Roe Died

[MarkD]

Honestly, I tend to think she was taken advantage of by Sarah Weddington, who was basically just out to make a name for herself. And I say that as someone whose views would generally be regarded as pro-choice.

If the abortion rights movement had simply been content to let abortion slowly become legalized state-by-state, it would have been much harder for a cohesive pro-life movement to metastasize onto the Christian Right and create such a major backlash.

Was abortion even much of a political issue before Roe v. Wade?

Not nationally. The Supreme Court nationalized the issue. But state-by-state, yes, abortion was gradually becoming more of a political issue even before Roe.
Even Prof. Alan Dershowitz has been saying that the Supreme Court came to the wrong conclusion in Roe. One day in Oct. 2003, he participated in a panel discussion on the topic of "Has the Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional mandate," -- the debate was staged at Regent University -- and the program was aired on C-SPAN. I taped the show, and have watched the two-hour long debate over and over. Dershowitz said that Roe v. Wade was one example of the Court overstepping its constitutional mandate. "I myself personally, strongly support a woman's right to choose abortion, but I do not support the constitutionalization of that particular right." He published a book in 2001 called "Supreme Injustice; How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000," and in it he wrote that Roe was wrongly decided, as well as offered a theory that Roe has radicalized the Republican Party. And he said it was unnecessary for the Court to resolve the abortion issue "in one fell swoop."

Dershowitz quoted this from a publication by the ACLU, published in fall 2000:
"Between 1967 and 1971, under mounting pressure from the women's rights movement, 17 states decriminalized abortion. Public opinion also shifted during this period. in 1968, only 15 percent of Americans favored legal abortions; by 1972, 64 percent did. When the Court announced its landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, it was marching in step with public opinion."
So, according to Dershowitz, "Advocates of a woman's right to choose abortion could have organized politically to win that right (at least for most woman under most circumstances) in the elected branches of government. ... The short-term consequences of constitutionalizing the abortion issue were powerful and positive for the pro-choice movement. The long-term consequences were disastrous. Roe v. Wade provided the religious right and the conservative wing of the Republican Party one of the best organizing tools and rallying cries imaginable. The right-to-life movement was energized by this decision and became one of the most potent political forces both nationally and in a large number of states. ... Though Roe v. Wade is still the law, that decision -- and the ensuing power of the right-to-life lobby -- almost certainly pressured Republican presidents to nominate activist right-wing justices such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas." ("Supreme Injustice," pages 192-194.)

[MarkD]

Honestly, I tend to think she was taken advantage of by Sarah Weddington, who was basically just out to make a name for herself. And I say that as someone whose views would generally be regarded as pro-choice.

If the abortion rights movement had simply been content to let abortion slowly become legalized state-by-state, it would have been much harder for a cohesive pro-life movement to metastasize onto the Christian Right and create such a major backlash.

Quoting some more of "Supreme Injustice,"
"Instead of devoting all of their resources to continuing the legislative and political battle, the pro-choice movement devoted much of its resources to the litigation option, whose goal it was to get the Supreme Court to constitutionalize a woman's right to choose abortion. It worked as planned, thus sparing the pro-choice movement the difficult political task or organizing and fund-raising on a state-by-state basis. The justices did the work for them by simply striking down most abortion laws in one fell swoop." After the decision by the Court, "the pro-choice movement became lethargic, celebrating its great judicial victory and neglecting the hard work of organizing and fund-raising -- at least in the beginning." (Pages 192-193.)