The fire and fury of America’s abortion debate

I wonder at times how some of my fellow hacks in America get out of bed in the morning. The leak of a draft of a Supreme Court decision on abortion rights last week prompted what can only be called a collective nervous breakdown. ‘My teeth have been chattering uncontrollably for an hour,’ New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister vented. ‘Bodies/minds are so weird. Like, not euphemistically – actually chattering. Audibly. And full shaking body. Though otherwise wholly, rationally, well and truly expecting it.’ Well, I wouldn’t say wholly rational, Rebecca, but you do you.

The terrifying ruling would send the abortion issue back from a single court to democratic debate and discussion – where it is in every other western country. The case before the court was a law that would put limits on abortion after 15 weeks – three weeks more liberal than the law in, say, Germany and most western countries. Polling shows big American popular majorities for legal abortion with some restrictions, so you’d think the Democrats would be psyched to have an issue in November where the Republicans are on the defensive.

But nah. Hysteria ruled. ‘Seriously, shout out to whoever the hero was within the Supreme Court who said “Let’s burn this place down,”’ wrote a senior correspondent at Vox. The New York Times editorialised that various states would even now reimpose bans on interracial marriage – which has 94 per cent support. President Biden, who used to be a more conventional Catholic on the abortion question, harrumphed: ‘I’m not prepared to leave [abortion policy] to the whims of the public at the moment in local areas.’ Whims of the public! You may remember those as, well, democracy. Yes, a few states are likely to reimpose bans on abortion, if the draft ruling stands.