We’re on the Precipice of a Post-Roe World

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court let stand a Texas law creating a system of vigilante legal enforcement against anyone who participates in an abortion after the point of fetal cardiac activity. In effect, Texas’ law bans abortions after about six weeks, which is long before many women even know they’re pregnant. And soon the court will hear arguments on a Mississippi abortion ban that will give the justices the chance to overturn Roe v. Wade directly. We may be on the precipice of a post-Roe world. But what does that actually mean? Leslie Reagan is the author of “When Abortion Was a Crime” and “Dangerous Pregnancies.” Reagan has done groundbreaking historical work to reveal what happened when U.S. states began criminalizing abortion in the early 19th century. There are lessons in our past that should inform our future, if we’ll listen. This is also a particularly personal episode for me.My partner is 33 weeks pregnant. This is our second pregnancy. Both have been unusually dangerous and physically damaging. For the state to say that it will force any people to undergo that against their will is a remarkable assumption of power over individuals. Reagan and I talk about what that means, what the state is saying about the personhood, or lack thereof, of those who become pregnant. Mentioned: "Behind the Texas Abortion Law, a Persevering Conservative Lawyer" by Michael S. Schmidt Book recommendations: How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics by Laura Biggs Killing for Life by Carol Mason Radical Reproductive Justice, edited by Loretta J. Ross, Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater 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 our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Mr. Klein and this is the Asher Klein Show.
0:23.6	So I've struggled with how to open the show because this is an episode today at the
0:29.9	intersection of what is happening in my country and what is happening in my life.
0:35.6	And I want to be honest about that. I don't in general try to have distance in my
0:40.7	journalism. I don't think distance is great, but I particularly don't have
0:43.7	distance today. I just don't. A few weeks back, the Supreme Court let's stand. A
0:49.7	Texas law creating a network of vigilante legal enforcement. I think it's
0:54.3	right way to put it against anyone who participates in an abortion. After the
0:59.6	point at which fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six,
1:04.8	seven weeks often before people even know they're pregnant. It is a law that
1:10.6	functionally makes row dead letter in Texas. It fortels Supreme Court
1:15.1	gutting row in another case. It's going to hear next session. At the same time,
1:21.3	all this is going on. My wife is nearly 34 weeks pregnant and that's a
1:27.3	particularly important and in some way scary number for me. A few years ago, my
1:33.2	first son, my son, was born in an emergency delivery at 34 weeks.
1:38.8	In that pregnancy, my wife was in and out of the hospital with some
1:44.0	conditions. They could diagnose and some they couldn't. She endured a level of
1:48.8	daily agony and physical damage, physical damage.
1:53.3	Pregnancy is an easy even when it goes well, but nobody should have to hurt as much as she did.
1:58.7	It was a kind of pregnancy that at another time, my other she and my son would have survived.
2:03.2	And then at 34 weeks, we went in for a checkup and we ended the day with a
2:07.5	child born at less than four pounds who needed to be in the neonatal and
	...

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