The reality of choice's availability won't change much, even if Roe is overturned and some states outlaw abortions. Less than 20% of all counties in this nation have an abortion provider available. Choice is great, and people are all for it - in theory. Abortion, however, isn't something most people care to really think about, and so it remains "out of sight, out of mind." Besides, maybe some other needed national conversations might result, like the state's parens patriae responsibility for orphans and endangered minors and people's general unwillingness to be adoptive or foster parents.

It's like Monty Python said: "Always look on the bright side of life..."

If you can't survive the short-term, the long-term doesn't matter. The far right only wants white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant males to be in positions of power, with minorities and Jews excluded, and women put (back) in their places totally dependent upon men and unable to control their reproduction.

when they're up the spout, themselves?

Roe v. Wade ceased to affect me permanently the day my husband got his lab tests back indicating that he was shooting blanks. While I'm still deeply concerned for those women and girls who didn't demand an end to abortion rights and who will bear the brunt of a reversal at the hands of the Supreme Court, there's one group for whom I will shed no tears nor lose any sleep. That would be those anti-choice protesters who, while they shrieked for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, waved pictures of bloody fetuses, made their children carry signs saying I'm Glad My Mommy Didn't Abort Me, and engaged in all kinds of hysterical and embarrassing theatrics outside clinics, were surreptitiously taking advantages of the services those clinics had to offer. Read these stories (http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/anti-tales.shtml) and pick your jaw up off the floor.

Eleanor Clift's scenario won't come to pass and Page Rockwell has nothing to worry about. If Alito does need a memo, he'll get it. Mark my words: a century from now, abortion on demand, at least in the first trimester, will be legally available. Can we now worry about other substantive issues, like, for example, ending our incredibly stupid prohibition of drugs, or must we remain in obeisance indefinitely to the Women's Studies' set and continue to plod along?

"Ginsberg understood what he was witnessing: mass fervor that great - especially from the young - has always felt threatening. That's because it can seem unruly, powerful enough to upset traditions and values or to incite dangerous action. There had been small riots at rock 'n' roll concerts in the 1950's - chairs thrown, fisticuffs - but the threat implicit in 1960's music was something else: it was about setting things loose, about changing or upending the world. The barricade of policemen I saw that day at the Beatles' show - the same line Ginsberg had seen - certainly acted as if they were seeing something more than mania. The scream the Beatles brought forth in America was just too unforeseen and too big. It could help shake the order of things, and in time it would."

Mikal Gilmore; August 24, 2005 -- New York Times; Why This Band Plays On

No, they’d seen all that stuff any number of times in wars, riots and football games. What nobody had seen was GIRLS, female humans doing it. Here with more then half the politicians in power determined to reduce the rights women have won since that day, they may be seeing it again!!

If you're a professor at Oklahoma Christian University, you probably buy into their socially conservative values; so why should we give a fuck if they lose their jobs for personal reasons.

If abortion goes back to the states, and certain states outlaw abortion, they won't be able to do so without full participation of the women living in those states. Worrying about Kansas or Oklahoma - when you live in NY or CA, is a waste of your time and common sense: these people want Jesus to dicate their lives, they want the bible as their guide, they yearn to have the Invisible Man in the Sky as their leader - so let him lead. I'll continue to live in NYC, vote for prochoicers and celebrate the reasons that we're better and smarter than they... And the hidden progressives in Kansas and Oklahoma will have to get on a train or a jet and come to where the light shines brightly!

Ms. Rockwell,

I'm a guy, so from a legal perspective, I really don't "have standing" on this issue. It seems to me that any decisions on abortion should be made by women, including legislation. I know that's not the way things work, but it is my wish.

I do have a little suggestion should worst come to worst. Spend some money on a national ad campaign that I think would be much appreciated by today's young women. It's kind of raunchy, but not completely crude, and it speaks DIRECTLY to the issue at hand. Print, electronic, and billboard ads would be something like:

"If you're not SURE you want the guy's baby, don't screw him. Get a girl friend."

And bumper stickers: "If you're not SURE...." Lots of bumper stickers.

The millions of women who live in states where abortion would likely be banned should get their asses to the polls and vote Democrat. End of story.

She wasn't so certain on abortion right? So maybe that's why she was nominated. Bush (or more likely Rove) tried to sneak someone on the court who very well might have maintained the status quo where the right has their 'cold war' issue. So long as they can rail against abortion they know they can pull in enough one issue voters to turn the tide. It's the battle they want, not the victory.

This is one instance in which the Republican Party cannot control its extremist elements. I am certain that the corporate interests would like to keep Roe v. Wade alive and fear the results at the polls which Eleanor Clift mentions. This keeps the religious extremists voting Republican and allows big business to drill oil, strip forests, and bust unions while the Administration and Congress lower their taxes.

But the religious right may not get the message this time. Some state legislatures are already voting bans on abortion. There is no guarantee or even likelihood that Alito or any other Republican justice will "get the message;" they have lifetime appointments after all.

There is no reason to take comfort from living in a Blue state either. Perhaps New York and California will not ban abortion, but there is nothing to stop a Republican Congress from a national ban. The conservative commitment to "States' Rights" did not stop them from passing the "partial-birth abortion" ban.