On this week’s episode, we preview Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case challenging Mississippi’s law that bans abortion after 15 weeks, which comes before the Supreme Court on December 1. The issue in the case is whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional—and the outcome could challenge the future of Supreme Court precedent on abortion from Roe v. Wade to Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In another recent case, Justice Kavanaugh laid out three criteria for overturning a precedent believed to be wrongly decided. In this episode, we use these criteria to examine the arguments on either side, and then next week we’ll be back with a part two, recapping the oral arguments.
Host Jeffrey Rosen is joined by Mary Ziegler, the Stearns Weaver Miller Professor at Florida State University College of Law and author of Abortion and the Law in America: A Legal History, Roe v. Wade to the Present, and O. Carter Snead, professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.
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FULL PODCAST
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This episode was produced by Jackie McDermott and engineered by Kevin Kilbourne. Research was provided by Michael Esposito, Chase Hanson, Sam Desai, and Lana Ulrich.
PARTICIPANTS
Mary Ziegler is the Stearns Weaver Miller Professor at Florida State University College of Law. She specializes in the legal history of reproduction, the family, sexuality, and the Constitution. Her most recent book, Abortion and the Law in America: A Legal History, Roe v. Wade to the Present, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. Her new book, Dollars for Life: The Antiabortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment, will be published by Yale University Press in the summer of 2020.
O. Carter Snead is Professor of Law and Director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame Law School. He is one of the world’s leading experts on public bioethics. He is the author of What It Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics. In addition to his scholarship and teaching, he has provided advice on the legal and public policy dimensions of bioethical questions to officials in all three branches of the U.S. government.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
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"Before Roe v. Wade: Judge Friendly’s Draft Abortion Opinion," by A. Raymond Randolph
- Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present by Mary Ziegler
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TRANSCRIPT
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
