Legal Abortion Is Very, Very Popular ... And The GOP Knows It.
They would not be crying about the leak if they didn't.
Legalized abortion, like universal background checks for guns, subsidized child care, paid family leave, raising the minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges , and student loan forgiveness is one of those liberal policies supported by a majority of Actual Americans but very few Real Americans(TM), thus causing people to vastly underestimate its popularity.
In reality, 70 percent of Americans do not think Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
61 percent believe abortion should be legal in all (27 percent) or most (34 percent) cases.
Only 12 percent believe it should be illegal in all cases. It's a very loud 12 percent, but it's only 12 percent.
But you know who is not vastly underestimating its popularity right now? All of the Republicans clutching their pearls about how horrified they are about the leak. The ones who are imploring the rest of us to immediately stop caring that our rights are being taken away and instead concentrate on how terrible it is that someone undermined the sanctity of the Supreme Court in order to leak the draft opinion.
On Twitter last night, conservatives quickly began fretting that the leak would help Democrats in the midterm elections or that public outcry over the decision would cause one of the justices to change their mind ( good ). The word "insurrection" even started trending as they tried to push the narrative that leaking the opinion was worse than what happened on January 6. Now, if you really thought legal abortion was very unpopular, would you think this leak would help you or hurt you?
Former Bush II press secretary Ari Fleischer wrote, "At least one person on the left thinks the left leaked it. This leak is destructive. The leaker must think their position on abortion is so important it’s worth destroying trust inside the Court. Who there will trust each other now? This is an insurrection against the court."
Or was the real insurrection against the court when the GOP upended precedent to steal two judges? Because I'm gonna go with that. I'm also going to say that yes, abortion rights are absolutely worth destroying trust inside the Court, the way the Court is now. If Republicans don't want to play by the rules, they shouldn't get to count on them.
Self-proclaimed theocratic fascist Matt Walsh tweeted , "The SCOTUS leak is an actual insurrection. An attempt to completely upend and delegitimize the rule of law, incite violence and chaos, and potentially plunge the nation into civil war. January 6th was a stroll in the park compared to this. It's not even close."
Marco Rubio said , "I wonder if the Jan 6th commission will now be looking into these leftist calls to insurrection?"
Tomi Lahren — who was notably actually kicked off of Glenn Beck's internet TV channel for saying she supported abortion — said on Fox, “The only chance the Dems have in November is to rile everybody up, get people to the polls with these emotional, culture issues [...] You’re going to see summer 2020 reignited w/protests — dare I say insurrection.”
Oh we're the ones getting people riled up with "culture issues" now? That's not the people going around screaming that all teachers are secret pedophiles who are grooming children by telling them that queer people exist? Or the people banning books that might teach their children about empathy?
This is not to say that we shouldn't be scared just because they so clearly are. It's not even to say that abortion actually being popular is going to help keep abortion legal anywhere that wants to outlaw it. Republicans have an extreme legislative advantage that allows them to do lots of unpopular things, plus the chutzpah to not really care what other people think or want. It's really just to say that they are full of shit.
It's also to say that we should not clutch our own pearls and worry that fighting for abortion rights is going to hurt us in some way. Because it's not. Nor should anyone get all mealy-mouthed and talk about how bad it is that the opinion is leaked, even if it helps us, because following the rules is the most important thing of all, even if we keep getting fucked by Republicans who don't follow the rules and never face consequences for it. If there is anything to learn from the Right, ever, it should be that fortune favors the bold.
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They would have to try to enforce a law that would overturn Brown and none of them wouldn’t be political suicide. You also can’t cause outrage by showing people images of even miserable gay couples, unless you’re already incredibly bigoted to begin with. There is no equivalent of “late term abortion” when it comes to things same sex marriage. They can’t manipulate people at the edges there like they can with abortion
Many of the same bigoted right wingers against Roe are also against gay marriage, access to contraceptives, race mingling, etc. They are the ones who said allowing "X" will lead to the downfall of the country. "X" being abortion, race mixing, access to contraceptives, gay marriage, etc. Right Wing SCOTUS nominees have even refused to say if they thought Brown v the Board of Education was settled law, and recently some GOPer politicians said States should decide who can sleep with/marry who and called for overturning of Loving V Virginia..