"The fact that we are about to fight another Supreme Court nomination battle by flyspecking the nominees' views on Roe points to the real costs of the decision today. Thirty years after Roe, the finest constitutional minds in the country still have not been able to produce a constitutional justification for striking down restrictions on early-term abortions that is substantially more convincing than Justice Harry Blackmun's famously artless opinion itself. As a result, the pro-choice majority asks nominees to swear allegiance to the decision without being able to identify an intelligible principle to support it. And the pro-life minority can criticize the legal weakness of the decision without having to acknowledge its political weakness in the country as a whole. Thirty years ago, opposing Roe on constitutional grounds, Alexander Bickel wrote for the editors of this pro-choice magazine, "[I]t may take some time before the realization comes that this will not do." After three decades, it has become more obvious than ever that Bickel was correct and that the costs of retaining Roe outweigh any benefits. For better or for worse, Roe will not be overturned any time soon. But, if it were, the Democrats, the federal judiciary, and the moderate majority of American people could breathe a sigh of relief."