In part one of this series, I detailed the way that Baby Boomers, who enjoyed the benefits of egalitarian New Deal fiscal policy as children, systematically dismantled it as they gained polictical power.

Another lens in which to see Baby Boomer hypocrisy is Abortion. Roe V. Wade, which was decided in 1973, essentially passed for the Boomers. The first of the Boomers were in their early twenties when the Supreme Court ruled on it. No generation of American women will ever have as many abortions as the Boomers did (and no generation of American men will ever take part in causing as many unplanned and aborted pregnancies).

From 1982–1985, when the generation of Baby Boomer women were at their childbearing peak (that is, nearly every woman capable of getting pregnant could be considered a Boomer), there were an average of 1.3 million abortions a year in the United States.

As Baby Boomers have passed out of child-bearing age, the abortion rate has fallen — dramatically. In 2000, when women of childbearing age were almost exclusively Gen X, there were, on average, 855,000 abortions per year, a 35% reduction from the Boomer years.

In 2018, Millennials will be nearing their apex in childbearing ability. The CDC numbers on abortions always lag a few years, but in 2014, only 652,000 abortions were performed in the US — an all time low in post Roe v. Wade America. As Millennials — a generation just as large as the Boomers — are reaching their child-bearing peak, the rate of abortions is less than half what it was under the Baby Boomers: 13 abortions for every 1000 women of child bearing age each year, versus more than 28 for Baby Boomers.

Importantly, the data shows that poor women make up an increasingly large share of women having abortions. These are women in distress making difficult practical choices. Many of them live in states that have restricted access to Obamacare coverage and affordable contraceptive care. The truth is that affluent Gen X and Millennial women have had increased access to contraceptive care and information about contraception — and they have used it. The system is working as it should — abortion is becoming more rare, and the path to decreasing it even more is clear as day: make contraception more affordable and more available to all women, especially poor women.

Alabama clinic owner June Ayers appeared in the 2016 documentary “Trapped,” which detailed how increasingly restrictive policies have made abortion nearly unavailable in many US states.

Whether abortion is legal or not, it has always happened in this country and it always will. The only question is whether it will be available, legal and safe. It was never more available, legal and safe than it was for the Baby Boomers. But as they have aged out of having children, the Baby Boomer lawmakers — of course, the vast majority of them being men — have passed laws putting more and more restrictions on the rights they once enjoyed.

As a younger man, Baby Boomer Donald Trump was a renowned “playboy” who once said that avoiding STDs was “his own personal Vietnam — I feel like a brave soldier.” (Check me if I’m wrong soldier, but you don’t usually get venereal disease when wearing a condom). In 1999, he said he was not just pro-choice but “VERY pro-choice.” After all, like many Boomer men, he was still impregnating women. He married his first wife, Ivana, when she was already pregnant with Don Jr. — and before Roe V Wade was law. In a 2004 interview he described how he asked Marla Maples, whom he’d been dating for six years, “What happened? What are we going to do about this?” when she got pregnant in early 1993. She said she wanted to have the baby. Tiffany was born that October, and they were married three months later. One wonders how many women answered Donald Trump’s question “What are we going to do about this?” with a different choice.

As a Republican candidate, Trump’s views changed drastically. He was suddenly pro-life, and even said in an interview with Chris Matthews that there should be “some form of punishment” for women who have abortions. It was the most shockingly revanchist position a modern candidate had ever taken about a woman’s right to choose. It turns out that it was an appeal to Baby Boomers, whose views, like his, hadchanged. It worked: in a shocking turn of events, given Donald Trump’s history of misogynist statements and admitted sexual harassment, a majority of Boomers — including Boomer women — voted for Trump, and a large percentage of them — especially evangelicals — said that their single most important issue was abortion.

Baby Boomers were willing — in fact, they were determined — to put an admitted sexual predator in office to prevent their daughters and grand-daughters from having the full reproductive rights that they had.

In 2016, the Republican congressional working group on Health Care, which crafted policy about contraceptive care and funding, was composed almost exclusively of white men.

The election of Donald Trump had an immediate and profound effect on the Supreme Court. Instead of pro-choice Merrick Garland, we got anti-choice Neil Gorsuch. It is a near certainty that at least one more new justice will be seated during Trump’s first term — regardless of what happens with the Russia investigation — and that that justice will also be an opponent of Roe V. Wade. Because appointments to the court are for a lifetime, this philosophical swing in the third branch of government will greatly outlast the Boomers’ political power. Gen X and millennials will be living under its dictates long after they have taken over other branches of government.

If that happens, there is every reason to believe that Roe V. Wade will be overturned by the Supreme Court in the next few years. Like the Tax Bill for economic policy, this will provide a stark bookend — Boomers will have enjoyed far more reproductive rights than their parents did, while taking away those rights from their children.