From the ACLU, this is at Liberty.

I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at the ACLU and your host.

In the last few months, eight states have passed laws severely restricting access to abortion,

and several other states have similar bills pending.

Most notably, Alabama recently passed a law that prohibits nearly all abortions, with no exception

for rape or incest.

Five other states have passed bills prohibiting abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected,

usually at about six weeks of pregnancy, so early that many women do not even realize they're

pregnant at that point.

This wave of abortion restrictions has been building for decades since the Supreme Court

decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, but it seems as if we've reached the turning point.

Our guest today is my colleague Bridget Amiri.

Bridget is the deputy director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project,

and she's been a tireless advocate for abortion rights for almost 20 years.

She's litigated several major cases, including a current challenge to Kentucky's abortion ban. We'll discuss the

state of abortion rights in America, how we got to this dramatic moment, and what it's like to be

on the front lines of this battle to protect the right to abortion. Bridget, thanks very much

for being here. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. So can you start by orienting those of us

who've had trouble keeping track of the quick succession of bills and the ever-heightening rhetoric?

If someone woke up after a four-month nap, how would you explain to them what's happened and where things stand now?

I would say that we're at a unique time in our country's history on access to abortion.

And we've now seen six states pass bans on abortion. And I've never seen anything like this in the time that I've been doing this work. It is a direct assault on access to abortion. It's an attempt to try to overrule Roe v. Wade, which was decided in 1973. And we're really firing on all cylinders. We have our challenges to the state restrictions,

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