By Damon Linker The Week

With Politico‘s publication of the leaked draft of a majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court appears poised to shred the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. This would trigger a political earthquake.

But what would its concrete consequences be for our political system and the electoral prospects of our two parties? I see three likely developments, none of them precisely what partisans on each side might predict.

Blowback to Republican overreach

A series of Republican-controlled states have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, draconian restrictions on abortion, some banning the procedure almost from conception and with no exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother. Many of these laws are far more extreme than Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which is the case the leaked Supreme Court decision would decide. Some states, most famously Texas, have also put in place highly unusual enforcement mechanisms intended to evade the possibility of court challenges, with a few even attempting to criminalize crossing state lines for the purpose of procuring abortions.

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