. @AstorAaron asked an important question - why is abortion so pivotal to the point that so much of American politics revolves around it? As an evil socon who apparently wants to put LGBTQs in camps or shoot them (depending on your POV), I thought I might provide my two cents.

First off, it's better to understand abortion as really the only major cultural issue left standing on which the cultural and religious right hasn't been routed or is on the cusp of being routed.

The cultural right used to fight for a whole basket of issues including prayer in school, fighting against sex ed (or at least its kinkier variants), and of course for more traditional approaches to sexual relations and marriage.

It seems like a doomed effort in retrospect, but only in retrospect. The nineties and the 2010s were when the cultural left really started to turbocharge and win out. For a while the issues were often fought to a draw or at least remained in play.

As recently as the W admin, both parties held views on marriage considered bigoted and rotten today, abstinence education was enforced federally, and there was even a bioethics council that had the temerity to listen to religious thinkers and not just materialists.

Was the Obama-era cultural revolution which now seems obvious inevitable? Dunno. But it *was* transformative, either as a crescendo to the sixties or as its version 2.0.

For decades, the war between societal or traditional approaches grappled with individual choice and freedom. Sometimes one side won, sometimes the other side won. In this decade, the battle was by and large decided in favor of the latter.

Part of it, I think (and I'm open to being wrong on this), is that the evil spread of libertarianism on the right in the Obama era, which lefties often condemn, also paved the path for a broader acceptance of social libertarianism on stuff like drug laws and sexual conduct.

Obviously, there's also the powerful cultural currents, but that's a chicken-egg question. The sixties counterculture was plenty radical on these issues but made less headway at the time. Or perhaps it was focused on different questions (like divorce or women's social mobility).

But abortion cannot be wished away even now that we are all cultural and social libertarians of one stripe or another. Because if all human beings have rights and dignity, it is impossible to say "my body, my choice" in the same way one dismisses the old laws on personal conduct.

Abortion, if you will, is not just a vital moral question. The cultural and social right fought for (and sometimes still fights for) many such questions even after losing. It is the new trench line where neither side has a breakthrough weapon or argument.

So saying all of America's politics have revolved around abortion since Roe contains truth but is misleading. It's like saying civil rights is still an issue in America. This is true, but that does not mean what it meant in say, MLK's or even Obama's time.

So where does that leave us? It's important to understand that the 2010s was not just a continuation of trends beginning before but a revolutionary era in good ways and bad. Reading it backwards to even the 1990s does an injustice to all sides.

Second, and stripping away the inevitable bad faith attached to heated arguments, abortion is a painful and powerful moral question. It's possible to argue in good faith on either side.

But, and I realize that this might get me banned from polite company - the same is true of the arguments (tho not all) the social right made before the 2010s on other issues. The left won legally on this (and I'm not against that!), but that doesn't mean the losers are monsters.

You don't have to believe me on this. There's a guy who was President at the time of this upheaval who argued similarly. His name is Barak Obama.

I have no idea what the future will bring. But I do know that I prefer a world in which live, let live, and let persuade becomes more popular in America and the west than either side using the law or temporary cultural dominance to crush the other side.

The abortion stalemate, far from being a cause for explosion, could very well be an opportunity for a pause and a bit of reflection. Maybe even a truce or at least a pullback from total war. End.