South Dakota is about to launch the first salvo in what is likely to become the Supreme Court battle pro-choicers have been dreading for years.

The bill, carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison, would make it a felony for doctors or others to perform abortions.

The bill would inevitably be subject to legal challenge and eventually seen in front of the new Roberts-Alito Supreme Court, where the two justices’ loyalty to the Religious Right will be tested.

On principle, my main concern with overturning Roe v. Wade has a lot more to do with the idea of individual privacy than it does with whether abortions should be legal or not, since the right to privacy was the determining factor in legalizing abortions. I find it ironic that so-called “conservatives” don’t favor allowing individuals to make their own choices.

Overturning Roe wouldn’t be the end of the world though. Most people take a moderate stance on abortions that can only be described as pro-choice, even if they describe themselves as pro-life. They might hate the idea of abortions, but they’re not willing to go back to coathangers either. So, if the legality of abortions was decided in Congress rather than in the courts, a lot of legislators who bluster about abortion being murder would be forced to put their money where their mouth is and vote on it. Either they would ban abortions and be turned out by their constituents (who are generally in favor of at least some abortion being available), or be forced to admit that “well, I wasn’t quite as extreme as I made myself out to be.” The Republicans who chose the latter option would be turned out by the extreme wing of their party.

So, I don’t see Roe v. Wade being overturned as anything but a losing proposition for Republicans. And after the Republican Congress was turned out, the newly-elected Democratic Congress would overturn any anti-abortion law passed anyway. The worst that comes out of this is a couple of years where abortions are outlawed, and the end result will be airtight abortion allowances that won’t ever have Congressional support to be overturned.

Further, whatever will the Republicans run on if they don’t have abortion as their smoke screen issue? They’re not going to run on national security anymore, given that Iraq is about to break out into civil war and the president of the United States today said “people don’t need to worry about security.” There’s only so much anti-homosexual rhetoric that people outside of Mississippi will put up with.