Welcome to the Inquiry, I'm Charmaine Cozier, each week one question, four expert witnesses,

and an answer. A woman is under surveillance. She might know her observer,

but they could just as easily be a stranger.

They gather information on what she does and where she goes, but the real interest is who she meets.

Her social media might be searched for clues. They might go through her rubbish bin looking for evidence.

If they do know each other, friends, family and co-workers could be monitored too.

The reason behind this kind of snooping is a radical new law that's now in force in Texas.

It bans abortions in the very early stages of pregnancy.

Helping such an abortion could get you sued. An individual with the evidence can win thousands of

dollars in court. Members of the public have been incentivised to find evidence of an abortion.

This is just one example of a new raft of abortion laws being introduced by many US states.

So this week we're asking, will abortion be banned in America?

Part 1 in the beginning.

There's a long tradition of abortion in the United States.

Leslie Regan is a professor of history at the University of Illinois,

Urbana-Champaign. Under common law inherited from England, early abortions were acceptable.

They were allowed until the point where a woman felt the fetus move.

Having one after that broke common law and moral codes, it wasn't long before an industry emerged.

There were advertisements not just for medicines and being able to purchase things this way,

but people who were performing induced abortions would advertise their names and address

this so that people could find them. And you know, basically there was a pretty open medical

office or what we would call an abortion clinic. Potions and medications for inducing abortions

...