Ending Roe v Wade is just the beginning | Thomas Zimmer

Conservatives are animated by a vision of 1950s-style white Christian patriarchal dominance - it is the only order they will accept for America

The supreme court is set to overturn Roe v Wade, this much has been clear since a draft opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked earlier this month. An attempt to safeguard abortion rights via national legislation was blocked by a united front of Republicans plus Democrat Joe Manchin in the Senate last week. As a result, we must expect abortion to be banned in roughly half the country soon.

It is very hard to overstate how significant this moment is. The US is about to join the very short list of countries that have restricted existing abortion rights since the 1990s - the overall trend internationally certainly has been towards a liberalization of abortion laws. And it's also a basically unique development in US history: while the supreme court has often upheld and codified a discriminatory status quo, it has never actively and officially abolished what had previously been recognized as a constitutionally guaranteed right.

Thomas Zimmer is a visiting professor at Georgetown University, focused on the history of democracy and its discontents in the United States, and a Guardian US contributing opinion writer