The fire and fury of America’s abortion debate

I wonder at times how some of my fellow hacks in America get out of bed in the morning. The leak of a draft of a Supreme Court decision on abortion rights last week prompted what can only be called a collective nervous breakdown. ‘My teeth have been chattering uncontrollably for an hour,’ New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister vented. ‘Bodies/minds are so weird. Like, not euphemistically – actually chattering. Audibly. And full shaking body. Though otherwise wholly, rationally, well and truly expecting it.’ Well, I wouldn’t say wholly rational, Rebecca, but you do you.

The terrifying ruling would send the abortion issue back from a single court to democratic debate and discussion – where it is in every other western country. The case before the court was a law that would put limits on abortion after 15 weeks – three weeks more liberal than the law in, say, Germany and most western countries.