AMERICA’S increasingly volatile and belligerent politics, hastened by racial and social grievances of conservative white Americans, now manifests itself in the Supreme Court’s poise to overturn Roe v. Wade. After around five decades of the guaranteed federal constitutional protection of abortion rights, society now looks at going back to the pre-1973 era. This places anti-Roe conservatives on a collision course with those comfortable with the changes remarking the 21st century America.
As the polls suggest, overturning Roe, while framed as a pro-life act, in reality, is another attempt to challenge the modern views of kaleidoscopically diverse younger generations born after 1980, representing the majority of Americans. Those who want to make abortion illegal, for example, consistently express much more skepticism about changing gender roles; they are more likely to believe that the U.S. will not benefit from more women in power. More than 80% of abortion opponents think that discrimination against white Americans is now a big problem; about 60% agree that things have changed to the point that they feel like strangers in their own country.
This divide further extends in how red and blue states are responding to the changes. Of the 12 red states that have passed new abortion restrictions since 2021, nine have denied exceptions for rape and incest, if Roe falls. Meanwhile, 16 Democratic states together with the District of Columbia have laws in place to protect abortion rights, if Roe is overturned. Thus, reversing Roe v. Wade can make the Republican-Democratic divide starker.
Nevertheless, 80% of Americans are pro-abortion with 63% supporting Roe v. Wade, which means that the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority will continue to find itself at odds with the priorities of America’s modern generation.