I think the appointment of some SC judges will help the Dems - the first appointment will likely be for Rehnquist, and Bush will get a pass, relatively speaking. Dems will let Rehnquist be replaced by someone similar - and anti-choice. The second appointment is more crucial, and I think that at the end of the day, someone fairly centrist, but anti-choice, will be appointed, probably after someone far too conservative will be shot down. Then - Roe v. Wade and the privacy protections that spring from it will be gone.

Why do I see this as a good thing? B/c I don't think the purple part of the country thought it would happen. Anti-choice people will be happy, but the majority of the country will be up in arms. We've taken abortion for granted over the last couple decades, and the fact that it is gone will be shocking to women and younger voters. 5 million young voters came out to vote on the war - how many will come out to vote on whether they can have sex without becoming a parent (I'm not talking about unprotected sex, which does happen, but accidents, such as 'oh, I must have forgot to take my pill' and 'oops, the condom broke/fell off' which happens to everyone except us boring married people).

Bush is truly anti-choice, and will push that agenda to places where a significant portion of the people who voted for him do not want it to go - which is how the Dems sieze the high road. Did you know abortion rates under Clinton were lower than those under Bush? Why? I dunno - except for the repeated failure of abstenence education. But the message would be - we're not in favor of abortion - we're in favor of choice, and real strategies for keeping kids from getting pregnant, and raising the minimum wage, and health care...