"There are many possible explanations for how Roe has come to matter as it has. Perhaps polarization around abortion occurred because the Supreme Court repressed politics. Or perhaps partisan conflict escalated because the Court channeled politics into federal arenas, by enunciating law for the nation that was most easily reversed through national institutions. With polls in the wake of Roe showing growing public support for liberalizing access to abortion, perhaps conflict escalated because a cohesive and well-organized minority opposed the decision and was encouraged to resist it by voting on a single-issue basis. Or perhaps conflict escalated because in the years after the decision Roe came increasingly to be associated with feminist challenges to the family, and so came to be viewed as a threat to traditional and religious forms of social order. Or perhaps conflict escational authority because they associated the decision with a line of cases that the legal academy had criticized for a generation. Or perhaps conflict escalated because criticism of Roe by liberal elites legitimized demands to replace Supreme Court Justices by Americans who hated the Supreme Court’s race decisions but who no longer felt as free to campaign against those rulings as they once had. Or perhaps conflict escalated because the Court’s involvement in abortion gave political leaders the opportunity to unite disparate groups against the Court and in a quest for constitutional restoration, forging a new governing coalition of citizens who before never made common cause with one another."