Dear Vicomte13,
"I doubt very seriously that it's a start.
"I think it's the end."
Oh, you're just a pessimist! ;-)
I'm much more hopeful.
"Most people want those rape and incest exceptions."
Certainly. In fact, most people have trouble imagining a world without at least modest access to abortion.
That's just a failure of imagination.
My own belief is that the country, shorn of the straitjacket of Roe, will move in a pro-life direction.
This was actually happening in the early 1970s before Roe was handed down. The late 1960s saw significant movement toward a liberal abortion law regime. I think about 20 states legalized it to one degree or other by 1970.
But then, things started to turn around. Between 1970 and 1973, something like 30 efforts to liberalize abortion laws failed. Not a single law liberalizing abortion passed in any state after 1970.
The New York State legislature actually voted to REPEAL its liberal abortion law, just two years after passing it. Unfortunately, Gov. Rockefeller vetoed the repeal.
Once folks see that a little pro-life doesn't kill 'em, they'll take a little more. And then some more. Eventually, I think that folks will start to see the very contradiction that you're pointing out - if it's murder, it's murder no matter HOW the baby was conceived.
And eventually, people will come to accept even more restrictions. They'll demand 'em.
I think that it's possible that eventually, we'd be able to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the rights of the unborn.
The difficulty is that for all of us, it's hard to imagine a time when this might be.
But I'll bet it was difficult for folks to imagine the South without slavery in, say, 1856.
Remember, with God, all things are possible.
sitetest
"My own belief is that the country, shorn of the straitjacket of Roe, will move in a pro-life direction."
Mine is that most kids are of the political persuasion of their parents, and that 75% of abortions are of Democrats.
So, if you outlaw abortion for a time, I think you will end up with a lot more Democrats on welfare, and they'll vote to bring abortion back.
I think the courts have to impose a due process rule against abortion by fiat, and that it will require pro-life judicial activism to do it, the inverse of Roe.
And I think strict constructionists are the wrong vehicle for this.
I don't think God's on the side of America in any of this, but rather, that He's on the side of Latin America.