The leak of a draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade has sparked a furious reaction in Britain. Yet for all the backlash in British political circles, the reality is that the proposed shake-up of abortion laws in the United States doesn’t really matter here. Our nominally conservative-leaning parliament just voted to make abortion easier, and the issue is nowhere near as salient for the British right as it is in the US. Those who are furiously denouncing the ruling are wading into an issue that will have little to no impact on their own lives.
Yet there is something significant for Brits to take from this furious debate: we’re lucky that we live under the rule of law rather than the rule of lawyers. How much longer will this be the case? Across the Western world, activists, lawyers, and politicians have worked assiduously to shift intensely controversial and inherently political issues from the realm of politics into the realm of law and human rights, where inconvenient obstacles such as debate and democratic process are no longer present.
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