highly educated people [...] have built up conservatives as such a boogeyman, they don’t have a solid grasp on what’s within the realm of political reality and what isn’t. I detected the same hyperbole in your post.
Just 15 months ago, you wrote 'Of course, overturning Roe isn’t really in the cards. There are just 3 votes for it.' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26311034
I don't know whether your analytic powers are less good than you imagine them to be, or you're being strategic; but given that you now write as if such an outcome had been obvious and inevitable all along, I'm not inclined to rely on your estimates.
It’s not a hyperbolic comparison. I’m simply observing that other highly educated people (like the folks who thought I was about to be dragged to an internment camp) have built up conservatives as such a boogeyman, they don’t have a solid grasp on what’s within the realm of political reality and what isn’t. I detected the same hyperbole in your post.
The abrogation of Roe makes the Constitutional law of the US the same as Italy and still more liberal than Germany. Even if some states ban abortion, that just makes them like Ireland until a few years ago, or Poland now. The EU has some very religious places with extremely restricted abortion rights, and others with more liberal rights, and most in a mushy middle. Why isn’t that situation workable in the US?
Some of the other privacy cases might be on the chopping block too. You don’t have to be an “ultra conservative” to think substantive due process is a bunch of malarkey. That was my first reaction when I learned about it in law school a decade ago.
But say Griswold goes away. So what? Most European countries don’t have a similar right to contraception, yet contraception is legal there. 90% of Republicans support legalized contraception. Obergefell and Bostock are on firmer footing. But even then half of Republicans support same-sex marriage. Almost 80% support employment rights for LGBT people. The politics isn’t the same for those other issues.
Abortion is different because Roe was both legally infirm, and drew the Constitutional line in the wrong place. I’m not aware of any country that recognizes a right to abort an 20 week fetus without a medical reason, even if some countries like Canada allow it. Roe drew the line 10 weeks past where most civilized nations draw the line, and that made it a political target in the way contraception isn’t. Almost 30% of Republicans disagree with their party that abortion should be generally illegal at all stages. But even among most of those people it’s difficult to muster up a defense of Roe.