We knew it was likely to happen. It was hanging over the heads of the American people like the sword of Damocles. The thought was, it would come down in June. And even though there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, many were skeptical that 50 years of precedence would be overturned completely.

Then came the leak that opened the floodgates. Republicans were outraged over this unprecedented breach. House GOP leaders released a statement saying it was part of a “clearly coordinated campaign to intimidate and obstruct the Justices of the United States Supreme Court.” Democrats were kicked into high gear. As she spoke to protesters outside the Capital, Elizabeth Warren’s voice was full of rage and disbelief. Susan Collins, who ultimately voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, bemoaned the fact that he seemed to express his commitment to what he had described as “settled law.” Nancy Pelosi wondered what other freedoms would be “obliterated” by Republicans.  

In anticipation of the official ruling, expected to be handed down in June, my producer Lauren Hansen and I have been busy putting together a limited podcast series about Roe v. Wade and abortion access in this country. It’s been months in the making — we’ve interviewed historians, abortion providers, clinic staff, activists on the ground, politicians, documentary filmmakers, and legal scholars. We’ve also heard from scores of people willing to tell their abortion stories — we believe their candid recollections will lead to a deeper understanding of the decision many have to make. The series will begin on June 2, but given this week’s news, we thought it would be timely to give you a preview, along with a new episode of Next Question in which I interview Mary Ziegler, the author of Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present. I hope these episodes put the entire debate in context — and give everyone a sense of what life was — and might become — without Roe. 

Mary Ziegler; Legal Professor and Historian, and Author of Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present 

On her reaction to the draft majority opinion:

“In some ways, it’s not surprising given what we heard at the oral argument in December, this is sort of what I was expecting. At the same time, I kind of can’t help but be surprised because I spend a lot of time with so many studies talking to people with differing views on abortion, and anyone, regardless of their opinion on abortion, should understand that this is going to be a very big deal for a lot of people. And this opinion feels like it’s written by people who think this is an easy decision, that this is not really something that requires a lot of soul-searching. And that’s really, really striking. It feels kind of cavalier. It feels as if these justices are siloed from people who disagree with them in ways that are consequential and that we see unfolding now.” 

Kara Mailman; Chief Research Analyst, Reproaction

On the importance of using the word “abortion”: 

“One of the reasons these euphemisms are so harmful is because when you say things like ‘reproductive care’ or ‘reproductive health’ when what you mean is abortion, you’re taking attention away from the actual problem. Anti-abortion activists aren’t trying to outlaw pears. That’s not what they’re trying to do. What they are trying to do is make it impossible to access an abortion. And so when you hide behind these euphemisms, you’re actually just making it harder to engage in successful advocacy, because you’re not naming the target. You’re just being a coward. You’re too afraid of any pushback or any criticism to actually name what is being attacked. And that is not a successful strategy for protecting rights.”

Amy Hagstrom Miller; Founder, Whole Woman’s Health

On using the word “abortion” intentionally:

“Shame and stigma are often associated with the way words are used and the way language is used or not used in our culture. So to be open and honest about abortion care and the abortion experience better respects and reflects the experience that is a normal part of healthcare for millions of families across this country.”

Gloria Steinem

On her reaction to the prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned: 

“First anger, because that means that female human beings are not going to be equal citizens who have power over our own physical selves. And second, understanding from history that nothing but nothing can stop women from taking control of their bodies, which sometimes means having an abortion. This has ever been the case. And it has also ever been the case – I wish the Supreme court would read some history – that dictators have tried to take that power away. For instance, when Hitler was elected, actually the very next day, he padlocked all the family planning clinics and declared abortion a crime against the state. So they are hardly in good company. But I am still hopeful that we will be able to retain our democracy.”

Busy Philipps; Actor

On the untold story of the anti-abortion movement in this country:

“We have been trained to ‘both sides’ it. It’s not ‘both sides.’ The vast majority of Americans believe in the right to legal, safe, accessible abortion — bodily autonomy for what you want to do with your body, when you want to do it. Women and people have been deciding whether to have or not have families for as long as the world has existed. And the history of the anti-abortion movement in this country is one that is not told by mainstream media. It is not told that evangelical Christians could have cared less about abortion when Roe passed until Jerry Falwell and these motherf*ckers, sorry, were trying to find a way to get their segregationist views through, get politicians that would give them tax breaks for their segregationist colleges…And they saw the success with Catholicism, but it could have been anything. It could have been any issue that they would hang their hat on. And now they’ve convinced all of these people who really believe in something that they really believe in this — that they really, really believe that life begins at conception.”

Dr. Diana Greene Foster; Professor, University of California, San Francisco

On the impact this will have: 

“This decision about abortion access actually has long-term economic effects on families. It has physical health effects so that women are exposed to much greater risk of childbirth and continuing pregnancy. And that physical health harm can last for years, and it has different effects on their life trajectory. So their chance of achieving other aspirational plans — things like educational goals and employment goals and housing goals — it can be more difficult to achieve these other life goals when you’re raising a child that you weren’t ready to raise. And I know that it was suggested by Amy Coney Barrett that people could just place their children for adoption, and that doesn’t happen. People don’t carry pregnancies to term, give birth, and just place the child for adoption. Less than one in 10 women who are denied abortions choose to place a child for adoption because it’s considered very difficult to do that. That’s not an easy solution for people.”

Dr. Carole Joffe; Professor, University of California, Berkeley

On the way abortion is singled out when it comes to healthcare: 

“Where else in American medicine would we tolerate this? Where else would we tolerate this kind of regulation? Abortion is treated like no other aspect of the healthcare system in America…It’s a very common procedure, but where else do we see pickets? Do we see blockades? Do we see shootings? Do we see the regulation that exists? Nowhere else. State legislators have passed over a thousand restrictions over the years, regulating it in ways that are inappropriate.”

Dr. Warren Hern; Boulder Abortion Clinic

On what it’s like to be an abortion provider right now: 

“You don’t live in fear. You live with fear. I could have been a dermatologist, nobody would care, but I decided to do this work and it wasn’t my plan. It was more of a calling, but I decided to do it a long time ago. I’m more committed to it every day. Every single person who works for me in my office risks their life to show up for work every single day. And that’s true in every single abortion clinic across the country.”

Dr. Meera Shah; Chief Medical Officer, Planned Parenthood 

On the risks posed by restrictive bans:

“I do recognize that people have varied beliefs. But because of that, we can’t create policy based on a few people’s beliefs, right? That, at this moment in the development of the pregnancy, when there is the earliest sign of cardiac activity, abortion should not be allowed because what essentially happens is that abortion becomes then almost completely unavailable to people because around five, six weeks is when folks recognize that they are even pregnant because that’s the point at which they miss a period, and take a pregnancy test and find out that they’re pregnant. And then, when they go to a health center and get an ultrasound, or when they do the math and figure out how far along they are, they’re most often times going to be past that five, six week [mark] and then not be able to access abortion care. So, these bills and these arbitrary cutoffs do nothing to safeguard people’s lives and people’s health. And, in fact, all these bans and restrictions just harm people.”

As I mentioned, we also heard from many people willing to share their personal stories. Here are just a few of them. 

Lisa, 75 years old

“I’m 75 years old. I live in Maine and I had an abortion in 1966 when they were illegal. I was 19. I was going to a city college and I was learning about life and love and sex and getting a liberal arts education. And I got pregnant. I was really freaking out, but the thing that went on then, in 1966, was that there was nowhere to go for help. You had no way of finding out where you could get an abortion. I made hundreds of phone calls to women that I didn’t know, but friends of friends or friends who may know somebody who was an abortion nurse. And I was living at home with my parents…I eventually told my twin brother because he had a car and I figured he would have to drive me, but he forced me to tell my parents. And it was shocking to my poor parents. My mother just slapped me for the first time in her life. And my father froze. And this is where my story is very different from the story of most women, because they ended up helping me. They ended up helping me go for this abortion. They stayed with me overnight. And then, during the procedure, they were in a room nearby. And most girls at that time were either thrown out of their homes, forced to live with a relative, sent to an unwed mother’s home, ended up on the streets, or worse, or bled to death in a friend’s apartment. I mean, it was bad…So this experience was a family experience.” 

​​Ruth, mid-50s

“When I was about 22, I found out that I was pregnant and I was dating somebody and we both knew that it was not practical or desired for us to have a child together. We were both just starting off in our careers. We were not serious. And I was very, very grateful that I was able to go to Planned Parenthood…I had a meeting with somebody before, which was a requirement to make sure that you wanted to have the procedure. And I had the procedure and I was not uncomfortable. I felt supported and I felt no stigma, but I did not talk about it with people, only one or two people knew about it. And I went on with my romantic life and my life, and eventually got married and had a child. And sometimes I think about how old that child might be. It’s a little daunting, but I have no regrets about the choice that I made for myself and my body.”

Paige, early 30s

“My abortion story begins with meeting my boyfriend Charlie in the summer of 2021. We started dating and absolutely fell head over heels in love and practiced very safe sex. But we fell pregnant about two months in. And so it was interesting because when I read the pregnancy result, I felt excitement…[that] was my first feeling. And then I started to think about everything a bit more practically. This was an extraordinary partner and person that I’d met. Everything was wonderful. It had only been two months. We didn’t know each other. We were still strangers, still getting to know each other. I told him right away and he was excited…I couldn’t talk to my friends about it. Or my family. I’d never known anyone who’d ever gotten an abortion. All I had to go off was what I had understood from popular culture references. And for me growing up that was the movie Dirty Dancing, where it was essentially a girl living on the streets who gets butchered in a garage, or Juno, who gets shamed out of it. So I felt incredibly isolated in the decision and in the feeling, I didn’t know how to talk about it.”

Larada, 20s

“I knew immediately when I was pregnant that I wanted to have an abortion. I didn’t have to think about it. I knew immediately from the moment that I found out that I was pregnant that I was going to get an abortion. And there was also no shame in it. I was actually very empowered that for the first time in my life, as someone who was previously a foster kid, I had agency over something that was going to impact my life for better, for worse, and was able to make that decision for myself. But like all of the barriers and thinking about cost and having to wait and making sure that I’m not going to a crisis pregnancy center, it was a lot. But I was also very thankful for my support system. ‘Cause I know that a lot of folks don’t have that.”

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If you have an abortion story or an opinion you’d like to share with us, please write us at info@katiecoruic.com.