Does the Supreme Court, as a creature of the society it serves and is part of, carrying many of that society's same flaws, sometimes miss that certain rights are inherent in all people, and then have to later correct itself?
Yes. See Plessy v. Ferguson leading to Brown v. Board of Education (the point that our own senior senator tried to make, but was too fucking inept to do, and too fucking dumb to realize he had it ass-backwards), taking a case that said that an entire racial group actually didn't have true equal rights, and correcting the fuck out of that idiocy. Oh, and if you actually want to look at "longstanding history" (the apparent standard that Alito would have us apply), the overwhelming, almost completely unidirectional path of history, has been that society is slow to recognize and follow rights for "out" groups, but eventually does so.
What we have never, ever seen -- from SCOTUS and frankly, in Western history (with notable exceptions, which are both relevant and analogous here -- I'll get to those) -- is a lurch in the opposite direction, voiding a right that has been recognized for a long-ass time (two generations). We HAVE seen western societies lurch that direction before. Fascist Italy. Nazi Germany. Various medieval governments and entities that afforded jews some protections, and then withdrew them and persecuted the fuck out of jews again when it was politically expedient. In the class of "nations/societies that have had a right for an out/marginalized group, but then revoked that right," we are in super ultra mega shitty company.
And underneath ALL of this is the actual right that got revoked. The right to privacy as it relates to bodily autonomy. Clarence Thomas said they are coming for the right to choose contraception, the right to engage in private, consensual sex with another adult regardless of gender and the nature of the act, and the right to obtain the benefits of state-sanctioned marriage without regard to the gender of the participant (fucking HYSTERICAL that he left out the 4th member of that group of cases, Loving, which acknowledged the right to his own interracial marriage....don't worry, Clarence, they'll come for that, too). He's dead right, and I credit him for his honesty, even if it came about because he is a dumbass as opposed to being ethical and honorable. You and your pals are too fucking stupid to realize what Dobbs actually does. Dobbs is only facially about abortion. It is really about the foundational issue that had to be decided before the matter of abortion could be reached: you do not have any constitutional right to control your own body. Because we're a hung-up, retrograde society, we think that only relates to matters revolving around sex (contraception, buttfucking, gay marriage). But it's so, so, so much more than that.
Congratulations, conservatives.....you got what you wanted. And all it does is give us a choice of future hellscapes. Do you want the conservative one, where it's illegal to have any sort of sex except with your opposite gender spouse, in certain positions, with no contraceptives allowed? Or do you want the insane, ultra-control "progressive" one, where you'll be longing for the days that all that was imposed were public mask mandates and vaccine passes? Pick, but you no longer get to vote for "none of the above," because your body is no longer yours. It belongs to whichever power faction happens to have control of the government at any given time. Which obviates the whole fucking point of rights, which are supposed to be bedrock inviolable constants.
Congratulations. You did it.