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The Supreme Court’s decision on abortion is not only serious for women but for the very future of America

It is impossible not to consider yesterday’s Supreme Court decision with grave concern, not only for American women, but also for the very future of America. Overturning Roe vs. Wade’s holding issued half a century ago is the greatest cancellation of constitutional rights (granted by this very court) in history, a ruling that literally splits an extremely polarized country. Abortion is already banned in Missouri, and 25 other Republican-led states are set to do the same. Those who want an abortion will have to seek help from other states that will continue to allow the termination of a pregnancy. We will see chaos, health care and financial emergencies, mass protests and the risk of violence. And Clarence Thomas, one of the arch-conservative justices who controls the Supreme Court, has already stated that now is the time to reconsider same-sex marriage and contraception rights.

Things are even more serious in general political terms. A country that has a desperate need to recover the meaning of political dialogue, to discover joint solutions where shared values prevail in disputes, is collapsing ever more into culture wars, into conflicts based on ideological convictions that make it nearly impossible to stitch a frayed democratic dialogue back together.

Barely 24 hours after a ruling that struck down gun purchase restrictions in place for 111 years in New York — a decision that will weigh heavily on other U.S. states and make America seem even more like a gigantic shooting range with more firearms than inhabitants (including newborns) — the Supreme Court issued another decision with devastating consequences, a holding that was feared albeit expected after a draft was recently leaked to the press, but grave nonetheless.

In eliminating the right to an abortion, Republican-led states join the ranks of those nations — not exactly the most progressive — that completely outlaw abortion: Honduras, Nicaragua and Suriname on the American continent; Laos, the Philippines and Iraq in Asia; Andorra and Malta in Europe; Egypt, Senegal and Madagascar in Africa.

This turning back of the clock reflects the radicalization of an increasingly ideological Supreme Court, now in the hands of an extreme right majority. This stems from the nominations to the court by Donald Trump when he was in office combined with the Republican-led Senate’s unprecedented refusal to allow Barack Obama to appoint a justice while he was president.

The failed attempt by Chief Justice John Roberts, a moderate Republican, to reach a less extreme ruling demonstrates that this is indeed a step backward. Reeling from the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on Congress and from the obduracy with which not only Trump, but a large number of Republicans, refuse to accept Joe Biden’s election, American democracy is increasingly at risk. After a perimeter fence went up around Congress and the White House in fear of new insurgent attacks, the Supreme Court now also needs protection, and given the multiple death threats against members of Congress, it is now the justices’ turn to live life with a security detail.

Recovering from this will not be easy, and not merely because both this November’s midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election will occur in a highly tense climate where both sides are prepared to reject election results. The American political system suffers from a deeper and more structural disease: It is what historian Simon Schama yesterday described as “minoritarian rule.” It is a problem that has burdened the United States since its inception: recognition of less-populated states that nonetheless wish to punch above their weight in the system of political representation. As long as America has maintained — regardless of bitter conflict — a vast basis of shared values, and there are no irreconcilable differences between the prairie nations and the major cities of both the East and West Coasts, rational thinking has prevailed, along with the desire by both Democrats and Republicans to find shared solutions, or at least reduce differences, on the crucial questions, especially concerning decisions about the economy or the country’s international relations policy.

A balance that functioned even during the most dramatic events (John Kennedy’s assassination, followed by a major period of political reform, or the pending impeachment of Richard Nixon, whom the Republicans pushed out of the White House after the Watergate scandal half a century ago) was ruptured, first during Bill Clinton’s presidency with the rise of Newt Gingrich’s extremist conservative wing, then with the difficult, even ideological contest that came with the Obama presidency; and finally, with the blows that Trump inflicted on Republican institutions.

Striking down women’s right to choose is dangerous: It will cost suffering and human lives. However, it is just as dangerous that the Supreme Court, the most important institution in the system of checks and balances, one that is supposed to guarantee the American presidential system functions properly, has lost every last shred of credibility in the eyes of at least half of America.