Having put us in a post-Roe world, they may be aiming for a post-world world
Since the decision leaked this spring—and, really, since transparently political justices Kavanagh and Barrett won their confirmations—one has expected this moment. But it still falls like a hammer blow. Those of us in our 60s have lived for a very long time with Roe, and the world it enabled, as a constant. Now we’re wrenched backwards. I’ve been hearing from colleagues at Third Act all morning: anger, sadness for the young people whose lives are now even more constrained, determination to do something.
But it may get worse still on Monday, when a decision is expected in the case of West Virginia vs. EPA. The tritest, most cliched, and also most correct observation about rightwing zealots is that they care about the unborn but not the birthed; that once you’re out of the womb, you’re on your own. As if to make that entirely clear, the Court previewed its Roe decision with one making it easier to wander around America with guns, just weeks after the school shooting in Uvalde. And they may well bracket it next week with a ruling that could effectively end federal climate policy, and with it much of what chance remains to ward off truly catastrophic warming.
[Bill McKibben]
