Editorial: The decision that matters on Roe v. Wade

Every Pennsylvania voter will have his or her say if a leaked document from the U.S. Supreme Court, indeed, alters the landscape of abortion in this country.

The document is a draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee now in his 16th year and known as one of the stronger conservative voices on a court with a 6-3 tilt in that direction.

According to the document obtained by Politico and confirmed Tuesday as authentic by the court, Alito called the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision “egregiously wrong from the start.” That decision affirmed a right to privacy that included abortion. The case involved a Texas mother pregnant with what was to be her third child against her local district attorney.

The Roe case draft was decided, in part, on the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its due process clause. The amendment is about what rights someone has as a citizen of the United States. It is a perennial pivot point in Supreme Court cases, including some that have been questions in confirmation hearings about what is and isn’t “settled law” such as Brown v. the Board of Education and, yes, Roe.

Alito’s draft decision — while not completed and officially released — doesn’t strike down abortion, but it sets up a return of the issue to being a state, rather than federal, decision.

This is what makes Pennsylvania — and individual voting — important.

To describe Pennsylvania as a swing state can be inaccurate. It is more of a merry-go-round of issues that rise and fall in importance, coming up over and over again at election time.

Pennsylvania’s Legislature is generally in Republican hands. Since 1979, the House of Representatives has been in Democratic control just 16 years. The state Senate has been a GOP domain all but three of the last 43 years. That makes sense as the majority of Keystone State counties tend to skew Republican.

The governor’s office, however, trades back and forth like football teams turning over the ball on downs. That reflects the power of the population in statewide voting, which favors large city centers with Democratic majorities in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

This is a gubernatorial year. The governor’s seat and the Legislature are up for grabs. Both are key to how Pennsylvania would address the abortion issue.

Anyone who has believed one vote doesn’t matter could not be more wrong. This is not the question of who gets a big office. It’s a question of who gets every office.

That means the decision of one Supreme Court justice or the majority of that bench doesn’t decide the abortion question in Pennsylvania. It is the decision of every voter.