Is Roe safe? Absolutely not.

I have to admit, I was genuinely surprised that readers of this blog showed up in comments on this post to spread the glib myth that abortion rights aren’t actually under real threat in this country. This is a myth that has two major proponents: glib liberal men who use it as a way to insinuate that pro-choice activists are hysterical bitches who need to calm down and let a rational male presence set their priorities, and people who voted for Ralph Nader and don’t want to admit that there’s any difference between Democrats and Republicans, which requires pretending that the Supreme Court appointments don’t matter. Ironically, these two couldn’t be more different in many ways, but they share a glibness that I suppose causes the sort of dogpiling-based-on-ignorance that was occurring in that thread.

But in fact, abortion rights in general and Roe v. Wade specifically are in very real danger. I thought I’d do a quick sheet running down the glib attacks on this claim, and why they’re wrong.

Matt Drudge’s imaginary race wa...

Alex Pareene at Salon has an excellent report on how Matt Drudge has spent the past few years concocting a picture of America as one torn apart by a crime-based race war, where random black people are “rising up” and attacking and killing white people. If you, like me, find this image strange (including going to your window to make sure that so far, it’s mostly birds chirping and moms pushing strollers, and not in fact mob violence), then you’re not wrong! Crime levels, especially violent crime, continue to cascade downwardsin the United States Overall, the nation has become a gentler one, at least within its borders (The argument about our imperial adventures is outside the bounds of this discussion). I would even argue that the one area where crime is going up—domestic terrorism—is partially a response to the other trends in the United States A lot of right wing extremists look at the growing emphasis on non-violence in the United States. and feel like it’s emasculating and turn more violent and gun-loving in response.