What Actually Happens If Roe v. Wade Is Overturned?

Of all the forms of inflation Americans have suffered through in recent months, perhaps the worst kind has been threat inflation — the endless stream of doomsday prophecies and apocalyptic warnings that a coalition of theocrats, rubes, and “white supremacists” are secretly turning America into a real-life version of The Handmaid’s Tale. This was always off-base in a nation where children may be indoctrinated in Critical Race Theory and attend “drag queen story hour” in the same day. But nothing has thrown more fuel on this overheated rhetoric than the possibility that the Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade.

Those fears went into overdrive on May 2, 2022, when someone took the exceedingly rare step of leaking  a 98-page draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. If accurate, the document indicates that a majority of justices intend to reverse Roe v. Wade. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, according to the draft. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”