> Well first of all, SCOTUS doesn't have the power to do that

Straw man interpretation. Overturning Roe v Wade doesn’t “ban” abortion but effectively it actually does in half the country. Gun control is very similar afaik.

> Second, you're also assuming there's a sufficient amount of people that want to ban private gun ownership. Is there? Certainly doesn't seem like there is outside of extreme left-wing enclaves, and even then revealed preferences suggests that even if they want to ban guns for the plebeians they'd still like to retain the right for themselves

This argument applies verbatim to abortion. The only solution is to look at where the body of scientific knowledge suggests we should go. To my knowledge that’s the absolute right to abortion and a total ban on gun ownership. The more telling thing is that your counter argument to “how would you feel if the court was packed to reinterpret the 2nd amendment to not include personal ownership” was “that won’t happen” and “there’s no public support for that”. These are exactly the same arguments that left moderates would say to the more activist left about not pushing the issue too hard and here we are.

> Is healthcare in Europe for women somehow unequal?

Which countries? Europe has a lot of them. Let’s look at some:

France: Veil Law is unlimited abortion after the first trimester provided two doctor’s sign off that the health of the mother is at risk. There’s sufficient nuance and weasel language that I imagine this isn’t really a big obstacle.

Britain: kind of complicated but effectively abortion is legal on demand at any point (98% of them are done under the “maternal mental health” carve out, likely to avoid having any legal issues come up / simplifies paperwork).

Northern Ireland: similar to Britain

Germany: a bit stricter but afaict still an absolute right with mandated counseling prior to the abortion.

Iceland: legal until the end of 22 weeks

Netherlands: 24 weeks

Estonia: up to 11 weeks if no reason, up to 21 weeks for pretextual reasons.

Poland: the strictest with the only carve out being maternal health.

Ukraine: up to 28 weeks (effectively)

Dobbs banned it at 15 weeks so citation needed about the claim that Europe is more regressive than Dobbs.

I’m sure there might be some that are worse, but very few that are as regressive as what women are now facing in half of the US states with the overturning of Roe v Wade (some states have absolute bans).

> This isn't an accurate description of the Court's history at all. Is there some body of Opinions you're relying on to make this claim?

From Wikipedia cause I’m too lazy to cite the actual text:

> The Court also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life.[5][6] The Court resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States

You can’t simultaneously have the right to privacy and have government interest in a pregnancy. Does the government have the right to go after you if you drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes during a pregnancy? What about using illicit drugs during a pregnancy? Does that mean you can go after people with drug issues who get pregnant (and now can’t even get an abortion) for endangering the life of a potential child? What happens if the women naturally miscarries because of drinking/drugs? What if the mother didn’t take her prenatal vitamins? This kind of reasoning really is ridiculous and misogynistic but it’s acceptable because the right to privacy principle in Roe v Wade actually extends in a very meaningful and common sense way. Roe v Wade was 100% a compromise to try to recognize that the government doesn’t actually have any any interest in the pregnancy (the recognition of that was slowly expanding).

> Blackmun recognized that life begins at some point for the fetus, but he felt it was not for the judiciary “at this point in the development of man’s knowledge” to speculate on what that point was.

Overall Roe v Wade was an incremental improvement for women’s rights but it was incomplete. The right to abortion should indeed be almost entirely absolute (with medical counseling to make sure the mother is OK before and afterward). In fact, overturning Roe v Wade now brings questions of whether IVF bans are now legal. After all, there’s potential life being kept in a freezer and most of it is destroyed (expect to see this come up). Neither state nor federal government should be involved in healthcare decisions themselves, only in legislating the process of how those decisions get made (to protect the patient / and or regulate commerce).

> Unless you are talking about expanding the court, which would indeed be the political Rubicon where the crossing of which would render the Court permanently compromised.

Technically the size of SCOTUS has changed over time and nothing came of it. We got 9 in 1869 but it has varied as I’m sure you’re aware. I think you’re assessment is correct though just because the country is so politically divided. A not insubstantial number of people (myself included) would argue it’s already compromised (McConnell’s political shrewdness/shadiness to give Obama’s SCOTUS nomination to Trump and Trump packing the court intentionally with anti abortion ideologues), so then it’s just a matter of degrees. This almost happened before with Roosevelt. I imagine Row v Wade is a lot more unifying of Democrats than the New Deal was.

> And given that this is a socially hot topic, doesn't it make sense to return the legal making power to the people and their elected representatives? This is literally what they wrote in the case. It's a fraught topic, emotionally charged, but it should be law makers and voters that get into the nitty gritty of the regulation of a medical procedure where a fetus is destroyed - not the Court.

Fantastic. Gun control can be described in very similar terms. We should similarly regulate it back to the states based on that principle.

> Roberts (not Robertson)

Autocorrect is annoying.