The Abortion Bans
A discussion about the recent spate of legislation that seems to threaten a woman’s right to choose
Over the past few weeks, the legislatures of Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Utah have passed bills that have significantly restricted abortion to much earlier stages in pregnancy; Arkansas banned the procedure outright. However, this domino effect—which has been attributed to the presidency of Donald Trump and the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court—is part of a much older, coordinated attack on the rights established in Roe v. Wade. In this episode, Brigitte Amiri, a deputy director of the A.C.L.U. Reproductive Freedom Project, Madeleine Schwartz, a Harper’s Magazine contributor who has conducted interviews with former members of Jane, a pre-Roe reproductive health center in Chicago, and Rachel Nolan, who is a postdoctoral fellow at the Columbia Society of Fellows and has written about El Salvador’s complete ban on abortion for Harper’s, discuss with web editor Violet Lucca the history of reproductive rights in the United States and elsewhere, the possible legal outcomes of these bills, and the very real consequences they pose for women’s health.
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