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The Ezra Klein Show

How America’s Two Abortion Realities Are Clashing

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.611K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it scrambled the landscape of abortion access in America, including in ways that one might not entirely expect. Many conservative states made the procedure essentially illegal — that part was predictable. But there’s also been this striking backlash in blue states, with many of them making historic efforts to expand abortion access, for both their residents and for women living in abortion-restricted states. And this has created all kinds of new battle lines — between states, and states and the federal government — involving travel, speech, privacy and executive power. It’s an explosion of conflicts and constitutional questions that the legal historian Mary Ziegler says has no parallel in modern times. She’s the author of six books on reproductive rights in America, including “Roe: The History of a National Obsession,” and the Martin Luther King Jr. professor of law at the University of California, Davis. “We’re seeing, from conservative and progressive states, moves to project power outside of their borders in ways we really haven’t seen in a really long time,” she told me. In this conversation, Ziegler explains the bifurcated abortion landscape that has emerged since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe. We discuss the different political and legal strategies conservative and progressive states are using to pursue their opposing goals; why the abortion rate has gone up, even as 14 states have implemented near-total bans on abortion; and how a second Trump administration could try to restrict access to abortion for all Americans, no matter what states they live in. Mentioned: “Harsh Anti-abortion Laws Are Not Empty Threats” by Mary Ziegler Book Recommendations: The Family Roe by Joshua Prager Tiny You by Jennifer L. Holland Defenders of the Unborn by Daniel K. Williams “Before Roe v. Wade” by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. The Dobbs decision,

0:25.0

2022.

0:26.8

The Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.

0:29.0

It hands abortion in theory back to the states. What would you have thought then the consequence of that decision on abortion would be now?

0:38.0

I read one prediction then that about 25% of women who need an abortion would be unable to get one.

0:43.7

That seemed plausible to me.

0:45.9

But the best estimates we have now suggest the number of abortions in the country, the rate of

0:50.4

abortion, has gone slightly up, not down. That's true even though

0:54.9

abortion has been harshly criminalized in a number of states. True even though

0:58.7

we've seen court rulings as extreme as one in Alabama that just ruled fertilized embryos used in IVF

1:04.3

processes are children and must be treated as such. What Dobbs has done is

1:09.2

stranger I think than what was expected. What it has done is bifurcate America.

1:14.6

Red states have sharply constricted access to abortion or tried to.

1:18.6

Blue states have sharply expanded access to abortion or tried to. Both sides are trying to enlist the Supreme Court on their

1:25.1

side. Both sides are running in 2024 on a promise that if they are given control of the

1:30.2

federal government, they will do what the states cannot do and decide the issue

1:33.8

nationally in favor of their side. Mary Ziegler is a legal historian and the author of

1:39.1

six books about reproductive rights and the law in America. So I've shown the show to walk me through all of it.

1:45.2

As always my email as a client show at my times.com. Mary Ziegler, welcome to the show.

1:55.0

Thanks for having me.

1:58.0

So this is something that surprised me, that since Dobbs, the data suggests that the number of abortions in America has if anything

2:06.2

slightly increased. Why would that be?

...

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