Overturning Roe has put the Supreme Court on shaky ground as an institution.

One year ago this week, the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision, which put reproductive healthcare out of the reach of millions of Americans.

It was a cruel and devastating act.

But while the millions of those who depended on the rights ensured by Roe were the primary victims of the Court’s decision, the reactionaries on the court and those that back them have caused themselves and public confidence in the system a world of hurt for what they did.

Americans now have little respect for the Court as an institution.

Support for abortion rights has never been higher or broader.

Disagreement with the Court’s decision on Roe has never polled as high as it does today.

It is the Supreme Court as an institution that is on shaky ground.

As it should be.

It has become the home of a bunch of corrupt and creepy old white men, reactionaries and insurrectionists.

In 1857, just three years before the start of the Civil War, a similar bunch of old white reactionaries known as the Taney Court, named for the Chief Justice at the time Roger Taney - ruled on the case of Dred Scott.

Taney wrote that the Founders' words in the Declaration of Independence, “all men were created equal,” were never intended to apply to Blacks.

The Taney court was dominated by pro-slavery judges from the South. Of the nine, seven judges had been appointed by pro-slavery Presidents — five, in fact, came from slave-holding families. The decision was viewed by many as a victory for the Southern “Slavocracy,” and a evidence of the power the slave holders had over our institutions, north and south.

Many historians have written how the decision played a role in propelling Abraham Lincoln into the White House as an anti-slavery voice. The issue of slavery had already created a powerful abolitionist movement.

The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision played a significant role in igniting the Civil War just three years later.