When the Supreme Court Justices decided Roe, I suspect that they pictured a young woman and her doctor (who had taken the Hippocratic Oath and respected the dignity of the life growing inside of her) having a discreet and painful conversation in the privacy of his office.

That's how things were back then.

You had "a doctor." Your doctor was someone you could trust. You went to him every time you had a problem. You knew him, he knew you. For years.

There were no home pregnancy tests back then. They weren't invented until the 80s.

If you were late or sick, you went to see your doctor. He ran a pregnancy test, and had you return to his office in a few days to give you the news.

He knew if you & your husband had been trying for years to have a baby. If so, he might announce your positive results with excitement, smiles and congratulations.

But if you had come in repeatedly for broken bones, covered in bruises and handprints for "falling down the steps," he knew that, too. He might encourage you to reach out to family, or help you contact an organization who could help.

Anyway, this was the SCOTUS's frame of reference.

Let's contrast that with today:
now a girl finds herself alone in a cold bathroom at 5 AM staring at a positive home pregnancy test and sobbing.
No doctor there. Instead of hearing:
"No, honey. Your life is NOT over. Your mom will NOT kill you. She will be surprised, but she's a good person. She will come around. Let's have her come in and we can discuss it together."

No. Instead, she's panicking.

All she can think (falsely) is that her life is over.
How can she just make this all go away?

Enter another development the SCOTUS couldn't have imagined: the widespread implementation of the neighborhood abortion mill.

Sure, back then, Planned Parenthood and other organizations distributed birth control to poor women - especially black ones, but abortion clinics, as we know them, didn't exist.

I doubt the justices could have ever imagined people using pressure sales tactics to badger girls into the stirrups.
Or an organization who awarded bonuses for top "sales" and fulfilled orders for intact baby corpses.

These are modern evils that even 50 years ago seemed like the stuff of dystopian science fiction.

Yet somehow, not only is this a reality; it's celebrated.
And not only celebrated, but demanded; any possible curtailment is met with outrage and violence.

Would the justices have ruled the way they did if they had known what evil it would unleash?

I hope not.
And I hope these justices stick to their verdict. They can't undo the blood shed, but at least they can allow citizens to decide whether or not they want it to continue in their own communities.