David Brooks suggested that American politics will be hopelessly bitter so long as Roe remains the law in the land. (See my post here.) Ann Althouse doesn’t think it’s that simple:
it’s not possible to redo the last 30 years. We already are where we are, and those who think abortion should be legal have spent these decades — or their whole lives — thinking abortion was not only legal but a constitutional right. To take that right away now would not give us a chance to have the democratic debate we never had. It would be a wholly different experience of taking away a right, after the bitter politics had built to the level where the side opposed to the right has finally gotten its way, after we have already become polarized. What makes you think that won’t be insanely bitter?
I think she makes a very good point. It is one thing to suggest that the judicialization of controversial policy questions helped embitter American politics. It is quite another to suggest it is possible to reverse course. History moves ever onward.
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