I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday,

December 1st. For today's podcast, we've selected five excerpts from today's Supreme Court

hearing on Mississippi's abortion law that we thought

you might find interesting. We'll devote our time to just playing them rather than talking about them.

You can see what you think for yourself. What I will say is that if you've never heard

Supreme Court oral arguments before, it's really amazing to hear how these things work

with short presentations by the lawyers for each side,

and then often aggressive questioning of them by the justices who obviously feel no hesitation about interrupting.

So here we go. The first clip will play is the longest. It's a two and a half minute exchange between Justice

Sonia Sotomayor and the Solicitor General of Mississippi, Scott Stewart, obviously arguing

in favor of his state's abortion restrictions law. And in this clip, we'll hear Justice Sotomayor

bring up the real-life effect on women

and the First Amendment in the context of its guarantee of religious liberty.

How is your interest anything but a religious view?

The issue of when life begins has been hotly debated by philosophers since the beginning of time. It's

still debated in religions. So when you say this is the only right that takes away from

the state the ability to protect the life, that's a religious

view, isn't it? Because it assumes that a fetus is life at when? You're not joining.

When do you suggest we begin that way your honor I aside from

putting it aside from religion I'll try to I think there might be more than one

question and I'll do my very best justice Sotomayor I think this court in

Gonzales pretty clearly recognized that before viability we are talking with

...