(1/2) A great post, not enough pro-life blogs have provided this kind of commentary. The pro-life movement has spent a lot of time, money, and effort getting Republican politicians elected in the hopes of appointing enough Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. Donald Trump promised that Roe would automatically be overturned if he became president. As such, most pro-lifers held their noses, voted for him, and remained loyal in spite of all he's said and done (recall that during the 2016 Republican primary, being pro-life was negatively correlated with supporting Trump). They underwent a lot of abuse and humiliation for rallying behind both Trump and the GOP in general over the years. But if President Trump really is all that stands in the way of another thirty years of killing babies on demand, it's hard not to support him (which is why his approval rating never falls below 40%, even on his bad days) even if he's not personally pro-life (or particularly virtuous in any other way). But how has that actually worked out for us? Since 1980, there have been thirteen Supreme Court vacancies. Our guys filled nine of those vacancies, abortion-supporting Democrats four. Planned Parenthood v. Casey was handed down at the end of the Reagan-Bush era. Those two presidents, who had campaigned on overturning Roe and said they'd choose justices accordingly, had appointed five of the justices on the bench. Adding the two justices that had dissented in Roe, that decision should've been an easy 7-2 win for us. Instead, the Supreme Court upheld Roe in a 5-4 majority. Likewise, in 2020, the Supreme Court went 5-4 against moderate regulations on abortion clinics (those which have to be met by other outpatient procedure clinics, it wasn't a "TRAP" law by any stretch).
(3/3) The question of where to go from here is an interesting and difficult one. It's clear that staying the course isn't an option. Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society told the Atlantic that today's Supreme Court is better than it was 25, or 30, or 40 years ago. That's the kind of thing only someone that gets paid six figures (irrespective of actual results) to run a think tank could possibly say. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/leonard-leo-donald-trump-and-supreme-courts-term/614500/ I agree with Senator Hawley that there should be litmus tests on future justices, but I'm not sure his is the right one (lots of people have said that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided only to turn around and uphold it anyway because of state decisis or something). There's also a good chance that he's just virtue-signalling to distinguish himself to pro-life voters ahead of his inevitable 2024 presidential campaign. Court packing and other reforms, and (if necessary) defying the court at the state level are options that should be explored as well. An end to judicial supremacy is critical. Shifting the Overton Window is very important, and pro-life members of congress haven't done a good job of that. I remember Republican senators swearing up and down during the Kavanaugh hearing that they weren't really going to overturn Roe (presumably to appeal to swing voters). That's the wrong approach, the attitude should be "bloody right we're going to get it overturned, it's an illegitimate decision that defies the Constitution and has gotten 60,000,000 people killed". However I don't quite share your assessment of the Green New Deal and the Tea Party. Both the Squad and the Freedom Caucus represent the wingnut wing of their respective political parties, but neither has actually gotten substantial legislation passed. The Democrats won in 2018 by appealing to swing voters with candidates that are ideologically closer to Nancy Pelosi than Bernie Sanders. I don't know what the solution going forward is, but the pro-life movement has to be united whatever it does. That's the only way to win. Based on the current polls it looks like we'll have a few years to figure it out, for better or worse.
(2/3) It's easy to blame it all on Justice Roberts and say we just need one more justice, but we've been doing that for a while. Before Roberts, it was Justice Anthony Kennedy. Before that it was Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. And the outcome is worse than would first appear. Only Justice Thomas wrote an opinion stating that the current precedents are fundamentally flawed, illegitimate, and should be overturned. None of the other justices signed onto that. So we're not really one justice away, the pro-Roe majority is probably closer to 8-1 than to 5-4. I think the issue is that most of the justices appointed by Republicans are secretly pro-choice and, as such, are bound to find some way to rationalize keeping abortion available on demand (the penumbras, stare decisis, superprecedent, or some other way - these are lawyers after all, they spent a ton of time and money getting trained to do these sorts of things). Whose turn it is to flip sides depends on the composition of the court. To draw an analogy, look at the debate over Obamacare repeal in the early Trump-era. The final proposal, "skinny repeal", fell short of passage by one vote in the Senate. John McCain famously cast the deciding vote to kill the bill. He was rewarded with scorn from the right and the Strange New Respect the Democrats and media reserve for Republicans that die, retire, or become useful idiots for the left's agenda (check out David French's Twitter replies to see this phenomenon in real time). But GOP insiders on the hill know the real story. Republican senators had to vote to repeal the ACA but secretly they really, really didn't want the moral or political implications of kicking tons of Americans off their health insurance (2010 shows what happens when Congress passes a healthcare reform that people don't actually want). So someone had to vote against their bill. And what better person to do it than a terminally ill elder statesman that had a complicated (at best) relationship with the current president and a reputation of being a maverick? If it weren't for Senator McCain, somebody else would've had to vote down the bill. But it still would've happened. Republicans weren't really one senator away from repealing the ACA. Likewise if a pro-life president manages to replace RBG/Breyer, one or two of the current justices will defect so that Roe is upheld. We don't know who for sure (personally, I think Justice Kavanaugh would become openly pro-Roe before Justice Gorsuch would), but it will happen.
But how has that actually worked out for us? Since 1980, there have been thirteen Supreme Court vacancies. Our guys filled nine of those vacancies, abortion-supporting Democrats four. Planned Parenthood v. Casey was handed down at the end of the Reagan-Bush era. Those two presidents, who had campaigned on overturning Roe and said they'd choose justices accordingly, had appointed five of the justices on the bench. Adding the two justices that had dissented in Roe, that decision should've been an easy 7-2 win for us. Instead, the Supreme Court upheld Roe in a 5-4 majority. Likewise, in 2020, the Supreme Court went 5-4 against moderate regulations on abortion clinics (those which have to be met by other outpatient procedure clinics, it wasn't a "TRAP" law by any stretch).
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/leonard-leo-donald-trump-and-supreme-courts-term/614500/
I agree with Senator Hawley that there should be litmus tests on future justices, but I'm not sure his is the right one (lots of people have said that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided only to turn around and uphold it anyway because of state decisis or something). There's also a good chance that he's just virtue-signalling to distinguish himself to pro-life voters ahead of his inevitable 2024 presidential campaign. Court packing and other reforms, and (if necessary) defying the court at the state level are options that should be explored as well. An end to judicial supremacy is critical. Shifting the Overton Window is very important, and pro-life members of congress haven't done a good job of that. I remember Republican senators swearing up and down during the Kavanaugh hearing that they weren't really going to overturn Roe (presumably to appeal to swing voters). That's the wrong approach, the attitude should be "bloody right we're going to get it overturned, it's an illegitimate decision that defies the Constitution and has gotten 60,000,000 people killed". However I don't quite share your assessment of the Green New Deal and the Tea Party. Both the Squad and the Freedom Caucus represent the wingnut wing of their respective political parties, but neither has actually gotten substantial legislation passed. The Democrats won in 2018 by appealing to swing voters with candidates that are ideologically closer to Nancy Pelosi than Bernie Sanders. I don't know what the solution going forward is, but the pro-life movement has to be united whatever it does. That's the only way to win. Based on the current polls it looks like we'll have a few years to figure it out, for better or worse.
To draw an analogy, look at the debate over Obamacare repeal in the early Trump-era. The final proposal, "skinny repeal", fell short of passage by one vote in the Senate. John McCain famously cast the deciding vote to kill the bill. He was rewarded with scorn from the right and the Strange New Respect the Democrats and media reserve for Republicans that die, retire, or become useful idiots for the left's agenda (check out David French's Twitter replies to see this phenomenon in real time). But GOP insiders on the hill know the real story. Republican senators had to vote to repeal the ACA but secretly they really, really didn't want the moral or political implications of kicking tons of Americans off their health insurance (2010 shows what happens when Congress passes a healthcare reform that people don't actually want). So someone had to vote against their bill. And what better person to do it than a terminally ill elder statesman that had a complicated (at best) relationship with the current president and a reputation of being a maverick? If it weren't for Senator McCain, somebody else would've had to vote down the bill. But it still would've happened. Republicans weren't really one senator away from repealing the ACA. Likewise if a pro-life president manages to replace RBG/Breyer, one or two of the current justices will defect so that Roe is upheld. We don't know who for sure (personally, I think Justice Kavanaugh would become openly pro-Roe before Justice Gorsuch would), but it will happen.