It Might Surprise You, But Here’s How Harry Reid Helped End Roe

Roe v. Wade would have turned 53 years old on Jan. 22 had the Supreme Court not overturned the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson.

The Supreme Court justices, and the presidents who nominated them, deserve many thanks. But perhaps another unlikely figure deserves some thanks, too: the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for his decision to nuke the filibuster on certain presidential nominees.

Long before the the Dobbs v. Jackson decision was handed down in 2022, Reid laid the groundwork through the changes he made to Senate rules. Reid opened Pandora’s box, and the pro-life movement took advantage of it.

Reid, who, like many other Democrats, became increasingly pro-choice over the course of his Senate career, supported nuking the filibuster on some presidential nominees in 2013.

Frustrated with impediments to confirming then President Barack Obama’s nominees, Reid convinced enough of his fellow Democrats to invoke the nuclear option so that breaking a filibuster to confirm Cabinet officials and certain judicial nominees could be done by a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes typically required to end debate before the final confirmation vote.

It was a narrow vote of 48-52 in the Senate on Nov. 21, 2013 that sealed the fate of Roe almost a decade later.

No Republicans voted to nuke the filibuster that November day. They were joined by three Democrats—Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Following the vote, then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., issued his memorable reply: “I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you will regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.”

McConnell’s prophetic words came to fruition. Less than four years later, President Donald Trump was in office for his first term and looking to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

The Republican-controlled Senate blocked former President Barack Obama from filling Scalia’s seat. Obama had nominated Merrick Garland—who would later become former President Joe Biden’s infamous attorney general—for the high court.

Neil Gorsuch was announced as the nominee on Jan. 31, 2017. On April 6, McConnell expanded Reid’s scrapping of the Senate filibuster to allow the nuclear option for Supreme Court nominees.

Gorsuch was confirmed by a vote of 54-46, with no Democratic support.

Still, more needed to happen before Dobbs.

Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett would be nominated and confirmed to the court after the retirement of former Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018 and the death of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020.

The justices nominated by Trump, and reviled and vilified by Democrats, would almost certainly have not gotten confirmed without the nuclear option.

On May 17, 2021, after numerous delays, the justices finally decided that they would hear the Dobbs case, centered around Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.

On July 22, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, once thought unthinkable. Oral arguments were on December 1.

While the decision wasn’t officially handed down until June 24, 2022, the draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito to overturn Roe was leaked on May 2, 2022.

After the leak, conservative justices were targeted by radicals. Nicholas Roske even plotted to assassinate Kavanaugh and potentially other justices. He was convicted and sentenced last October. But the justices did not budge.

Would Trump have been able to get other justices confirmed? Would other nominees have voted to overturn Roe?

These are hypotheticals that the pro-life movement, fortunately, does not have to face. The movement has enough to keep busy with changing hearts and minds, as well as saving babies and their mothers from abortion.

The path to overturning Roe was nothing short of miraculous. Some would even say providential. And while the justices, Trump, and the Republicans in Congress deserve credit for these pro-life victories, don’t forget Harry Reid.

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