You May Not Want to Hear This, But . . .

Before her time on the Supreme Court bench is over, some may decide that Harriet Miers was a blessing in disguise, albeit very well disguised. Harriet's worst could turn out for the best.

Assume there is truth to the backdoor whispering about how the woman is a Christian family values hard liner who will do what Democrats fear the most -- vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Maybe she won't, but there are microscopic indications in what passes for her non-existent public record that she will.

So how bad is that? What would America look like the day after Roe v. Wade joins Dred Scott in the history books? Will fewer women have access to abortion the day after than the day before? Not very likely.

Whatever the right to abortion in legal theory, in fact there are wide areas of the United States where the right to choose is a mere concept, where it already does not exist. These are the places where doctors will not perform the procedure for fear of being murdered, places where obstacles in the form of waiting times, public shaming, long hours of travel, fees and dilatory bureaucratic paper shuffling make whatever choice a woman might want to make a joke. In those parts of the country Roe v. Wade was reversed years ago.

On the plus side of a reversal, the National Democratic Party would get the abortion issue off its back. And with it the crippling accusations about judge-made law would flap out the window. It would gag the long-running, vote-losing noise about strict constructionism.

With a reversal, the right to choose would be relegated to the states. Before Roe v. Wade half the population was already living in states where choice was not only legal but legitimate because it had been enacted by state legislatures.

For the last generation Democratic candidates for Federal office have been brutalized by one-issue voters who hate abortions. These candidates need to be able to dodge this killer, no-win issue by saying it is a state, not a Federal matter.

While this bloggiste unqualifiedly favors choice, he has learned it cannot be gained through the courts. As long as Roe v. Wade stands, national Democratic candidates will support it and continue to lose. Harriet, right wing corporate lawyer though she may be, may also be the person who lifts this albatross off the Democratic Party's neck.