4.2.12 WC: 191694 Reproductive Freedom Project to advance a broad spectrum of reproductive rights. Litigation continued to be the weapon of choice in this battle. Roe v. Wade helped secure the Presidency for Ronald Reagan, by giving him a “free” issue. It was free because he — and other “pro-life” Republicans — could strongly oppose all abortion without alienating moderate Republican women and men who favored a woman’s right to choose but felt secure in the knowledge that the Supreme Court — would continue to protect that right, regardless of what Reagan and others said or did. Abortion thus became the most important issue for right-wing religious zealots and a marginal issue for moderate Republicans who favored a woman’s right to choose but who also supported the Republican economic and other programs. This helped to destroy the moderate wing of the Republican Party (the so-called Rockefeller Republicans) and drove former moderates such as the elder George Bush to the right. (He started as a pro-choice Republican and ended up as a pro-life Republican whose hands were tied by the Supreme Court.) At bottom Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore represent opposite sides of the same currency of judicial activism in areas more appropriately left to the political processes. Courts ought not to jump into controversies that are political in nature and are capable of being resolved — even if not smoothly or expeditiously — by the popular branches of government. Judges have no special competence, qualifications or mandate to decide between equally compelling moral claims (as in the abortion controversy) or equally compelling political claims (counting ballots by hand or stopping the recount because the standard is ambiguous). Absent clear governing constitutional principles (which are not present in either case), these are precisely the sorts of issues that should be left to the rough-and-tumble of politics rather than the ipse dixit of five justices.”* There are, of course, considera