The shifting battle over abortion rights 50 years after Roe

John Yang:

50 years ago today, the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the case Roe versus Wade. They gave constitutional protection to the right to seek an abortion. But last year, a very different Supreme Court overturned Roe, erasing the right for women across the United States. Ending a pregnancy is now a crime in at least 13 states and severely restricted, and at least twelve more. We ask people across the country about what the changes in the last year have meant to them.

Cassandra Glantz, Social Worker:

My name is Cassandra Glantz. I live in New York City, and I'm a social worker. The anniversary of Roe versus Wade brings up a lot of emotions. It just makes me think about how far we've come and now how we're going backwards.

Carolyn Werner, Nurse:

My name is Carolyn Werner, and I'm a nurse in New Hampshire. So, in New Hampshire, there is now a 24-week ban, and it is a very Republican controlled state. I'm fearful that you give an inch, you take a mile, that more restrictions will be coming.

Serena Sigillito, Pennsylvania Resident:

My name is Serena Sigillito. I live in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. I've been going to pro-life marches, local one since I was a little kid. So, when the ruling came down, it was a sense of joy and gratitude, but also just this sense that now is when the real work begins, right? Like, this was the thing that had to happen before we could really build a pro-life culture and support women and make it so that no one ever feels like they have to have an abortion.

Carolyn Werner:

So when I was 22, I had an abortion. And I don't think that if I had the choice to be able to terminate that pregnancy that I would have been able to live my life the way I am now. Being able to go to school, being able to be financially independent, being able to live in a situation where I can take care of my nieces. Now I just worry for them that if something happens and they end up with an unplanned pregnancy, that they won't have the ability to make a choice that could alter their lives.

Serena Sigillito:

As a mom, part of what I do is trying to show my kids I have three daughters, and I want them to know that children are a gift and women are pushed to feel like they can't have kids and a job or go to college or things like this. You know, instead of having a society that welcomes kids and says, you can be a mother and also have a great life. We force women to feel like they have to choose.

Andrew Gaffney:

The end of Roe means for me just a meaning of great hope in coming into this new age of there's no longer this constitutional right. It was never there from the beginning to move this new phase of promoting life on the level of the states.

Cassandra Glantz:

We just didn't think that something like this could happen. And now that it's happened, I think it's really made us vigilant and that, you know, even if we have our rights intact, we need to fight to uphold them.

John Yang:

Now the battle over abortion rights has shifted to state legislatures, state courts and to the U.S. Congress. Sarah Varney is senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News. Sarah, you spent Friday at the March for Life talking to people. Yesterday you were at the National Pro Life Summit talking to people. What did you hear? What did they tell you?

Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News:

Well, I was really struck by the difference in tone and substance between the leaders who were giving speeches in the big ballrooms and then some of the breakout sessions that were really more for these student groups that come from Catholic high schools and private Christian academies and other kind of grassroots activists that had come from around the country.

One of the interesting things, I think in some of the breakout sessions was just the similarity and tactics that were still being used. So almost not even in recognition that Roe had been overturned. So, you know, an insistence on sidewalk counseling outside of clinics, on, you know, sharing your story of how I saved a baby. And these were people from states like Texas, Louisiana, where there are bans on abortion entirely. So it was interesting how there really hasn't really been a shift in tactics, at least that I heard the message that was going out to the soldiers on the ground.

I think it's going to be interesting to see how does this movement that has grown all of these pro-life activists shift when really now they have banned abortion in these states.

John Yang:

And we've heard that some of these restrictions in the states are preventing women from getting needed medical care. Women who may not be wanting to end a pregnancy but are having difficulty in a pregnancy.

Sarah Varney:

I think that's what's been interesting over the last couple of months is, you know, what has oftentimes just been a very private medical decision with a woman and her family. You know, we tend to think about women who want to end unplanned pregnancies, but there are many women who are pregnant and want to be, but they miscarry or there's a severe fetal deformity.

So we're hearing, I think people are being really educated on actually how dangerous and unpredictable pregnancy can be. You know, a woman who is miscarrying going to a hospital in Louisiana, you can still detect faint cardiac activity, you know, a pregnancy that's maybe ten or twelve weeks down the road.

But, you know, when a pregnancy is in demise, that is just what happens. So she's turned away from that hospital. She goes to another hospital, she's still hemorrhaging and she's still turned away. So we will get to a certain point where some of these women are going to be denied medical care and someone will die eventually. I think there will have to be a real reckoning in terms of the medical establishment of what do you do in these situations when women really do need medical care.

John Yang:

And not trying to end a pregnancy —

Sarah Varney:

Correct.

John Yang:

— but it's just running into a problem in their pregnancy. You mentioned medication abortions. Now more than half of all abortions in America are by medication rather than procedure. What is the antiabortion movement doing about that, going after medication abortions?

Sarah Varney:

Well, this is clearly something that very much concerns them. So they have a sort of multipronged strategy. One is that they're going to some of the state's attorneys general to try and figure out can they target the companies that are actually making medication abortion or those that are actually mailing it.

You know, if you are in a state like Texas or Louisiana, it is technically illegal for you to get medication abortion. We know that groups like Aid Access that operate outside of the United States are continuing to send medication abortion pills to women in these states. We know women are sometimes setting up PO boxes in other states, like in California or Illinois, and then having things forwarded to them.

So there have been these workarounds. There's websites like ineedanaid.org and plancpills.org where women are going to them. We know they're going to them from these states where abortion is illegal and they are still ordering them.

There's another interesting thing that I heard yesterday at this pro-life summit that I hadn't heard before, which is this new tactic that they're going to take to try and say that abortion pills are in your water supply. And so they're going to start this campus tour where they're not going to talk about abortion, they're not going to mention a fetus, anything like that. They're not going to say that they are pro-life or anti-abortion, and they're going to ask people if they want to drink the water, knowing that, of course, all of us take many medications, or Americans, I should say, take many medications. And those things are, of course, in the wastewater, and there are hint traces of things in the water supply.

So you can see the next front to try and say that, you know, there's an environmental impact from these abortion pills. I should say that there's no evidence to suggest that is true.

John Yang:

What about the other side? What about the abortion rights groups? How are they adjusting to life after row?

Sarah Varney:

Well, I think they're very concerned also about the medication abortion. So they are doing everything they can to try and protect that. One of the things that's happening right now is there's a lawsuit in Texas from the anti-abortion groups to try and challenge the FDA approval of one of the drugs that's used in abortion pills, which essentially, you know, stops a pregnancy and then also causes a miscarriage.

So, the abortion supporters are trying to defend that. You know, we saw that the abortion supporters were very successful when they went directly to the ballot, even in a state like Kansas and Michigan. So, there's now a lot of discussion around trying to mount these ballot initiatives in other states that allow them.

John Yang:

Sarah Varney of Kaiser Health News. Thank you very much.

Sarah Varney:

Oh, it's my pleasure, John.