1973—For the second time in American history, the Supreme Court denies American citizens the authority to protect the basic rights of an entire class of human beings. In Roe v. Wade—the Dred Scott ruling of our age—Justice Blackmun’s majority opinion feigns not to “resolve the [purportedly] difficult question of when life begins,” but in fact rules illegitimate any legislative determination that unborn human beings are deserving of legal protection from abortion. Roe and Doe v. Bolton (decided the same day) impose on all Americans a radical regime of essentially unrestricted abortion throughout pregnancy, all the way (under the predominant reading of Doe) until birth.
Despite scathing criticism, including from supporters of abortion (see point 2 here), Roe’s lawless power grab continues to roil American politics by preventing Americans from working together, through an ongoing process of persuasion, to establish and revise abortion policies.