Fifty Years, Undone on a Friday

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade and ending nearly fifty years of federal abortion protections. The draft opinion had leaked weeks earlier — an unprecedented breach that was itself a historic event — so everyone knew it was coming. It landed anyway like a bomb. Trigger laws in over a dozen states went into effect almost immediately. Clinics that had operated for decades began closing. Protests erupted outside the Court while justices who had told senators during confirmation hearings that Roe was "settled precedent" declined to comment on the irony. The political map of the country redrew itself overnight — not along the usual red-blue lines, but along a new axis of bodily autonomy that would reshape elections for years. The decision was six pages of legal reasoning and fifty years of political maneuvering. It landed in summer, which meant the rage had nowhere to go except into voter registration drives and midterm campaigns. Both sides understood what had happened. Only one side was celebrating.