SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade is the greatest setback for women's rights in American history

The decision of SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade has implications far beyond those of any other Supreme Court decision in recent history. Roe v. Wade represented something far more than simply an additional level of protection for abortion rights. Roe v. Wade represented the basic legal principle that it was the responsibility of the U.S. government to protect and empower women. And, this is precisely the basic principle, that women have the right to protection, that SCOTUS has rejected, quite explicitly. Effectively, the entire modern feminist movement dates from, and is based on Roe v. Wade, and the notion that empowerment of women is constitutionally based, and, hence, the responsibility of the Courts and the Government to protect and ensure. All subsequent gains by women in human rights have been based on this principle. Enforcement of laws against domestic assault and marital rape, civil and criminal punishment for sexual harassment and workplace harassment, court ordered child support etc., all date, effectively from the original Roe v. Wade decision. SCOTUS has effectively, at one blow, overturned half a century of progress in women's rights. Suddenly, unless women can enforce their rights themselves, women have no rights whatsoever. That is precisely the message that SCOTUS has given women. Now, some will suggest that this is an overreaction to the Supreme Court decision. After all, laws still remain on the books protecting women. But, of what value are they, if the Courts make clear to prosecutors and police, that women have no right to protection? Decades ago, it was natural for police simply to ignore domestic confrontations. Such confrontations were considered inevitable, and, hence, not a police matter. A classic joke from a 1940 joke book on marriage -- "When they first got married he brought her to their first home, and he said 'Honey, here's a little world of our own.' And they've been fighting for the world championship, ever since." If women have no control over their own reproductive rights, they are made totally dependent on men. First, to avoid being raped and impregnated by men. Second, to find men to support their children, wanted or unwanted, once they are born. Effectively, women are made slaves to men, by this simple fact. Hence, women will be forced to tolerate harassment and assault on a regular basis, in order to avoid rape, and in order to support children born as the result of being raped -- at home, or in the workplace. This may not exactly be the intention of the Court -- to make women slaves to men. The Court may simply not wish to be bothered protecting women. But, in effect, this is the result of the Court's decision. Unless women are willing and able to fight for their rights, they simply won't have any, in future, in the U.S. Women might be better off in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, than in the U.S.