WI No Roe

No, this isn't a pro-or-anti abortion thread. If you were looking for that, that's what Chat is for.

Okay, what would be the result of a different Roe v. Wade? Yes, I know the Court's demographics would make such an outcome impossible, but let's just handwave them for a moment. What would be the demographic, cultural, and other societal consequences.
 
It's a bit coarse, but the major consequences are mostly political. There's no abortion for the conservatives to get the Christian Right riled up over, so the Republican Party likely isn't as strong. Also Republicans can scream "Judicial Activism" all they want, but those words don't mean as much, so there's less of a platform.
 
It's a bit coarse, but the major consequences are mostly political. There's no abortion for the conservatives to get the Christian Right riled up over, so the Republican Party likely isn't as strong. Also Republicans can scream "Judicial Activism" all they want, but those words don't mean as much, so there's less of a platform.

Of course, during that era, weren't the Republicans more centrist? Rockefeller-and-Nixon style?
 
Wouldn't it basically be that the states (and D.C.) would each set their own abortion policies?
 
Wouldn't it basically be that the states (and D.C.) would each set their own abortion policies?

Essentially, yes (though if the alcohol issue is anything to go by, Congress could go one way or another by blackmailing... uh, I mean using the power of the purse on the states). Oh, and Congress gets final say for DC, IIRC.
 
Of course, during that era, weren't the Republicans more centrist? Rockefeller-and-Nixon style?

Yes. The Conservative Movement didn't really emerge until the late 1970s, and it married a Religious Right that was emerging at around the same time. Without the social issue of abortion, the Religious Right would have to find something else to rally around. Gay rights could do, but it doesn't seem that that was such an issue in the late 1970s. Was there agitation for gay marriage, adoption, open service in military in 1970s? If not, then the Religious Right doesn't form the influence it had IOTL.
 

Okillos

Banned
Several hundred thousands of more productive citizens. Possibly slightly better technical progress (ie more nifty computers etc.).
 
When Roe was handed down, 4 states had legalized abortion: Washington, New York, Alaska, and Hawaii. Also, about 20 states had restricted abortion, where basically the woman had to subject herself to approval by the hospital's board of ethics, which would determine whether her health was in danger. Ironically to modern eyes, most of the northern states had total bans, while virtually every state in Dixie had restricted abortion. Not that restricted abortion was in any way available to women who didn't have a strong support network, mind you (it typically could be an expensive, multiple-visit ordeal just to get approval), but it still meant that all those states had a built-in mechanism whereby abortion could have very, very gradually become legal, if hospitals gradually got more liberal and the state governments failed to tighten the statutes.
 
Several hundred thousands of more productive citizens. Possibly slightly better technical progress (ie more nifty computers etc.).

Or, several hundred thousands of more miserable, unproductive citizens, suffering from the permanent emotional scars of knowing that they were not wanted or from the permanent developmental scars of being raised by parents who could not care for them properly. Again, this is not the thread to get into the politics of abortion. Anything normative you can say, I can counter; anything normative I can say, you can counter. Save it for chat.
 
The religious right would likely get upset over school textbooks and education, as they were for a lot of things IOTL.
If there was no Roe, how would the debate over contraception be different?
 
When Roe was handed down, 4 states had legalized abortion: Washington, New York, Alaska, and Hawaii. Also, about 20 states had restricted abortion, where basically the woman had to subject herself to approval by the hospital's board of ethics, which would determine whether her health was in danger. Ironically to modern eyes, most of the northern states had total bans, while virtually every state in Dixie had restricted abortion. Not that restricted abortion was in any way available to women who didn't have a strong support network, mind you (it typically could be an expensive, multiple-visit ordeal just to get approval), but it still meant that all those states had a built-in mechanism whereby abortion could have very, very gradually become legal, if hospitals gradually got more liberal and the state governments failed to tighten the statutes.

Typically such states (like Rhode Island and Massachusetts) had large Catholic populations and a strong institutional Church, no? That would explain the total bans in the Northeast while the South having more liberal abortion laws (having a larger Protestant majority?)
 
Top