The post-Roe world will be one of authoritarian chaos

One of the strangest durable themes of mainstream punditry is that Roe v. Wade is the reason that the politics of abortion in the United States are so divisive, and if the decision is overruled we would quickly find some stable state-by-state compromises and never have to think much about the issue again. Some people — including big-name legal scholars — are still doing it. The problem is that the theory is insanely wrong, as should be obvious if you think about it for more than 10 seconds, and just represents people who can take access to safe abortion and contraceptives for granted and thinks everyone is as indifferent about the issue as they are. We don’t even have to wait until the decision is formally overruled to see this:

Overturning Roe simply opens up new battles, including criminalization of travel for an out-of-state abortion, red state efforts to shut down blue state clinics, and the prosecution of those who buy and use medication abortion. It is going to be a carceral nightmare.— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 7, 2022

I strongly recommend this paper about what the inevitable efforts by red states to limit the right to travel and interfere with states where abortion remains legal will look like. It’s going to be an incredible mess, and with Trumpified federal courts that will probably not see another Democratic nominee for a decade or more starting in 2023 the results are going to be extraordinarily ugly.