Cathy Young:

The Supreme Court ruling that came down on Friday overturning Roe v. Wade is essentially the same opinion as the draft that was leaked in early May; Justice Samuel Alito’s responses to the other justices’ concurrences and dissents are basically the only changes. One thing of note is that, while the vote to uphold the Mississippi law that precipitated the case (and which banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy) was 6-3, the vote to strike down Roe altogether was 5-4: Chief Justice John Roberts was alone in voting to uphold the Mississippi law while retaining the Roe principle of a constitutional right to abortion.

As I laid out in a Bulwark essay last month, I am a moderate pro-choicer—that is, one who is fine with some restrictions on abortion, particularly later in the pregnancy. I believe that both female bodily autonomy and the value of fetal life in the womb, especially in the later stages of pregnancy, are principles worthy of respect.

Pro-choicers are wrong to depict pro-lifers as misogynists or subservient “handmaids”; pro-lifers are wrong to depict pro-choice Americans as libertines who hate babies. Pro-lifers often make little effort to understand why an unwanted pregnancy can feel like an intolerable imposition on one’s liberty even if one is fine with giving the child away for adoption after birth. And pro-choicers often make little effort to understand why pro-lifers find it appallingly hypocritical that the value of fetal life—right down to whether one calls it a “baby” or a ”fetus”—is determined solely by whether it is “wanted” or not.

All of which is to say that I would have much preferred if Roberts had been able to peel either Gorsuch or Kavanaugh off the conservative majority. And even leaving aside the welfare of women, I think the country would have been much better off without (another) political firestorm.

So what comes next? On Friday, The Bulwark ran a fine piece by AEI’s Brent Orrell on what pro-lifers should do post-Roe to promote a genuine “culture of life” in America and support women, families, and children. I would also urge pro-lifers, as they think about how to follow up on this long-desired policy victory, to keep two important limiting principles in mind.

First, Republicans and conservatives must remain serious about their commitment to federalism. That means not seeking to impose a national law in Congress restricting abortion, but leaving abortion laws up to the states. It also means not attempting to ban out-of-state travel for the purposes of getting an abortion. Such bans, as Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated in his concurrent opinion, would be an unconstitutional infringement on the freedom of interstate travel. Both abortion-rights states and private charities can pitch in to ensure that low-income women have access to such travel.

Second, officials in states that institute a near-total ban even on first-trimester abortion procedures may be tempted also to ban the use of the “abortion pill,” mifepristone (RU-486). They should resist the temptation. Not only would enacting such a ban invite a new fight with the federal government (“States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday) but implementing it would be very difficult, since its enforcement would likely involve an aggressive campaign to stop or track the mail delivery. In practice, a ban on abortion pills would require a Communist Romania-level police state.

And what about the other side? Although some pro-choicers have been calling for Congress to codify Roe nationwide, it seems unlikely that Democrats have the votes to do so. Besides, a national law protecting abortion would still leave abortion rights at the mercy of political shifts (what one Congress can do today, another Congress can undo tomorrow) and even open the door to a push for a national abortion ban.

Instead, as pro-choicers increasingly turn their attention to fighting against abortion restrictions at the state level, I want to make one very short-term, one long-term, and one very long-term suggestion for pro-choicers.

In the short term, pro-choicers should focus on assistance to women in states with “trigger laws”—abortion-restrictive laws already in place, just waiting the overturning of Roe to be activated—who are suddenly having to deal with clinics closing and abortion appointments canceled.

In the longer term, pro-choice activists should grapple with the question of whether to expend massive political capital by trying to restore some semblance of the Roe status quo nationwide or to settle for a compromise: for instance, to live with abortion restrictions in some states as long as (1) they do not have time horizons that are too short (would the 15-week ban in some states be more acceptable than the 6-week ban in Ohio?); (2) they include reasonable exceptions permitting abortions when the life of the mother is endangered and in cases of rape and incest; (3) they do not interfere with interstate travel; and (4) they do not involve intrusive policing of abortion-pill use.

In the still longer term, the pro-choice camp must get much more aggressive about promoting (and facilitating access to) birth control. Lack of such access is one of the reasons abortion rates are much higher among black and Hispanic women than among white women. It’s all very well to talk about systemic inequities, but more outreach to make sure that low-income women not only have options for free or low-cost birth control but also know about those options is absolutely essential.

Those who think that the Roe v. Wade reaction is going to swing the midterm elections are mistaken. Whatever people feel about abortion rights, they are not on most people’s short list of political priorities, and those who think abortion rights are one of their most important issues already vote Democrat. This election will be decided by what more often than not decides national elections — how people feel about the economy (as Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush can tell you).

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday:

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling Thursday on gun rights boils down to this: The Second Amendment doesn’t disappear when you walk out your front door. Stated that way, it sounds obvious, but many appeals judges have disagreed. For a frustrating decade, the Supreme Court was too gun-shy to set them straight, but Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion was worth the wait.

New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen challenged the Empire State’s regulations on carrying a firearm in public. Open carry in New York is banned. With certain exceptions, such as for judges, getting a permit to carry a handgun that’s concealed requires demonstrating “proper cause.” That has been interpreted to mean “a special need” for self-defense, beyond that of “the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”

In other words, shopkeepers who must carry cash through high-crime neighborhoods are out of luck. But as Justice Thomas points out, the Constitution protects a right not only to “keep” but also to “bear” arms. “Most gun owners do not wear a holstered pistol at their hip in their bedroom or while sitting at the dinner table,” he writes. “To confine the right to ‘bear’ arms to the home would nullify half of the Second Amendment’s operative protections.”

This does not mean urban America will soon resemble the Wild West. Forty-three states, Justice Thomas says, already have “shall issue” regimes, meaning carry permits are available to everyone who meets objective criteria. That process can be rigorous and might include fingerprinting, firearms training, background checks, and so forth. A concurring opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, stresses that the Court is not calling such rules into question.

What’s unconstitutional is that six states—New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, California and Hawaii—offer residents no clear path to carry a gun to defend themselves. As Justice Thomas says: “The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” Those states can still regulate carry permits, but they can’t deny such permits to law-abiding citizens.

This is a landmark holding. In Heller (2008) the Court recognized the Second Amendment as an individual right. Then for a decade it stood by as appeals courts upheld gun restrictions that eroded Heller. Lower-court judges, Justice Thomas says, err when they try to balance state interests in gun laws against the burden on the Second Amendment. This forces judges to make empirical judgments, and he says it’s “inconsistent with Heller’s historical approach and its rejection of means-end scrutiny.”

To uphold a gun restriction, Justice Thomas says, the government must show that it is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” He then surveys the history of gun limitations before and after the Founding. “None of these historical limitations on the right to bear arms approach New York’s proper-cause requirement,” Justice Thomas concludes, “because none operated to prevent law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from carrying arms in public for that purpose.”

He acknowledges a few counterexamples but says the weight of the evidence is against New York. This is the right originalist analysis: What did the Second Amendment mean to the people who passed it?

This rejection of a balancing test for regulations that trespass on the “core” of a constitutional right ought to discipline lower-court judges. And it has implications for other rights, not least campaign-finance restrictions that run afoul of the First Amendment.

The Wall Street Journal Friday:

Can America still settle its political conflicts democratically, and peacefully? We’re about to find out after the Supreme Court Friday overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the profound moral issue of abortion to the states and democratic assent, where it has always belonged.

Critics say the Court’s 6-3 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is rule by unelected judges. But Roe was the real “exercise of raw judicial power,” as Justice Byron White put it in dissent in 1973. That’s when seven Justices claimed to find a constitutional right to abortion that is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution and had no history in American common law. The Court on Friday finally corrected its mistake, which has damaged the legitimacy of the Court and inflamed our politics for 49 years.

The Justices in the majority deserve credit for sticking with their convictions despite the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in May. The leak was probably intended to create a furor to pressure the Justices to change their mind, and it has led to protests in front of their homes and even an apparent assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. By holding firm, they showed the Court can’t be intimidated.

Justice Alito’s majority opinion hews closely to his draft, and it is a careful, thoughtful survey of abortion law and its history in the constitutional order. His opinion takes apart, brick by logical brick, the reasoning of Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the other main abortion precedent the Court overrules in Dobbs.

The central point, underscored by Justice Kavanaugh in his concurrence, is that abortion can be found nowhere in the Constitution. The parchment is neutral on the issue. The supporters of an abortion right claim to have found it in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868. But until the latter part of the 20th century, the idea of a right to abortion could be found nowhere in American law. No state constitutions included it, and until shortly before Roe no court had recognized such a right. Justice Harry Blackmun ignored that history and invented the right in Roe.

Casey entrenched Roe in 1992, yet it did so without considering that history, while asserting that abortion was part of a gauzy right to privacy that includes “intimate and personal choices.” The three controlling Justices in Casey sought to balance that right against the “potential life” of a baby in the womb.

But their judgment of how to strike that balance supplanted the moral choices of millions of Americans. “Our Nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated,” writes Justice Alito.

The three dissenting Justices claim the majority has steamrolled the doctrine of stare decisis, or respect for precedent. But Justice Alito’s opinion deals step by step with the Court’s traditional stare decisis analysis, and his most telling point is that Roe and Casey haven’t come close to settling the issue.

The controlling Justices in Casey went so far as to make an essentially political plea that Americans let their ruling settle the abortion issue. It was a futile attempt to end debate on a question that touches people at their deepest moral convictions. Abortion continues to roil American politics, and states continue to pass laws challenging the logic of both opinions. When a ruling is still controversial and unworkable after five decades, that is compelling evidence it was wrongly decided.

Chief Justice John Roberts writes in a concurrence that the Court did not have to overturn Roe to uphold Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks in this case. He says this would have been more judicially modest and less jolting to the public.

We agree on his point about upholding the Mississippi law, but such a halfway ruling would only have been a legal holding action. More states would have written more laws that would have challenged Roe and Casey, and sooner or later the Court would have had to overrule both or uphold some remnant of them as settled law. Better to take this opportunity to return the issue to the states sooner rather than later.

The political left is making much of Justice Clarence Thomas’s argument in a concurrence that the Court should revisit all of its precedents that are based on the use of substantive due process to find rights in the Constitution. That includes precedents on contraception and gay marriage.

Substantive due process is a long-time preoccupation of Justice Thomas, and we respect him for it. But the doctrine is also deeply embedded in countless Court precedents that have far better stare decisis claims than does Roe. Overturning the Obergefell ruling on gay marriage, for example, would jeopardize hundreds of thousands of legal marriage contracts. That’s the definition of a reliance-interest justification for upholding a precedent. Justice Thomas also acknowledges in his concurrence that abortion is different from these cases, and note that no other Justice joined his opinion.

Which brings us back to the politics of abortion and democracy. The debate will now shift from courts to the political branches, which should be healthy for the judiciary. Democrats made clear on Friday that they will make abortion rights a major campaign theme in the midterm elections, and President Biden declared that “this is not over.”

Fair enough. Both sides of the abortion debate will now have to achieve their policy goal the old-fashioned way—through persuasion, not judicial fiat. Some in the pro-life movement want Congress to ban abortion nationwide. But that will strike many Americans as hypocritical after decades of Republican claims that repealing Roe would return the issue to the states.

A national ban may also be an unconstitutional intrusion on state police powers and federalism. Imposing the abortion values of Mississippi or Texas on all 50 states could prove to be as unpopular as New York or California trying to do the same for abortion rights.

One tragedy of Roe is that it pre-empted an abortion debate that was moving in the states a half century ago. That debate can now resume. Some states will ban it in most cases, while others like California may seek to pay for the abortions of women from other states.

It will take awhile, and more than one election, but we hope that eventually the public through its legislators will find a tolerable consensus, if not exactly common ground. That’s the best we can ask for in our imperfect republic, if we can keep it.

James Freeman chronicles the more hysterical reaction:

In their more candid moments even leftist luminaries like the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg admitted significant flaws in Roe v. Wade. But now that the Supreme Court has returned the contentious issue of abortion to the people and their elected representatives, Roe’s flaws don’t make it any easier for some activists to accept that each state will now be free to set its own policies.

It’s understandable to be deeply disappointed and even sad when your side loses an important case, What is not unacceptable is for the attorney general of the United States to forget his duty to enforce the law and instead to express publicly his contempt for it. The Supreme Court has ruled today and Merrick Garland has issued a press release in opposition to the ruling as if he is a political candidate running a campaign against the justices. In a release from the Department of Justice Mr. Garland states:

“Today, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey and held that the right to abortion is no longer protected by the Constitution.

“The Supreme Court has eliminated an established right that has been an essential component of women’s liberty for half a century – a right that has safeguarded women’s ability to participate fully and equally in society. And in renouncing this fundamental right, which it had repeatedly recognized and reaffirmed, the Court has upended the doctrine of stare decisis, a key pillar of the rule of law.

“The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision. This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States. It will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country. And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect – with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means.

One can make substantive arguments against the attorney general’s various claims but even if one shares his politics, issuing such screeds and seeking to undermine the authority of the court should be anathema to any responsible law-enforcement officer.

It’s critical that Mr. Garland regains his composure and focuses on his job. As Kyle Mann of the satirical website Babylon Bee notes with graveyard humor, there could be a violent reaction to today’s ruling from extremists:

Authorities are warning tonight’s protests may escalate from “mostly peaceful” to “somewhat peaceful”

Those protesting the ruling have a particular challenge in that there is now some disagreement among themselves about what exactly they are advocating and for whom. The left has been engaged in a confusing internal debate about what a woman is. This week the abortion rights organization NARAL Pro-Choice America didn’t necessarily help clarify things by tweeting:

If your feminism doesn’t include trans women and girls, it’s not feminism.

If your feminism doesn’t understand how anti-trans policies disproportionately impact BIPOC folks, particularly Black trans women and girls, it’s not feminism

The tweet also included emojis for emphasis. Of course before assessing the impact of today’s ruling on BIPOC folks it’s important to know what BIPOC means. A 2020 Vox story carried the headline “Why the term ‘BIPOC’ is so complicated, explained by linguists,” and now includes this note at the bottom of the article:

Correction: An earlier version of this article defined BIPOC as standing for “Black and Indigenous people of color.” It stands for Black, Indigenous, people of color.

Now comes an email from Lisa Burkert of the public-relations firm The TASC Group relaying a statement on today’s ruling from Sean Ebony Coleman, founder and executive director of LGBTQ center Destination Tomorrow:

“We need to highlight the fact that this Supreme Court decision will impact anyone with a uterus, whether or not they are female identified. Poor Black and brown LBT people in rural areas will suffer the most. Reproductive rights are human rights, and no one should be forgotten in this fight, especially trans masculine folks. The fact that this is happening during Pride month should also not be lost on us – at a time when we are celebrating freedom, our freedoms are being challenged and taken away. This is our call to action. All those who are not cis, white males are in danger. Those in the margins must come forward, band together and fight.”

As this column noted earlier in the week, efforts among progressive leftists to band together have lately been especially challenging. And today’s issue seems to be getting more and more complex. Perhaps state legislators can figure out which abortion laws make sense for the individuals in their particular jurisdictions. Experienced legislators tend to have the ability to understand how the wants and needs of their constituents change over time, and also have an instinct for positioning themselves for future electoral success.

Take for example, the experienced legislator who became our president in 2021. Way back in 1986 the Journal’s Al Hunt wrote about Sen. Joe Biden (D., Del.):

He says he opposes efforts to limit a woman’s right to an abortion, but also opposes federal funds to finance abortions. Yet he did vote in the Judiciary Committee for one anti-abortion constitutional amendment, and has fudged a few times on funding measures — earning the enmity of both sides.

“Joe Biden moans a lot and then usually votes against us,” says Jeannie Rosoff, a top official of the pro-choice Planned Parenthood. “It’s very difficult to know whether this issue is purely personal, purely political or a combination of both with him.” Meanwhile, Douglas Johnson of the anti-abortion National Right to Life organization complains: “It appears to us that in recent years Sen. Biden has made a political judgment that he should be more pro-abortion.”

One can never precisely predict the evolution of politicians or voters’ preferences. But perhaps in another 36 years Mr. Biden will be a Roe opponent again.

James Freeman:

People wondering who’s really in charge at the White House may be reassured to know that the emerging economic policy appears to be the work of a career politician.

In the Washington Post Tyler Pager, Jeff Stein, Tony Romm and Cleve Wootson report:

President Biden appealed to Congress on Wednesday to suspend the federal gas tax, saying it was critical to reduce the pain Americans are feeling at the pump. “I promise you I’m doing everything possible to bring the price of energy down,” Biden said, as images of oil pumps and gas stations flickered on the wall behind him.

But the notion of a gas tax holiday was met with instant criticism — not only from members of both parties on Capitol Hill, but even from many officials within the administration who said privately that it would probably do little to significantly lower gas prices.

Top Treasury Department officials expressed doubts about the gas tax holiday, and at least two top White House economists also privately conveyed reservations, according to two people familiar with the internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose sensitive conversations.

No doubt White House economists familiar with the concepts of supply, demand and incentives are also not entirely on board with the president’s decision to blame high gas prices on each industry in the supply chain. Having previously aimed his rhetoric at oil producers and refiners, the president is now blustering his way down the distribution channel. In the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Wednesday Mr. Biden said:

My message is simple. To the companies running gas stations and setting those prices at the pump: This is a time of war, global peril, Ukraine. These are not normal times.

Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you are paying for the product. Do it now. Do it today. Your customers, the American people, they need relief now.

Nothing encourages people you intend to eventually put out of business like demanding they should also forgo profits today. Mr. Biden also claimed on Wednesday:

Now, I fully understand that a gas tax holiday alone is not going to fix the problem, but it will provide families some immediate relief — just a little bit of breathing room — as we continue working to bring down prices for the long haul.

Does the president really mean it when he says he’s working to bring down prices for the long haul? If so, he’s blessed with yet another opportunity to encourage U.S. oil production before he jets off next month to encourage Saudi oil production.

In the New York Times Lisa Friedman reports from Washington:

President Biden’s top aides are weighing whether to ban new oil and gas drilling off America’s coasts, a move that would elate climate activists but could leave the administration vulnerable to Republican accusations that it is exacerbating an energy crunch as gas prices soar.

By law, the Department of Interior is required to release a plan for new oil and gas leases in federal waters every five years. Deb Haaland, the Interior secretary, has promised Congress a draft of the Biden plan will be available by June 30.

Spoiler alert: U.S. consumers and PGA Tour officials should prepare themselves for some bad news. It appears that at the margin Mr. Biden continues to favor the accumulation of oil wealth in Dhahran rather than Houston. “Several people familiar with the administration’s decision-making said it is likely to block new drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans,” reports Ms. Friedman, who also notes:

Last month the Biden administration canceled lease sales in federal waters off Alaska’s Cook Inlet, citing a lack of industry interest.

The Cook Inlet basin, at one time Alaska’s primary source of oil, is now mainly a source of natural gas for local utilities and large-scale projects have been rare in recent years, energy experts said. Still, the industry wants the Arctic waters available for future possible leases.

If the past is prelude, the future will not bring much oil availability from federal lands during the Biden era. Adds Ms. Friedman:

Shortly after taking office, President Biden signed an executive order to pause the issuing of new leases — but a successful legal challenge from Republican states and the oil industry has forced the administration to hold new lease sales.

The administration is appealing that ruling.