A Strike at the Heart of Roe

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

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4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To see what the future of abortion could be in the United States, look to Texas. Across the country, conservative foes of abortion rights have pushed “heartbeat bills” that would ban abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, when an embryo's cardiac activity can be detected. Journalist Amy Littlefield and a team of law and journalism students from UC Berkeley investigate how this law went from being dismissed as a fringe idea, even by traditional right-to-life groups, to getting enforced in Texas.

We hear the backstory of right-wing activists who have been pushing toward this moment for more than a decade by embracing an approach that uses science over religion to justify abortion restrictions. But the science is often skewed and misleading. To rally support for a ban on abortion, activist Janet Porter filled press conferences with red heart balloons and sent lawmakers teddy bears that play the sound of heartbeats. Mark Lee Dickson drove across Texas in his Ford pickup getting small towns to pass ordinances that create “Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn.” It was all a precursor for what was to come.

Now, the consequences of restricting abortion are playing out in the crowded waiting room of an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas, where staff are being overwhelmed by patients from Texas. To get an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, Texas patients not only must leave their state, but also navigate the rules of a different state with its own set of laws designed to make abortion hard to access.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Alan. Thanks for listening. But have you been watching? You know,
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0:41.3	December 31st. Just visit revealnews.org slash 2023. Again to support what we
0:47.6	do, go to revealnews.org slash 2023. Thank you. From the Center for
1:01.2	Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Ike Sriskandaraja,
1:06.5	filling in for Al-Letson. If you've been pregnant or gone with someone to an
1:13.5	ultrasound visit, then you might recognize that sound. It can bring up a range of
1:19.0	emotions. If you wanted to be pregnant and you've experienced that moment where
1:23.5	you feel like you're meeting your baby for the first time, it might feel so
1:27.7	joyful to hear that sound. Or maybe you've had a pregnancy loss and that sound is
1:33.8	hard to hear. And if you're like me, I'll be honest, that sound just reminds me of
1:39.2	how bummed I was that I couldn't be there in person to hear those first sounds
1:43.8	from my baby. Whatever your experience may be, this idea of a heartbeat is so
1:50.0	resonant in our society. I mean consider Valentine's Day. How many other
1:55.4	vital organs have a holiday devoted to them? So maybe it's not surprising that
2:01.4	the anti-abortion rights movement has latched on to this image in the sound of
	...

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