Roe nationalized and intensified abortion conflict rather than settling it.

Evidence

If the Court’s aim in Roe was to settle the issue of abortion, it failed to do so. Before Roe, changes in state abortion laws were occurring with a minimum of fanfare and limited political conflict. Roe, however, changed that. The decision became a rallying point for pro-choice and pro-life forces alike. It increased the visibility of abortion, nationalized the issue, and intensified the conflict over it. One must wonder whether, as in Wester Europe, abortion would have become ee widely available with less conflict if the Court had not intervened. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3165

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts with the desegregation backlash literature and echoes Gerald Rosenberg’s thesis on hollow hope.
• DEEPTHINKING: Raises the counterintuitive claim that judicial intervention can inflame a policy conflict rather than resolve it, a paradigm-level question about courts and social change.
• SEED: Angle: how constitutionalizing an issue shifts it from legislature to national stage and hardens the opposing coalitions.