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And while Republicans and anti-abortion forces were increasingly working in concert to turn the states to their advantage, abortion rights supporters accused Democrats of all but giving up on local elections.

On the far right, they realized that the most lasting impact of 2010 would be in the states, said Daniel Squadron, a former New York state senator and the executive director of the States Project, which was founded by Democrats in 2017 to try to win back control of legislatures. On our side, state power was a footnote. The lesson we took was Focus more on midterms; the lesson they took was Wield power in states. And today, both sides are reaping what we sowed.

Abortion rights groups lacked the infrastructure their opponents had in the states. NARAL had cut its number of state affiliates nearly in half between 1991 and 2011. And with Democrats in the glow of winning Congress in 2006 and electing the nations first Black president two years later, abortion rights groups were having trouble convincing big donors and grass-roots supporters alike that Roe was in trouble.

Donors liked to support congressional and presidential elections, and tended to go away when they perceived that the threat had disappeared. When you were trying to convince them they had to put money into Kansas or Nebraska, they were like, Thats futile, said Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL at the time.

Opponents of abortion rights had always proved easier to mobilize than supporters. In polls and focus groups, NARAL asked women who were sympathetic to its cause what it would take to get them to be more active in protecting Roe v. Wade. Consistently, Ms. Keenan said, We received answers saying, If they overturn it.

Some younger activists were pushing abortion rights groups to stop apologizing for or seeking compromise on abortion. To the new generation, abortion was health care, and bodily autonomy was not something to be compromised. The Democratic Party platform in 2012 left in safe and legal but took out rare.

When you were trying to convince them they had to put money into Kansas or Nebraska, they were like, Thats futile.

Anti-abortion groups exploited this, portraying the Democrats position on abortion as anytime, anywhere, under any circumstance, and paid for with government funds. By contrast, said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a 20-week ban looked reasonable, in keeping with what polls showed Americans wanted.

Two thousand ten was the year that the light came on about the reality of abortion law in the nation, she said. It was the year that the polarization between the extreme abortion absolutism and the Republican Party position was a winning contrast. Its the first year that sitting officeholders could see that this issue really helps us. And it just got stronger every election cycle because we would not relent with that contrast.

Republicans running in right-leaning districts backed increasingly strict laws to appeal to reliable anti-abortion voters and avoid primary challenges. By 2016, one analysis found not a single Republican state legislator willing to identify as pro-choice.

In the nearly 50 years between the Roe decision and its reversal on Friday, states enacted 1,380 restrictions on abortion. Almost half 46 percent were enacted since 2011.

Professor Devins, of William and Mary, revisited the question of abortion politics in 2016, this time in a paper for The Vanderbilt Law Review. He stuck by his 2009 assessment, but the middle ground he had written of approvingly then had disappeared. Today, red state political actors are not interested in compromise, Professor Devins wrote in 2016. With the rightward shift in the Republican Party, abortion rights had become about partisan advantage, along with voter identification laws, tax reform and elimination of public-sector unions.

In 2015, the Florida Senate had taken just one hour to approve a 24-hour waiting period on abortion, with Republicans rejecting all eight amendments offered by Democrats. Wisconsin had passed its ban on abortion after 20 weeks without a single Democrat. And a bill in Texas to prohibit abortions based on fetal abnormality was brought up for a committee vote after the House had recessed and Democrats were absent.

Its conventional wisdom to say that the courts decision in Roe caused the polarization over abortion, said Reva Siegel, a law professor at Yale. But the court did not cause that polarization. It was the Republican Partys quest for voters political party competition that savaged Roe. Once the attack on Roe was underway, the defense needed to be full tilt in politics as well as in the courts and in all political arenas, state, local and federal. Because over time the attack on Roe has become more than an attack on abortion; it has become an attack on democracy.

By 2019, proponents of the incremental strategy for undoing Roe were losing to those who wanted the frontal attack. With two new conservative justices, the Supreme Court was tilted toward the latter. Momentum was on their side, and states began passing legislation designed to force the court to act. Twenty-week bans had led to 18-week bans, eight-week bans, and now six-week bans.

Original post:
How Did Roe Fall? Before a Decisive Ruling, a Powerful Red Wave. - The New York Times