‘The Fall of Roe’ looks at players in movement to end abortion and what may be next

Geoff Bennett:

In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, conservative lawmakers and activists have continued efforts to reshape or limit reproductive rights.

Laura Barron-Lopez takes a closer look at that effort. She recently spoke with New York Times journalists Lisa Lerer and Elizabeth Dias, authors of the new book "The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America."

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Elizabeth, Lisa, thank you for joining the "NewsHour."

I want to start by reading a piece of your book, in which you write: "The fall of Roe was the culmination of a targeted and, in key moments, startlingly lucky campaign over a tumultuous decade by an under-the-radar network of elite conservative lawyers, Christian activists and Republican politicians in key positions of power built over years. That network were determined to end abortion rights and remake American culture. They had found the levers of power and pulled them."

Who is this network? Who are the leaders of this network? And when did it actually start, 2016 or earlier?

Lisa Lerer, Co-Author, "The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America": Our book really looks at what we have taken to calling the final decade of the Roe era, this 10-year period between President Obama's reelection and the decision that eventually ended Roe.

And we look at that period, because that — President Obama's reelection was the lowest point for these anti-abortion activists. It was the first point in history where conservative Christians were — had become a minority, a slim, slim, slim minority, in American life. And it looked like the culture was moving another way.

Gay marriage was about to be legalized. Abortion was becoming more talked about publicly. And they felt like they were being cast out of the Republican Party that had begun to see abortion as a losing issue for them. And then, at that point, they decide to claw back.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

And so, Elizabeth, I mean, who are the leaders here?

Elizabeth Dias, Co-Author, "The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America": Well, we really reported about a broad network, largely of conservative Christians, but anti-abortion activists that went basically under the radar for so much of the American public.

This is the network of lawyers, activists who have made ending abortion in America their life's work. They're lawmakers, state lawmakers, all the way up to Congress, to the White House, and eventually justices on the Supreme Court.

And what's so interesting about this network is, they like to think in generational terms. They don't just think in political cycles, right, a two-year for a midterm, four-year for a presidential. They're looking at, how do we make longstanding cultural change in America? What does that look like?

It was such a deluge of not just laws and bills they were passing, but local Christian lobbyists. People who no one really — most people had not really heard of ended up being very influential in reshaping the laws to then reshape the culture.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

One of the players in your book is Leonard Leo, key leader in this interconnected web, as you mentioned, Lisa.

He's the co-chair of the conservative legal group the Federalist Society. Walk me through his role and how he helped with the coordination. What exactly did he do to lead to the fall of Roe?

Lisa Lerer:

Well, so the Federalist Society, of course, is an association of conservative lawyers that reaches from members of the Supreme Court to law students.

And this is Leonard Leo's life's work. And what he did was help develop this web of lawyers, recruit people in law school, get them through the system, put them in — find ways to get their members in judicial posts all the way up to the Supreme Court, and build this body of more conservative judges who believe in this kind of jurisprudence and believe, many of them, that Roe was not a fair decision, that it wasn't a legally sound decision, that it should be overturned.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

You spoke to Hillary Clinton.

Lisa Lerer:

Right.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

And she told you that Democrats didn't take it seriously. We didn't understand the threat.

I have heard that from a lot of Democrats as well, that they were complacent. Maybe they didn't see these young millennial Gen Z activists coming. Why didn't they see it coming?

Lisa Lerer:

What Democrats and the abortion rights movement was fighting for during this 10-year final era, Roe — final decade of the Roe era, they were fighting for public opinion.

What they were trying to do was destigmatize abortion. That's why you saw Hillary Clinton — and we talk about this in the book — throw out that old term safe, legal, and rare, that it shouldn't be something — it should be a procedure like any other health procedure that women feel comfortable talking about.

And they weren't — they had some success doing that. But while they were fighting for public opinion, the anti-abortion movement was fighting for the levers of power. So they were working legislation. They were winning statehouses. They were getting sympathetic judges on state courts and eventually the Supreme Court.

And it turns out part of what our book finds is, that ended up being more powerful than public opinion.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

You write in the book that Marjorie Dannenfelser, the longtime head of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization and a key player in overturning Roe, is pushing for federal legislation that would ban abortion across the country.

Looking forward, do you think that this is a realistic endgame for Marjorie, that this is something that she is coordinating, along with others who are a part of her movement, to actually make happen, Lisa?

Lisa Lerer:

Well, it's complicated.

The dynamics shifted overnight in terms of the politics. Now you have this very engaged group of voters who support abortion rights, and they come out and they vote, and they vote for candidates, largely Democrats, who share their views. That makes something like a 15-week federal ban much harder to get through than it would have been previously.

They are not — the right is no longer benefiting from the spell of denial, where people weren't paying attention or really just believed in this inviolability of Roe. There still is an ardent part of the anti-abortion movement for whom the fall of Roe was not the end, but the beginning of the end.

It was the first step in their efforts to ban all abortion in America.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Is there a next target? Is it contraception?

Elizabeth Dias:

Part of the goal of this network of people, it's not just about abortion and kind of any policies related to abortion.

It's all things about sexuality. It's kind of — it's, what is the role of women, of mothers, of families, right? It's this — an effort to roll back the Sexual Revolution, and that's make America great again, right? As America becomes more secular and Christianity increasingly becomes a minority position in the country, what that means is, you have this clash of values about a whole suite of issues.

Lisa Lerer:

In our reporting, we uncovered internal documents that laid out the cases that they do want to go after.

And it's a much broader suite of issues than even just reproductive health, right? They're looking at how to increase religion in public life, in schools or in town meetings, things like that. They're looking at trans rights. They're looking at same-sex marriage, that these are all goals for this broader movement.

And so, yes, I think there are elements of the movement who would like to target some forms of contraception, but it's a much broader suite of issues.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Elizabeth Dias, Lisa Lerer, thank you so much for your time.

Elizabeth Dias:

Thank you.