For those of you who thought Republicans were going to get government off your back -- surprise!

In her recent USA Today op/ed piece, Laura Vanderkam wonders what would happen "If 'Roe' Were Overturned" and the abortion issue goes back to the states. Her conclusion -- after working out a series of red state/blue state/purple state calculations -- is that not much would happen. (Click "Read More" below to see Vanderkam's state-by-state breakdown.)

Vanderkam seems pretty confident about her analysis -- somebody put a gold star on her work sheet. And thus she's breezily dismissive about what's at stake: "The battle over the Supreme Court nominee and abortion is so much fuss for so little turf."

But all her careful calculations are meaningless because she doesn't consider the crucial privacy (a word that doesn't appear in her column) cases that preceded Roe: Skinner vs Oklahoma (forced sterilization) and Griswold vs Connecticut (criminal ban on contraceptive use) or the jeopardized status of these precedents following Roe's revocation.

As Kos diarist teacherken observed:

The issue needs to be on the front page of political conflict, not as an issue of abortion, but as an issue of privacy rights, with due notice that should Conservatives succeed in rolling back Roe completely, Griswold and birth control will also soon be under attack.

So if you think the government's on your back now, just wait. Your back will be the least of your bodily concerns.


From Vanderkam's "If 'Roe' Were Overturned":

Given the split in U.S. politics, many would do just that. Of the 21 states the Center for Reproductive Rights claims are most likely to ban abortion after Roe, seven have Democratic governors. These governors would not be able to preside over new post-Roe abortion bans without risking a party revolt. Of the other 14 states, one (Rhode Island) votes consistently Democratic in presidential races. Though not all Democrats support abortion, it's unlikely that the 60% of Rhode Island voters who chose Sen. John Kerry last fall would be inspired to support a ban.

Another state, Ohio, is too much of a political tossup to count in the ban camp. Colorado might vote "red," but the state's recent election of a Democratic senator and new Democratic majorities in its statehouse implies that the politics are pretty split.

That leaves us with 11 states. According to data from The Alan Guttmacher Institute, these states had 122 abortion providers in 2000. That's less than 7% of the 1,819 abortion providers — a fluid number, to be sure — in the USA. Most of those 122 providers (65) are in Texas. If pro-choice forces can hold on to Texas (not unlikely, given the feisty Democratic minority's tendency to flee to Oklahoma to deny the Legislature a quorum when its members are miffed) we're down to 57 providers. If the Democrats controlling the Alabama and Arkansas legislatures decided to act like Democrats, not Dixiecrats, that total could fall to 36. Spread across eight vast states, that's low enough to be useless to an average woman seeking an abortion.

In Mississippi, Kentucky and the Dakotas, 98% of counties have no abortion providers; in Missouri and Nebraska, 97% lack them. In these Roe-unfriendly states, women already have to travel hours to obtain abortions; in a post-Roe world of crossing state lines, that story wouldn't change.

Even if all three of the only "somewhat likely" states with Republican governors, legislatures and voting tendencies (Indiana, Idaho and Georgia) banned abortion, that would affect just 48 providers. In a "worst-case scenario" (for pro-choice types) that included a Texas ban, overturning Roe would affect a maximum of 170 providers, less than 10% of the U.S. total.