Not since Roe v. Wade came down in 1973 have the threats to basic women’s rights in this country been more serious. The situation reflects a flaw in our political system: The Supreme Court has been allowed to usurp the place of national majorities in envisioning and enacting the highest values of American citizenship — the rights we hold.

Contrary to a popular misconception, when the court has assigned and defined rights, more often than not it has reinforced the rule of powerful and privileged minorities rather than protecting ordinary (let alone marginalized) citizens. That is the dismal but often-denied truth driven home by Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which would overturn Roe against the preferences of a majority of Americans. The need for a course correction is clear, even if the final opinion modifies the argument against Roe or the justices find a compromise to uphold the intrusive Mississippi restrictions without overruling their old case.

The fact that the Supreme Court has seldom protected important rights flies in the face of the court’s self-image and contradicts a romanticized view of the institution that arose during the mid-20th century, thanks in part to decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe. “Fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections,” Justice Robert Jackson wrote in 1943, in a case forbidding West Virginia from compelling students to...

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