Steve Gilliard offers this interesting observation:
Here's a question: anyone hear of temperance after 1933?
Well, the temperance movement of the 19th Century was the abortion movement of it's day. They finally got their way during WWI and by 1919, Prohibition was the law of the land. And then it fell apart.
They had campaigned for 30-40 years against alcohol, won far more support than pro-life has ever had, and after the increase in crime followed, the movement entered the dustbin of history.
I don't think the right-wingers have any idea what a revocation of Roe v. Wade could do to their cause. One could observe that Roe v. Wade has done more to strengthen the Pro-Life movement rather than weaken it. Just like the male and female culture of the early 20th century had not had to deal with an alcohol-less society, the same culture of today doesn't know what an abortion-less society will bring.
For the temperance movement, two things eradicated it: the rise in corruption, organized crime and terrorism, and the fallout of the Great Depression. If anything, it was the latter that sealed the coffin on the Prohibition Era.
Today's teenagers and young adults are living very promiscuous lives, but living it in an age where if "a mistake" is made, an abortion can fix it. And yet, teenage and unwanted pregnancies are still a problem today. This is your organized crime of the temperance movement - a possible onslaught of unwanted babies and ruined lives & bodies that will do nothing but make life harder and more miserable for many people.
It's strange - the more it seems Alito the "Roe v. Wade Killer" will get confirmed, the less I worry about the future of pro-choice America. Why? Because when America finally experiences that change in society, it's not going to be pretty. In fact, maybe America needs to experience that change in order to fully understand how much Roe v. Wade gave Americans as far as choice goes. And then, America could end up doing the one thing that could put the right-wingers to pasture: a Constitutional Amendment to an American's right to choose.
America is just starting to wake up to how far right and fascist this nation has been taken over the last 30 years, especially the last five. Americans may be overly ignorant, arrogant, and downright dumb, but as Joni Mitchell sings, "All & all it seems to go, that you don't know what you got 'till it's gone." When Americans experienced their loss of a right to drink, it destroyed not only the temperance movement, but ANY chance of it coming back. Just try to completely take an American's right to a drink away today, and you'll be lucky to get away with your life.
The right-wing and the GOP best be careful with how much they want someone like Samuel Alito on the High Court. Their temporary gain of a revocation of Roe v. Wade could not only seal the fate of their entire movement, but also any chance of them holding any power over the direction of this country and our lives again.