It took the conservative movement 50 years to repeal Roe v Wade. The day it was decided conservative forces were already working proactively to overturn this decision. For 50 years RBG criticized the case, stating its reasoning was weak and could be subject to legal attack.

For 50 years Democrats have run on codifying Roe v Wade only to abandon the task after getting elected.

In his first run for election, Bill Clinton told women voters he would support strengthening Roe. Even though his record on the matter was less then good [NYT July 20, 1992]:

The 1989 issue, hastily compiled before a Supreme Court ruling that many believed could abolish the rights established in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, said Mr. Clinton “refused to state a position on abortion.” Ms. Wright responded, “I don’t know why they said that,” saying she had sent many newspaper clippings.

The next time around, said a former Naral staff member, Lisa Swanson, Mr. Clinton’s office faxed at least three different statements. In the version published in 1991, Mr. Clinton said: “I do not favor repeal of Roe v. Wade. Until the fetus can live outside the mother’s womb, I believe the decision on abortion should be the woman’s, not the Government’s.” The statement noted Mr. Clinton’s past support of parental notification for minors and restrictions on state financing of abortions.

In the 1992 issue, Mr. Clinton waxed passionate. “The Government simply has no right to interfere with decisions that must be made by women of America to make the right choice,” he said. He added, “Although I have supported certain limited restrictions upon Government funding for abortions, I would not veto any bill requiring Medicaid funding that passed Congress.” Accepting Status Quo

Operating in a state government where money issues were far more visible than moral ones, Mr. Clinton tended to accept the status quo on abortion. Although Arkansas was one of the few states to legalize abortion before 1973, by the time Mr. Clinton took office in 1979, state policy prohibited financing of poor women’s abortions, with rare exceptions.

Governor Clinton made no move to alter the policy. When anti-abortion forces pushed for a constitutional amendment to codify the prohibition, Mr. Clinton questioned the need, saying “We don’t use any state money for abortions.” Arkansas voters narrowly defeated the amendment in 1986, and approved it 52 to 48 percent in 1988.

In 1989, Mr. Clinton took an active part in modifying bills to require notification of both of parents before a minor’s abortion. In recent interviews, the legislation’s sponsors recalled Mr. Clinton’s insistence on liberal exceptions in cases when one parent was absent or abusive, and his strengthening of the judicial bypass provision required under Supreme Court rulings.

Under his terms as present zero movement was made on codifying Roe as a right.

Obama also told women, specifically at speaking engagements for Planned Parenthood, that one of his top priorities was to codify Roe day one.

Here is his legacy on the matter [Politifact, June 1, 2012]:

After initially vowing to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, President Barack Obama quickly said it’s not his “highest legislative priority.”

That was in March 2009. Since then, it has scarcely been mentioned. A version of the bill was last introduced in Congress in 2007, and no new bill has appeared since.

We asked NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, to assess the progress on this issue.

“The protection of Roe v. Wade in federal law remains a long-term priority for NARAL Pro-Choice America and the pro-choice community. Unfortunately, the composition of Congress (including the first two years of President Obama’s term) did not include enough pro-choice votes to pass legislation like the Freedom of Choice Act,” NARAL said in a statement

Keep in mind, there were not enough pro-choice votes while Obama enjoyed a filibuster proof super majority. This means that not every democrat was pro choice, and they could not secure 100% buy in from the party.

Joe Biden ran on codifying Roe v Wade in 2020, but those efforts have stalled due to poor house and senate numbers [Politifact, March 7, 2004].

As his campaign ramped up in 2024 before he was outted as the presidential candidate, he again took up the mantal as a champion for Roe. His position is interesting, considering his personal stance on abortion. [ABC News, 2024]

The young Catholic politician who once said Roe v. Wade “went too far” — and who to this day remains uneasy with the procedure — is now casting himself as the only thing standing between women and strict national abortion bans.

But when it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother. I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.

[Washingtonian, 1974]

But now that he is out of the race, abortion is again back on the menu. One could wonder as well, what the state of things might look like if RBG took all the criticisms she had about the Roe decision to heart and retired under the Obama administration, allowing for a liberal president to add another liberal justice to the courts. However, its clear she was a prideful and arrogant justice, maybe the clout that came with Roe went to her head:

Ginsburg said that “anybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they’re misguided.” No one as liberal as she was could get confirmed, she suggested. She noted that her work production hadn’t slowed. “She had beaten the odds every day of her life and had weathered serious illness in 1999 and 2010,” Resnik says. “Fairly, from her perspective, she saw herself as able to manage the health challenges of aging.

[NYT, 2020]

“No one as liberal as she was could get confirmed, she suggested”, really encapsulates just how arrogant she was. The very notion that somehow, the little girls inspired by her legacy, and now primed to take her place, would be less progressive then her rings as absurd. Only a over inflated sense of self could lead one to believe that.

It’s not often you watch someone push themselves off the glass cliff. Because of her thick headedness we will never know if the repeal of Roe could have been stalled.

Democrats are the “Big Tent” party, and that includes homophobes and misogynists, and means even with a majority, you will not see Roe be put into law.