From an interview with Becky Currie, a Republican member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, conducted by Anna Wolfe for Mississippi Today. Currie wrote the Mississippi Gestational Age Act, which was at the center of the Supreme Court decision that overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

anna wolfe: Give me a little more of your feeling today, being the author of this bill.

currie: I’m well aware that we can’t take away this right and then say, “Good luck to everybody.” We have got to make sure that our state health departments are open in every county and that at least one day a week a nurse practitioner is there to write prescriptions and hand out birth control.

wolfe: We don’t have a good track record of supporting women.

currie: We as Mississippians have done a terrible job of taking care of pregnant women and giving postpartum care. I am well aware of that. God has asked me to write this bill. And now he’s telling us to feed his sheep.

wolfe: But so much of what we’re talking about takes money and political will for programs that are seen as socialism, Becky. Are you scared of what will happen if those supports don’t come or if leadership blocks you?

currie: Absolutely. I’m concerned for women. I want people to feel that we did everything we could. If you didn’t go get birth control, because we made it easy and free, if you didn’t go do it, that’s not my fault.

wolfe: How does it feel knowing that you authored this bill that everyone in the nation is talking about and impacted by?

currie: Look, it’s not fun at my house on Thanksgiving now, let me just tell you.

wolfe: Why?

currie: My brother-in-law lives in Boulder.

wolfe: Oh.

currie: He and his girlfriend hate my guts, you know? I just don’t want anybody to think that I’m not aware that we have changed the nation. And that it’s now our responsibility to help take care of women and children.

wolfe: I just keep coming back to the fact that I don’t foresee that happening.

currie: And you may be right.