Letters to the Editor
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Why Roe Will Not Be Overruled
Rich Greenwood illustrates beth m's point about Roe being the wrong issue. Millions of otherwise compassionate and progressive people have supported Republican candidates because of this one controversy. If not for this issue, there could be no Republican party as presently configured, i.e., an unholy alliance between religious fundamentalists and plutocrats. By the same token, if Roe were ever flatly overruled, all these one-issue Republicans would repudiate the party in droves as they realize how little else they have in common with its ruling corporate elite, which has destroyed their jobs and their pensions, lowered their standard of living, deprived them of decent health care, and gutted their schools.
In other words, the Republican party needs Roe v. Wade, and has no intention of appointing judges who will actually overrule it. What they will do is gradually permit greater incremental limitations on women's rights to choose. Perhaps eventually that right will become so burdened that it will cease to exist, as a practical matter, in some states. But as long as they can get away with it, the Republicans will keep holding out the carrot of "overruling Roe" to keep folks like Rich in their camp.