Over one last cup of coffee in Athens, Greece, it became clear they’ve gone too far. The shameless Supreme Court will pay for these days of taking constitutional rights away from women and girls.

I had a long journey home. So did the mythical king Odysseus, who found Ithaca completely changed when he reached it after 20 years. So did I, except I was away for two weeks, returning to a strange land. It looks like a Greek tragedy.

To pursue the Homer angle, Odysseus found that his wealth, table, orchards and animals were being ravaged by “suitors” eager to steal his empty throne and marry his wife, Penelope.

Translated, that’s what the new young justices are doing, compliments of former President Donald Trump. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, unelected and unfit, are coldly destroying the country’s character.

But the head homewreckers are the senior Republicans: angry Samuel Alito, vengeful Clarence Thomas and lily-livered John Roberts. Chief Justice Roberts could have saved his honor for history by opposing the ravaging of reproductive rights.

The rising outrage will show up at the next election. Beyond that, the court lost its legitimacy as it careens off the cliff of public opinion.

Nobody should expect it to advance human progress, as it once did in ending segregated schools. Journalists who cover it as a serious institution should stop cutting it slack and analyzing its rulings as if the Republican majority is not bespoke by the extreme Right.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., calls the court “captured.” Those Trump seats cost in the millions each, but the exact amount is hidden in dark money. Whitehouse also says the FBI did a slipshod job of investigating the sexual harassment claims against Kavanaugh.

Just think: two of the six men who voted to strike down a constitutional right for women were credibly accused of sexual harassment, Thomas and Kavanaugh.

Now let’s face the strategic mistakes made on our side, starting with casting the word “choice.” That word is a bit weak. “Abortion” is not a winner either. Lately we hear political slogans about our “bodies.”

No, no, no.

Women’s rights are human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This argument centers on our destiny, autonomy, agency and life chances. It must be framed on a larger canvas, young to old men joining the front lines.

“We told men to back off. This was our fight,” activist Andrea Askowitz wrote in NBCNews.com. “We made a grave error.”

We let loaded words pass, like “baby” for fetus, “mom” for a pregnancy and “partial birth” for medical late-term procedures. I heard Republican senators like James Lankford of Oklahoma repeat them relentlessly with intensity unmatched by Democrats on the floor.

In an insult to Susan B. Anthony’s memory, we let the leading crusading organization against our rights take her name for their cause. Social historians know how wrong this is, but the public doesn’t.

Here’s the hardest part: former President Barack Obama forgot to act like a president when he let crafty Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., block his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

In broad daylight, Obama shrugged and failed to step up with presidential power and force, as Lyndon Baines Johnson, Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton would have done. The lopsided 6-3 Republican bench majority is part of his legacy.

Sorry, friends!

Obama also broke his campaign pledge to sign a Freedom of Choice act. He always talked a better game than he played.

Nonviolent resistance is the only way to go now, but that does not mean passive despair. The fierce antislavery movement never gave up with their safe houses, petitions, speeches and building assembly halls. (One was stormed and burned by a mob.)

Women beware a plain consequence of this ruling, to divert and freeze us from advancing in other areas.

The six in the majority seem to report to the Church of Rome, or to their own religious beliefs, rather than to “We the people.” By contrast, the Hebrew Bible teaches that a fetus is part of a woman, under one’s own will and jurisdiction.

In short, the Supreme Court lost its license to practice law.

Jamie Stiehm may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. Follow her on Twitter @JamieStiehm.

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