Starting in the 70’s, under the leadership of Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority, evangelicals made overturning Roe v Wade their primary objective.       

In late spring or early summer, the Supreme Court will likely ban abortion or at least severely curtail the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Why are we on the verge of such a catastrophe? To recap:

Merrick Garland was nominated by Barack Obama to fill the 2016 vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death that February of Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative judicial icon. Then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declared any appointment by the sitting president to be null and void, arguing against precedent and common sense that the next Supreme Court justice should be chosen by the next president.

Donald Trump then stacked the Supreme Court with stalworth conservatives Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and conservatives now hold a 6-3 super majority.

It will turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory for evangelicals, for the following reasons:

Blue states will continue to offer abortion services, and women in red states will travel to blue states to terminate their pregnancies. It’s only poor women who can’t afford to travel out of state or to take time off who will be disadvantaged. Evangelical parents will secretly drive their daughters across state lines for abortions.

Abortion pills exist, and they will only become more readily available when Roe v. Wade is overturned.

If Roe v Wade is overturned it will galvanize liberal voters, and they will turn out in droves in the midterms and subsequent elections. Most Americans are in favor of choice and overturning Roe will be hugely unpopular, and Republicans will pay the price at the ballot box, and evangelicals will pay the price evidenced by empty church pews.