The System: Zak Cheney-Rice

When Funding the Police Backfires How Democrats ended up bolstering the post-Roe enforcement regime.

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BACK IN MAY, WHEN Justice Samuel Alito's leaked opinion draft confirmed that Roe v. Wade was on its last legs, a fundraising video from 2020 titled Traffic Stop started to recirculate on social media. The one-minute short depicts a mother and her teenage daughter being pulled over by the cops. After a brief interrogation, it is revealed that the girl is pregnant and seeking an out-of-state abortion, which leads the officers to drag her screaming out of the car.

In real life, the impending crackdown on abortion will probably involve more snitching and surveillance than militarized border checkpoints. People looking to terminate their pregnancies will be suspected of crimes, while providers, for now, will bear the brunt of the legal consequences. The liberal PAC Meidas Touch, which made the video, seemed more interested in scaring up money for Democrats than in giving its audience an accurate forecast. But its fantasy of our post-Roe dystopia gets one thing right: Wherever abortion is criminalized, there will be an army of law-enforcement officials waiting to punish it.

The Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has given states the green light to make abortion a crime at a time when Democratic leaders are scrambling to prove their tough-on-crime credentials. By throwing money at the police to boost its election odds, the party has all but ensured that red-state cops will be better equipped to enforce the looming regime-a civil rights disaster the party's constituents were counting on it to prevent.