The Supreme Court appears poised to strike down two landmark decisions about women’s reproductive rights: Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s leaked opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has serious implications for women, their doctors and families. In removing protections for abortion access, the court clears the way for state laws criminalizing the procedure — and possibly removing access to contraception. As the court wrote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that reduces gender equality: “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.”
Here’s what hasn’t yet been discussed: Striking down Roe could, therefore, increase social violence, according to a large body of research.
The links between gender equality and less political violence
Countries with higher levels of gender equality are less likely to militarize international disputes, whether through threats or actual military action. And higher levels of gender equality reduces the risk that governments will endure internal violent conflict like terrorism or civil war.
How do we know if a country has high or low levels of gender equality? Unfortunately, there is no single perfect measure, which means researchers often turn to a variety of measures. These include women’s share of legislative seats, educational parity, political rights, labor force participation and economic rights, women’s participation in political and civic organizations, and even fertility rates. Nearly across the board, higher measures of gender equality are associated with a lower risk of violent conflict.
Could Congress resurrect Roe? Well, it could try.
How does gender equality reduce the risk of political violence?
One possible explanation for the link between women’s equality and violent conflict is that women prefer nonviolent resolution. Where women have more political influence, that might be more likely to be reflected in policy. But while women are in general less likely to support war, that’s not true for all women all the time compared with men.
Another possibility is that when a society has a strong gender hierarchy, it relies on structural violence, or what Mary Caprioli defines as “systemic exploitation that becomes part of the social order.” Structural violence prevents women and other oppressed groups from gaining full autonomy. It also establishes a norm of exploitation and abuse of women and other marginalized groups within societies — which then more easily translates into military action.
Denying full political, economic or social rights to women or other marginalized groups has direct and measurable consequences on quality of life, health and life expectancy. Societal support for women’s political and economic equality is associated with lower risk of a civil conflict. And men who support patriarchal values, such as the idea that wives should obey their husbands, may be more likely to engage in political violence.
Some say the U.S. is headed for civil war. History suggests something colder.
How does the Dobbs decision contribute to the risk of political violence?
As has been widely discussed, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could lead to rollbacks on the right to contraception, restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights and even limits on interracial marriage. In the draft Dobbs opinion, Alito argues that Roe was wrongly decided and based on an invented right to privacy.
The court first identified the right to privacy in its 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut ruling striking down a law that restricted access to birth control. In that opinion, Justice William Douglas declared that the right to privacy could be found in the 14th Amendment’s protection of liberty. This protection is also the foundation of a variety of other landmark cases, including Loving v. Virginia and Obergefell v. Hodges, which established, respectively, the legality of interracial and same-sex marriage. This link creates concerns that a host of other civil liberties rulings may also be struck down by a conservative majority.
Women’s rights advocates argue that the Dobbs decision rolls back decades of progress on women’s rights and gender equality in the United States. Its effects are likely to be felt most severely by Black and Brown people and by the economically disadvantaged. And it may portend other restrictions on the rights of historically excluded communities — reinforcing and amplifying structural violence in the United States for decades to come. This, too, would increase the risk of political violence, as gender inequality isn’t the only type of structural violence linked to violent conflict.
Is civil conflict a real risk in the United States?
Countries that have some characteristics of democracies and some of autocracies are known as “anocracies” — and have a significantly elevated risk of civil war. The risk is greatest for those countries that are transitioning — that is, becoming either more democratic or more autocratic. Barbara F. Walter argues in her 2022 book, “How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them,” that “the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.” Walter argues that democratic backsliding and the rise of identity politics and factionalism put the United States right now at a heightened risk of civil war.
Walter is not the only observer concerned about these risks. The Polity Project, which tracks democracy around the world, downgraded the United States from democracy to anocracy for 2020, citing decreasing executive constraints, the rise of factionalism and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Polity returned the United States to the democracy category for 2021, but both Polity and the Varieties of Democracy project, which scores countries on key components of democracy, cite ongoing concerns about toxic polarization, the risk of democratic backsliding and political destabilization in the country.
While the United States may not be on the precipice of civil war, the risk is measurably greater than it was just a decade ago as the country has slipped toward anocracy. In 2020, for the first time, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance listed the United States among countries experiencing democratic backsliding. Transparency International reports heightened perceptions of corruption in the United States. Freedom House rates the United States as free but cautions that “its democratic institutions have suffered erosion.”
The Dobbs decision alone is not likely to push the country into civil conflict. But when combined with recent trends toward increasing social acceptability of misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and hate crimes, the scales are further tilted toward possible political violence.
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Rebecca Best (@RebeccaBestIR) is an associate professor of political science at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Read more:
What Alito’s draft gets wrong about women and political power
Half of Americans support abortion on demand
If the Supreme Court undermines Roe v. Wade, contraception could be banned
Conservative Republican women have led the fight to restrict abortion
You’ve seen the leaked opinion overturning Roe. Here’s what comes next.