Why were Democrats caught flat-footed by the end of Roe v Wade?

‘A nation is not democratic if half of its population do not have basic rights, let alone equal rights.’ Photograph: Lukas Barth/Reuters

With Roe v Wade overturned by the US supreme court and American women now living in a nation where our most fundamental rights are dependent on the state in which we reside, a lot of us are looking around and asking, “how did we get here?”

There is much blame to go around, and the bulk of it rests on the shoulders of the right-wing anti-abortion movement that sprung out of the white supremacist movement that fought to maintain Jim Crow and school segregation. The racist, misogynist Religious Right gained tremendous power within the Republican party; the Republican party proved itself willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get their way; and as a result, Americans are now living in an undemocratic nation of reactionary minority rule.