As long as the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, conservatives complained that it had squelched the democratic process — that unelected men in black robes had handed down a national edict rather than letting the American people sort out a consensus.

Celebrating Roe’s reversal in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, they declared that democracy would finally be allowed to take over and settle the question of abortion once and for all. “Now the American people get their voice back,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said. While the court in Roe had “inflamed debate and deepened division,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority in Dobbs, “the people and their elected representatives” would reach the “national settlement” that had eluded the country for so long.

Eighteen months later, the American people are indeed using their voices, but not in the way anti-abortion advocates had hoped. In a steady march of ballot measures, even in conservative states like Ohio, they have codified a right to abortion and rejected attempts to restrict it. Polls show increasing support for abortion rights in all 50 states, with majorities in nearly all states — even deep red states — saying that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.