Another 24 hours have come and gone, and Americans are no closer to answering the burning questions on everyone’s minds: who leaked the draft Supreme Court ruling on Roe — and why? In the aftermath of Monday night, the media is scrambling to play amateur detective, throwing out possible motives and scenarios, while the biggest story — Alito’s actual opinion — falls below the fold. The Supreme Court is on the verge of wiping out the bloodiest stain on America ever left by an activist court, and the message to both sides should be: get ready.

As much as the Left has leaned into this misunderstanding over the years, the end of Roe was never going to be the end of abortion in America. If the Lord answers our prayers and the Supreme Court strikes down the 1973 ruling, it will be the starting gun — not the finish line. The battle will shift to the states, where the legislative infrastructure that pro-lifers have spent the last several decades building will click into place. Each state will decide for themselves “whether and when” abortion would be legal. Some will allow it; others won’t. But what matters, as the justices themselves pointed out, is that the question would be left “for the people,” not courts wielding “raw judicial power.”

And frankly, that’s one thing this 50-year conflict has been missing: a debate. If the Supreme Court sticks to its guns and releases some form of Alito’s opinion, America would finally have the opportunity to reach a working consensus on the issue of abortion — something we haven’t been able to do for a half century because the court jumped in and imposed itself. Whoever leaked this is obviously trying to spare the Left from the conversations about abortion that it’s spent the last several years avoiding, because their position is indefensible.

Deep down, Democrats know that for all of their manipulated polling numbers and selective talking points, Americans aren’t with them on the extreme forms of abortion they seek. And once the issue goes back to the states, where the realities of this barbaric procedure will be spelled out for all to see, voters will understand what President Joe Biden admitted Tuesday by accident: the victims of abortion are children. This isn’t about a clump of cells or women’s rights, it’s about the violent murder of an innocent human being. And that’s the truth the Left will do anything to suppress.

So while radicals like Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) bluster that the answer to this ruling “is in November,” political strategists aren’t so convinced. One liberal pollster, speaking on the condition of anonymity, thought the abortion issue might “help at the margins,” but to “hold the House or Senate, we need inflation to go away.” And of course, the other uncomfortable reality for Durbin and company is that Democrats have held both chambers of Congress and the White House for a year and a half, and they can’t even persuade their own party to pass a legislative Roe. As for tearing down the Senate rules that would make that goal easier, Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) reiterated Tuesday that he wouldn’t play along. “I’m not bashful about where I stand,” he told reporters. “I think I’ve been clear for the last 40 years.”

Meanwhile, the Left’s reaction continues to be apocalyptic. Everyone from Kamala Harris to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is calling for an uprising. Not one of them, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) pointed out on “Washington Watch,” is “step[ping] forward [to] condemn the action of the leaker and support the chief justice and the Court in finding out who did this and punishing them.”

Maybe that’s because the Left wouldn’t mind if the Court imploded. Most likely, they feel betrayed by the one institution they’ve relied on to carry out most of their radical agenda, until now. But, as Kevin Williamson reminds everyone, “The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret and apply the law, not to give you the political outcomes that you have failed to win at the ballot box.”

Even Alito’s opinion seemed prophetic in that regard, insisting that “It is important for the public to perceive that our decisions are based in principle, and we should make every effort to achieve that objective by issuing opinions that carefully show how a proper understanding of the law leads to the results we reach. But we cannot exceed the scope of our authority under the Constitution, and we cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concerns about the public’s reaction to our work.”

Alito never dreamed those “extraneous influences” would try to destroy the court as we know it. “What happened today,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) argued, “was the saddest chapter in the history of the United States Supreme Court. This was despicable, and it’s dangerous.” Even now, with the justices under 24-hour security, mainstream newspapers are worrying aloud about an act of violence that could stop a 5-4 ruling in its tracks. “It’s an awful thought,” the Wall Street Journal editors admit, “but we live in fanatical times.”

For now, Blackburn urges, “I think what we have to do… [is to] look at is the damage that is done to the Court, [and] the fact that you have a lot of these Leftist dark money organizations — Arabella Group, Demand Justice, and others… who are looking at how they can influence the court. Basically, what they’re doing is carrying out a malign influence campaign against the court. This is unprecedented, and that’s why the individual responsible has to be held to account. We need to be able to depend on our institutions.”

In the meantime, we continue to pray for the justices to hold firm, for everyone associated with the Court to be safe, and for pro-lifers on the cusp of this next chapter in the fight to stand ready. For more prayer points, don’t miss our special Dobbs v. Jackson guide.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.