Why are We Still Obsessed with Roe v Wade?

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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2022

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For some, 2022 was the year Roe v Wade was overturned. For millions more, abortions rights had been functionally inaccessible for decades. Beyond shaky precedent, Roe was a vessel into which America threw all sorts of hopes, beliefs and fears. But how did this legal decision become a symbol of so much? On this week’s show, host Dahlia Lithwick is joined by abortion law expert Mary Ziegler, who’s new book, Roe: The History of a National Obsession, tries to find the roots of Roe’s incessant pull, and to unpack the meaning from the meta.

In this week’s Amicus Plus segment - the worst of jurisprudence 2022. In a year marked by quite a few legal gut punches, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to run through the most bonkers rulings from the most out-of-control federal judges. They also find a path to hope for justice in 2023.

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Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The row in our culture is not the row of 1973 Supreme Court decision, or the 1992 Supreme
0:11.2	Court decision.
0:12.2	So, if the Supreme Court is telling you, hey guys, this is over, you can go home now where
0:16.8	we're not going to talk about abortion in the Constitution anymore, history tells us
0:20.2	that that's not going to work.
0:30.2	Hi and welcome to Amica's Slates podcast about the courts and the law and the Supreme Court.
0:35.7	I'm Dahlia Lithuick, I cover these things for Slate, and this week we wanted our New
0:42.3	Years Eve Show to be about life after Dops, for the simple reason that 2022, among many,
0:49.6	other things, ended reproductive freedom for about half the population and what will eventually
0:56.9	be about half the states and proved to be not just a constitutional earthquake, but also
1:04.4	I think a slow rolling constitutional disaster that is still reshaping law around pregnancy
1:12.0	and pregnancy loss, around surrogacy and IVF, access to contraception, the future of
1:17.9	marriage equality and the limits of free speech.
1:21.4	So in a year that included a lot, the loss of Roe v. Wade was really a lot.
1:28.6	Later on in the show, Slate Plus members will have access to my conversation with Mark
1:33.4	Joseph Stern.
1:35.8	Join us for our annual round up of the worst of jurisprudence in this past year, out
1:41.4	of control federal judges, state attacks on LGBTQ kids and their parents, and how
1:47.3	politicized reactions to the COVID pandemic continue to warp, reason, and records.
1:53.8	If you are not a Slate Plus member, but you'd like to gain access to not just my bonus conversations
2:00.2	with Mark, but to extra content from, say, the political gap fest or slow burn.
2:05.6	And you think you might enjoy ad-free versions of all of Slate shows or unlimited articles
	...

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