All this is a direct consequence of the anti-abortion movement signing on to the Republican Party's broader agenda. The same politicians who want to ban abortion also want to obliterate the social safety net. Being anti-abortion all but guarantees you are anti-welfare, too.

The dissenters scorn Alito's declaration that today's decision does not place other precedents "under threat." "Either the majority does not really believe in its own reasoning. Or if it does, all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid19th century are insecure."

Kavanaugh preemptively declares that states can't prohibit their residents from traveling elsewhere for an abortion due to the "constitutional right to interstate travel"—which, like abortion, is not mentioned explicitly in the text of the Constitution.

Pausing here to recall Susan Collins' speech announcing that Brett Kavanaugh would NEVER overrule Roe v. Wade because he believes that precedent “not something to be trimmed, narrowed, discarded, or overlooked.”

Please do not forget about the incarcerated folks who will now be compelled to carry unwanted pregnancies behind bars. They may be denied proper care, shackled while giving birth, and forced to stand by as the state takes away their baby and returns them to their cell.

I think the Supreme Court issued Bruen (guns) on Thursday and Dobbs (abortion) on Friday so that neither decision would overshadow the other, giving both Thomas and Alito their separate moments in the sun. These opinions are the crowning achievements of their lives so far.

Douthat's prediction is delusional. There is a very high correlation between states that now ban abortion and states with the highest maternal and infant mortality rates. These states had plenty of time to pass pro-parent, pro-child policies. They refused.

The states with the most generous, comprehensive health care and social services for new mothers and babies? They're almost all blue states that also provide abortion access. The states that kick new moms off Medicaid and deny them social services? Red states that ban abortion.

Let's not pretend that red states will reverse their anti-parent, anti-child policies now that they can ban abortion. All evidence suggests that these states will continue to punish new mothers and babies with horrifically cruel policies designed to make them suffer and starve.