On abortion, my thoughts aren’t much different now than in 2016:
…[E]nforcing a universal ban on abortion will require a greater degree of governmental interference into the private lives of the citizenry. It would make every woman of childbearing age automatically suspect whenever she visits a hospital or calls a doctor or merely stays away from home for a couple of days. The enforcement apparatus would inevitably eat at the increasingly meager protections against arbitrary government action still available to commoners.
In the US specifically, the Supreme Court has just taken away a fundamental right that existed for nearly fifty years. That’s perverse and potentially destabilizing: what’s the next right to get nixed? Same-sex marriage? Contraception?
Even though this Dobbs ruling doesn’t look as bad as, say, Dred Scott – which was an arbitrary departure from centuries of precedent – it may end up close to Plessy v. Ferguson in its impact. On the other hand, it’s an enormous political opportunity for the women’s rights movement and its allies.