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The Ezra Klein Show

Sex, Abortion and Feminism, as Seen From the Right

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.611K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2022

⏱️ 86 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For decades, the conservative position on abortion has been simple: Appoint justices who will overturn Roe V. Wade. That aspiration is now likely to become reality. The question of abortion rights will re-enter the realm of electoral politics in a way it hasn’t for 50 years. And that means Republicans will need to develop a new politics of abortion — a politics that may appeal not only to their anti-abortion base but to some of the many Americans who believe Roe should stand. One place those Republicans may look for inspiration is to the work of the legal scholar Erika Bachiochi. She is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, director of the Wollstonecraft Project at the Abigail Adams Institute and the author of “The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision,” where she argues for a “dignitarian feminism.” Bachiochi embraces women’s gains in professional and civic life but holds that techno-pharmacological birth control, the sexual revolution and the legalization of abortion have created a sexual and family culture that has ultimately been devastating to women’s well-being. In hopes of improving that status quo, Bachiochi puts forward a policy agenda that could very well become the post-Roe playbook for some Republicans: tighter abortion restrictions combined with a robust slate of family policies — some of which would be even bolder than the Biden administration’s proposals to date. Hers is not an argument I agree with, but it’s one that I imagine will become increasingly salient in a post-Roe America. In the third episode of our series “The Rising Right,” we discuss Bachiochi’s views on why the “gender revolution” has stalled; her belief that market logic has come to dominate our understandings of family, parenting, sex and feminism; her critique of modern “hookup” culture; and her pro-family economic agenda. And we debate whether it’s realistic to encourage the use of natural fertility regulation over hormonal contraception, how abortion relates to single motherhood and poverty, whether stricter abortion laws might benefit or hurt poor women, what role the law should play in teaching moral behavior, whether progressives have become too “Lockean” in their understanding of bodily autonomy, whether the sexual revolution gave people too much choice and more. Mentioned: Defenders of the Unborn by Daniel K. Williams Generation Unbound by Isabel V. Sawhill “Equal Rights, Equal Wrongs” by Christopher Kaczor Book recommendations: Rights Talk by Mary Ann Glendon Feminism Without Illusions by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Public Man, Private Woman by Jean Bethke Elshtain 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, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing and engineering by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Ezra Klein, this is the Ezra Conchell.

0:24.9

One question I've been thinking about during the series on the rising right is whether

0:29.5

the balance of power in the Republican Party is shifting. For years, social conservatives

0:34.9

provided the GOP its votes and its shock troops, but the economic conservatives got all

0:40.1

the policy. Republicans would win by mobilizing evangelicals and then use that power to

0:45.7

pass corporate tax cuts. But it feels like we may be at an inflection point.

0:51.2

The multi-decade effort to stack the Supreme Court with hardcore social conservatives

0:55.0

is paying off. And beyond that, if you look at the new generation of right-wing politicians

1:02.5

like Josh Hawley and Ron DeSantis and JD Bants, you see that economic policy is really

1:07.7

up for debate. This is a different party than the Paul Ryan Republican Party. But it's

1:13.2

social policy where the clear lines are being drawn. There's a very widespread view among

1:18.6

this cohort and the thinkers are drawing on that Republican politicians of recent years

1:24.4

put markets first and families and churches and communities last. And the result has been

1:29.8

social disintegration and cultural chaos. But I think it's fair to say the critique is

1:35.0

far ahead of the policy agenda right now. I think you saw this a bit in the Patrick

1:38.9

D'Enie episode from a few weeks back. You get this very stride in populism that sometimes

1:44.5

seems to resolve down into almost generic center-left policy ideas. Get these slashing social

1:50.0

critiques that end in a shrug about what is to be done. But that's not going to be good

1:55.1

enough for long. If Roe is indeed overturned, the Republican Party in general and social

2:00.0

conservatives in particular are going to be the dogs that caught the car. Most Americans

2:05.0

don't want abortion ban. And the right will need some answer for them, some way to show

2:09.7

that they are pro-family, even pro-women, not just anti-abortion. They have an answer

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