They worked for fifty years. Are we willing to do so as well?

Fifty years ago. That's when the Supreme Court handed down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion across the US. And right at that moment, the opponents of choice started mobilizing and organizing to overturn it. Fifty years ago.

Meanwhile, on our side, we accepted that Roe was settled law. We accepted that there was never a chance of overturning it. We were not anywhere near as singular minded as the pro-forced-birth partisans. We went on to other matters, other concerns.

The right turned abortion into its rallying cry. It used it as a cudgel to get its base out to vote. It built up power around the issue year by year, taking over counties and states. It won presidential and congressional elections because of it. Abortion wasn't the only cause on the agenda; but it motivated everything else. Every tax cut, every reversal of liberal policies was achieved because abortion was the prime mover.

The left, as always, splintered. Abortion was done and dusted. No need to use that as a rallying cry. And now we see where we are.

The political game isn't difficult. You need a fulcrum around which to pivot. Abortion was the fulcrum for the right. It colored everything it did. You have one-party states in much of the US because of abortion. And that focus on reproductive rights opens to the door to undo many other rights. There's no reason to think that abortion is the endgame. Birth control. Civil rights. Everything is on the table because the right has been so successful in parlaying this one issue into broader power.

Now, with the Court likely to overturn Roe, the left has a choice. Will it be as laser focused on this one issue to drive turnout, which will have knock-on effects of getting other liberal priorities enacted? Or will it instead blame the one party which is trying to rectify things, but can never depend on its fickle voters? 

What the right figured out very quickly is that one issue can serve as a Trojan horse for a host of others. Before abortion, it was civil rights. That issue didn't resonate, because the times were moving in a direction which made Black civil rights something to support. In abortion, they found the issue which would get voters out, and lead to spill-over effects in other areas.

Now the right has gifted us with an opportunity to turn the tables. Just as abortion was a wedge issue for it, it now has the capacity to be one for our side. And Roe is more than just abortion. Roe is about bodily autonomy. Roe is about privacy rights in general. This is an issue which can motivate our voters. But, like the right, we have to all be singing from the same hymn book. No more purity contests. No more noble failures. Politics ain't whiffle ball. It's mean and dirty and bloody, and we had better get that through to our heads. If you can't compromise, if you can't make deals, if you can't get stuck in, you're not needed. 

I have absolutely no problem with the protests in front of conservative justices' homes. Abortion clinics and Democratic politicians have faced worse, on a daily basis. But protests aren't enough. Protests don't vote. Vote Democratic, or you're just performing. Withholding your vote out of protest will just lead to more Republican victories. And it will lead to a country which we will find unrecognizable.

The right dug in for the long haul after 1973. Will we?