Considering how overturning Roe v. Wade looked impossible, or extraordinarily unlikely, when Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13, 2016, to many pro-lifers, today seems nothing short of miraculous.
Democrats who support abortion rights will point a lot of fingers in the weeks to come. They will blame Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell for refusing to hold confirmation hearings when Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. They probably ought to assign some blame to Harry Reid for eliminating the filibuster for certain judicial nominees, which led to Republicans eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. While his vote wasn’t decisive in either case, they will probably set aside some ire for Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia for voting to confirm Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. They may well fume about the eleven Senate Democrats who voted to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas back in 1991.
But there’s one other figure whose decisions inadvertently but inevitably led to today’s decision: the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Back in 2013, President Barack Obama met with Ginsburg, with hopes that the then-80-year-old, two-time cancer patient could be persuaded to retire.
