Hi, this is Isabel. I'm here to introduce the host, my mom.

Elise, alright, let's start the show.

You're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR. I'm Elise Hugh.

On Monday night, my five-year-old was lingering too long in the bath, and I checked my phone.

And probably like a lot of you, a friend had texted me with the news.

A draft opinion leaked from the Supreme Court shows it's poised to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationally.

Just as Samuel Alito wrote it,

it reads,

It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives.

Given the steady erosion of reproductive freedom over the past decade or more,

the fall of Roe is something many were anticipating.

After all, about half of U.S. states have either already severely restricted abortion,

passing laws forcing clinics to close or criminalizing providers,

or are ready to ban the procedure, if and when the high court overturns Roe.

This wasn't a surprise, and yet,

reading the words on Monday night, seeing how frankly they were written,

it's different, right? It's different when you see it.

That's journalist Shafali Luthrough, as a health reporter at the 19th,

a news site on gender and politics.

Luthrough talks regularly with those seeking reproductive care and with physicians who provide abortions.

One of them is Dr. Jennifer Kerns, an OBGYN at the University of California, San Francisco.

...