Reply #58: Have fun with that....

[Lexingtonian]

I believe the abortion banning thang is fading away on its own, really.

There was a long long period of stalemate- 46% to uphold Roe, 44% to overturn it, the rest leaning to uphold- for nearly 30 years.

Things changed last summer with O'Connor's letter of resignation in early July. The leaners went over to support to uphold Roe, which went to 56% by mid-August. The stated desire for an overturn of Roe dropped to 35%. The undecided 9% are all former supporters of an overturn, of course.

In national politics that kind of a shift means that the debate is over. In a way it is. The Christian Right has given up on Blue States, as far as I can tell.

Things changed a little bit with the Alito nomination/confirmation. The split is still 56-35, and that's pretty much a 5-3-1 split on the Court just as we know it to be (Roberts is not a guaranteed vote for overturn imho; he's fuzzy). But pollings during and after the Alito hearings said there's further "structure" or softness, i.e. subtle breakdown, of the overturn side. Of those 35%, a 24% bloc wants a complete overturn. The other 11% wants some small amount of legalization.

The wedge issues between these 11% and the 24% are present in the form of the South Dakota abortion banning law. That's going to heat up during the summer- the Christian Right truly can't afford the disasterous defeat the referendum could give them. But the price for fending off defeat could be a wedging of their hardliners and soft Believers...