If You Are Pro-Choice Let Roe v Wade Fall.

​It may sound perverse for a pro-choice advocate, which I am, to suggest that overturning Roe v Wade would be the best outcome from the current round of anti-abortion cases being heard by the SCOTUS. 

I believe that when it comes to existential issues like abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia et al, anyone who believes in the principle of liberal democracy should want decisions made based on the will of the majority of their fellow citizens. Not the will of an ‘almighty’, nor the adjudication of 9 Supreme Court Justices who are neither accountable to, nor representative of, the men, women and children on both sides of the issue whose lives they are literally 'messing with'. 

Getting obsessed by the debate as to when human life begins, a Constitutional right to privacy, the reach of the 10th Amendment etc. really doesn't solve the intractable problem. That pro-life and pro-choice evangelism is not based on logic or reason, but profound impregnable beliefs.

Which is why I hope Roe V Wade is overturned and the issue handed back to the States and their legislature. The Founding Fathers held a profound belief in the principle that democracy required elected representatives to be as close to voters as possible. 
Its principle is that 'We the people' should adjudicate existential matters like life and death, and that this should be done through a democratic process where elected politicians represent our interests and are held accountable for doing so.
Not everyone will like it, yet this principle is central to a functioning liberal democracy. It might even result in sensible compromises rather than polarizing diktats.

​If the minority can persuade enough fellow citizens to their way of thinking/believing, they can prevail. For now, pro-choice advocates can rest assured that, if polling data is correct and the matter is returned to the States, abortion within reasonable parameters will remain legal in the first trimester in States that represent well over half the US population.

That said, it is worth noting that 65% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in 'all or most cases' during the second and third trimesters. (AP-NORC Poll November 2021).

My opinion is that a ruling that overturns Roe v Wade and asserts the primacy of democratic process over cultural interpretation of existential issues (abortion, euthanasia, death penalty) is the preferable outcome of this shitstorm.

To those who profoundly and understandably remain pro-life, follow your own beliefs and advocate for them. Or seek compromise. For as long as we live in a liberal democracy where elected representatives make laws rather than an unaccountable elite or an even more abstract divine being, I hope pro-life campaigners who support the principles of liberal democracy appreciate that those of us who don’t share their belief would rather the choice on such matters remained a personal decision protected by the ballot box.