The Prosecutors Stuck With Abortion Bans
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Abortion is now illegal in eight states, and more trigger laws banning the procedure are expected. The new state policies usher in an era of criminalized abortion. In Missouri, one liberal prosecutor is still struggling to predict how strictly these laws will be enforced.
Guest: Jean Peters Baker, elected prosecutor of Jackson County, Missouri.
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Jean Peter's Baker swore an oath to uphold Missouri's laws. |
| 0:11.5 | And then, Roe v. Wade was overturned. |
| 0:14.9 | And Jean had to try to figure out what exactly the law was. |
| 0:23.7 | In Missouri, an abortion trigger law was nearly instantaneous. |
| 0:29.0 | It's been the first 15 minutes who became law in Missouri |
| 0:32.2 | upon the decision being released and wrote. |
| 0:34.8 | Wow. |
| 0:35.9 | I mean, have you ever had a law flip that quickly? |
| 0:39.4 | It's like a late switch. |
| 0:42.0 | No, we really have it. |
| 0:43.1 | Certainly not one of this caliber. |
| 0:46.4 | Jean is the Jackson County prosecutor, by the way. |
| 0:50.3 | I had a pivot pretty hard to see, OK, what is this new law? |
| 0:54.4 | You know what, and then when I realized, oh, it's |
| 0:57.4 | a near total ban, near total ban. |
| 1:08.3 | Are you and other Missouri prosecutors |
| 1:09.8 | like messaging each other all the time right now, |
| 1:12.1 | trying to figure out like, what do we do? |
| 1:14.8 | What are you doing? |
| 1:16.6 | You know, I am one of small handful of prosecutors elected |
| 1:23.1 | to office in the state of Missouri that is a Democrat. |
| 1:25.9 | Most the vast, vast majority are Republican. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.