I'm Lee Rowland, and from the ACLU, this is At Liberty, the podcast where we discuss today's most important civil rights and civil liberties topics.

Today's show, abortion rights in America.

The United States Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, and in theory, established

access to abortion care as a fundamental right. But in practice, state legislatures have been

chipping away at that right ever since, passing thousands of restrictions on abortion access

and targeting abortion providers with burdensome rules.

Our current landscape reflects this backslide.

Several states now have only one abortion clinic left standing.

Millions of women have no meaningful access to abortion care,

and looming over all of this is a Supreme

Court that many worry would outright overturn Roe if given the chance.

Here with us to discuss the state of abortion rights in America is Louise Melling.

Louise is the deputy legal director of the ACLU, and for many years has overseen the organization's

reproductive rights work.

Hi, Louise.

Hi, Lee. How are you?

I'm great. Thank you for coming in to help us understand what's going on now and maybe read

some tea leaves for the future.

Sure.

I want to start with a question about a recent development in the States.

At the end of 2018, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed a bill

banning the most common second-termester abortion procedure called D&E, which stands for dilation

...