The red states will ban it. Blue won’t. And it’ll still be a hot button topic in the reversed states. Red candidates in blue states will want to outlaw it. Blue candidates in red states will want to allow it.

One would hope, but they have only been veering further to the right on this issue. In the past year, multiple states have passed the most extreme abortion laws this country has seen over half a century. Texas will literally throw women in jail if they are caught leaving the state to get an abortion.

But those evil Democrats want to teach kids that there is nothing wrong with being gay, so I guess it equals out?

I do not know how any sane person can still support the GOP, especially after the Jan. 6 insurrection and this SC ruling.