Regardless of what any of us feel, anyone that thinks we will ever return to a situation where our wives and daughters would be forced to seek illegal abortions from untrained back alley butchers is delusional. The practical realities would be a mess for everyone, regardless of political stripe.

If it did happen, the result would be to precisely focus and unleash all of the political and economic power than women have gained during the intervening decades on a single political issue and those that oppose them. The fallout would transform the political landscape, and the result would be very gloomy for the cultural conservatives. Most people pretty much ignore this issue, as the people it matters most to weren't even born when Roe v Wade was decided. That would change in short order.

Outrage over abortion is an effective rallying cry for the social right, but their worst political nightmare would be for abortion to be made illegal, and mainstream politicians be forced to choose between a future in public office or support for a socially conservative minority. Most people just ignore the right wing noise machine, but that would also change, and advertisers would be forced to make some hard choices regarding radio and television sponsorship. In a cultural war, amoral business interests will not want to be on the losing side, and sheer numbers would dictate the result.

Even for the right wing hypocrites this would be a nasty situation. It's one thing to express verbal outrage over abortion, it's quite another thing to have your college freshman daughter have to choose between giving birth to the offspring of some useless no load, be forced to risk her life getting it terminated illegally, or head off to Toronto alone. Anyone that thinks that all the women who seek abortions come from politically liberal or centrist households has never been to a university clinic. It's actually the most sexually repressed, and those unfamiliar with using birth control, that have the most frequent unwanted pregnancies. In rural areas it is particularly prevalent among high school kids, and in small towns these girls are under a magnifying glass.

oc