Prepare for a McCarthy-era crackdowns on pro-choice protesters | Andrew Perez and David Sirota

Conservatives and corporate media pundits want to use a Red Scare statute to arrest people demonstrating against the looming anti-abortion victory

Even as the Democrats' feeble legislative attempt to codify federal protections for abortion rights goes down in flames, many Washington elites are directing their attention and anger towards the same target: no, not rightwing judges reaching their ideological hands into millions of people's bodies, but instead the protesters peacefully demonstrating outside the homes of supreme court justices who are about to overturn Roe v Wade.

Prominent Republican lawmakers, conservative operatives and Beltway pundits are demanding the government arrest demonstrators - and to do so, they are citing a McCarthy-era statute passed to stop people from protesting against the prosecutions of alleged communists. Ignored in the discourse is a past ruling from the supreme court effectively blessing conservative protests at the homes of abortion clinic workers.