In late January, 1973, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion through the infamous Roe V. Wade decision, resulting in endless acrimony that has settled into predictable channels.

Overturning Roe would allow each state to determine how they wanted to address abortion. Some would make it illegal; some would mandate restrictions in varying degrees; and a few would maintain the status quo.

But unwanted pregnancies would still occur.

According to friends who attended college in the 1950s and 1960s, wealthy women wanting abortions either traveled to Europe or had the procedure done in a hospital. Those without money often resorted to coat hangers, poisons, and other life-endangering procedures.

“But surely you and your friends engaged in less unsafe sex back then?” I would ask.

After a certain amount of genial laughter, my pre-Roe contacts would regale me with stories about illicit affairs, sudden disappearances of their pregnant friends who would return not pregnant, and how sometimes their women friends were kicked out of school while the men were allowed to stay.

How many abortions took place annually prior to Roe?

I have seen figures ranging from 100 thousand to one million, but no one knows for certain. For it was difficult to keep accurate statistics for a procedure that was both illegal and frowned upon.

These pre-Roe patterns would reemerge if Roe was overturned. On steroids. For those women wanting abortions living in no-abortion states, some might decide to carry their baby to term; others might travel to states with more liberal abortion policies; while others might resort to more dangerous methods.

Providers in abortion-lenient states would market their services to women in no-abortion states through on-air and Internet campaigns. Foundations might be established to assist women with little money to get that abortion done in illegal safety.

Technology might very well make the abortion process less invasive. The “morning after” pill already makes it possible to avoid the procedure in the early stages of pregnancy, and the overturning of Roe might well encourage entrepreneurs to create something that would allow women with unwanted pregnancies to bypass the abortion quagmire. Just take that pill. Or put some contraption near the womb. No worries. Governments might try to intervene, but our experience with illicit drugs suggests that businesspeople will create and distribute products despite government huffing and puffing if enough money can be made.

How would the number of abortions change? No one would know for certain, but all activists would weaponize any available statistics.

Pro-life activists might build upon their current strategies. Protests. Prayer vigils. Crisis pregnancy centers. Proposing legislation to prevent those at-home remedies. More ominously, they might build on actions taken in Tennessee, Arkansas, Wisconsin, (1) and Montana (2) charging women for using drugs life-endangering to their unborn child.

Of course, pro-life and pro-choice activists could also work together to develop strategies to prevent teen pregnancy, encourage parents to communicate better about the connection between love and sex, promote adoption, and create conditions where abortions are less likely to happen. They could remember a woman experiencing an unplanned pregnancy often feels alone, alienated, and unsupported. They could ponder that, according to Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a majority of people think that abortion is murder, and that it still should be legal. Perhaps, these activists could look towards Europe for answers, where abortions, teen pregnancies, and the surrounding rancor are all lower.

Twenty years ago, I was fortunate to be part of a project that encouraged pro-life and pro-choice activists across the country to dialogue, and wherever possible, work together to address abortion-related problems. Could this cooperative energy be harnessed again to encourage some joint action? If not, over-turning Roe V. Wade would cause the current hostility to morph from one dreary battle fought in predictable channels to fifty battles that will interact in unpredictable ways, perhaps resulting in real bloodshed.

After all, pro-life activists have compared abortion to the Holocaust and slavery.

Both of which resulted in bloodbaths.

Le déluge indeed!

(1) http://www.alternet.org/inside-fetal-assault-law-sending-pregnant-people-prison

(2) https://www.alternet.org/drugs/montana-handmaids-tale-local-prosecutor-immediate-crackdown-pregnant-drug