Here is my editorial on the Supreme Court’s decision today, June 24, 2022, overturning a Supreme Court decision of nearly fifty years’ standing, and, for the first time, restricting an individual right that it had once recognized itself. The Court’s reputation will likely fall in the days ahead, in no small part because of the specious arguments in its majority opinion, signed by Samuel Alito. Abortion rights will remain a divisive issue dividing Americans, as this billboard, in a photograph taken by Carol Highsmith, makes clear. It is likely to become more divisive still as a result of the shortcomings in the Court’s reasoning in this decision, which makes no attempt to reconcile the contradictions between this decision and previous ones, cases sometimes including ones decided by Alito and his fellow majority on the Court this week.

Billboard commemorating 9/11 and folding in one side of the divide on abortion in America. Photo by Carol Highsmith, donated copyright-free to the Library of Congress.