On Thursday, the state of Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade. “Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong,” the state said in a brief submitted to the Court. “The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition.”
Mississippi was laying out its arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that presents the best opportunity since Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) to unravel America’s abortion regime. Mississippi attorney general Lynn Fitch could have stopped short of asking for the reversal of Roe. But she did what was right.
For many years, opponents of abortion have enjoyed modest but real successes through a strategy of “incrementalism.” Instead of seeking to pass a constitutional amendment protecting the unborn (as the movement did without success in its early years), it has sought marginal restrictions on abortion that save a real but limited number of lives.
In many cases, incremental approaches have been the best available means to save the unborn. Unfortunately, some have come to favor them not out of concern for unborn life, but out of fear that bolder action might harm the political fortunes of the Republican Party.
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