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Ellen Parker is a lawyer who was watching the news Supreme Court closely. I believe that the court is probably one two three years away from reversing Roby. Wait he's filed a brief. In a case, the court is considering that had come awfully close, it's a Mississippi law that would be an abortion. After fifteen weeks of pregnancy, Parker heads a group called the Justice foundation. He was road to be overturned and he's been working at it for years. What you really need is to win in the corridor public opinion you need to win in the legislature, and then you it'll when in the actual courts Parker thinks abortion. Opponents can now win at the Supreme Court because a tip to the right with Donald Trump three appointments and he argues that options for pregnant people have changed because of a new kind of long list.

Safe haven law in all. Fifty states says that a woman can simply dropper baby off at a hospital or fire station within a certain period of time after birth, the essential freedom of Raw was freedom from unwanted child care. For the lawyer, who Are you to legalise abortion almost fifty years ago was much more than that

Sera. Whittington spelled out for the mine. Male justice is what it means to be pregnant pregnancy to allowing, if perhaps one of the most determinative aspect of her life it disrupt her. Her body disrupt her education, disrupt for employment and it often disrupt her entire family life. Whittington said a woman should be free from government interference when she decides whether or not to give birth they certainly, and if there are any right which are fundamental, is a matter which is that such fundamental and basic confirmed that a woman involve that she should be allowed

whether to continue or terminate for breaking the court's ruling the nineteen. Seventy three was huge news Supreme court good. I mean that abortion is completely a private matter today decided by a mother and daughter in the first three months of pregnancy. The seventy two relating to that effect would probably result in a drastic overhaul of state laws on abortion. That was a good prediction. It did most states did not allow any abortion before the road decision. All of a sudden abortion before foetus was viable, became legal in all fifty states, but the justices left plenty of room for states to regulate abortion in incremental ways, and they did including overtime, collecting detailed intimate information about each termination and the person getting in Oklahoma Health Department. For example,

The copy of every sonogram taken of a pregnancy at abortion, clinics Missouri for awhile, made a spreadsheet of women's periods. No other patients are treated this way. So who is benefiting from all of this personal information? That's being collected reporter Ashley Creeks investigation starts in a clinic waiting downstairs. After came back, family planning and Phoenix Arizona. All the chairs in the waiting room door- and this has led to a woman with pink hair, hold a toddler, a seventeen year old and eraser back tank top and running short sit next to a mom. Another woman looks to be in her twenties, sits close to a man and a floppy hat This is a small private practice, one of five abortion clinics in Phoenix, a city that home to more than. six hundred thousand women of childbearing age for the doktor Gabrielle good,

owns and runs this clack? She started out in family practice. Now she primarily does abortions. Basically, it's a family medicine office that I kind of made into an abortion clinic. How many years in two thousand and six we moved in here: Galaxy every normal stuff, unobservant gets the doktor S office so, doktor good work has been doing abortions for over two decades and be used in that time. The procedures have changed a little, but as in many states, the rules have changed a lot here in Arizona delayed. They just started pushing through a lot of abortion regulations about ten years ago boom. In it we was just relentless pretty much every six months to a year, we had new regulations, new egg,

Nations meant that doctor good wreck had to buy new, expensive equipment, Chad to add an extra appointment for each patient for mandatory counselling, with a twenty four hour weight in between. After a state law passing only licence, doctors can perform abortions, including handing patients pills for a medical abortion that are good. Work had no use for her nurse practitioner about ten years ago. The state started to ask for data on abortions. How many took place in the state? What age group you know and looking at those kind of numbers me Important good work is also required to tell the government which staff members help with each procedure and give detailed information about each patient. All of this is relatively new in Arizona and then, when they started, requiring a damage snowballed like not just simple demographics of age may be county gestation type of abortion. You know marital

Let us just all kinds of data on why they want to do it. Doctor good work says: All of these regulations have taken a toll into does Eleven. There were fifteen abortion clinics in Arizona. Now there are nine you're getting permission for your story, Her head nurse in this comment is a woman. Named rose rose asked us now, her last name because she doesn't want to be harassed all day rose pivots between patients and paperwork. Can you imagine this stories that we hear all day every day there are stuck to deal with all right now: she's people in documents and checking over patients forms

Much of this information will eventually get upload it to the State Department of Health on the wall by her desk is framed. Cross check that spells out her motto in black lettering. Do no harm the tick, no shit and I walked with rose across the hallway to a lap where she picks up a plastic container. P a pregnancy ass it here. Two seconds, Bergmann probation, Rebecca, isn't an exam room down the hall. Well, I broke up with my boyfriend. In about a week later, I found out I'm pregnant, maybe four or five weeks alone for privacy Rebecca Ass, just to use her first name Rebecca nineteen. She has long platinum, blonde hair that falls over her shoulders and a thin silver loop through the left side of her nose. Her eyes looked tired. Those test results confirm what Rebecca already knows. She's been obsessively repeating pregnancy tests,

by this point. She's taken nine. They all came up positive after one this morning in Tijuana another clinic. I wanted to be sure before I made any type of decision when Rebecca got here, she expected to provide some information like any doctors office, just like my general information on how to sign like a bunch of paying late, Have you seen by the doctor. This is what they are and how you my consent form. But then the question started going beyond her health and consent by law. The clinic needs to ask her race level of education and whether or not she's married one form asked why she decided to have an abortion in all made me want to just scream, don't ask me my reason: it's none of your business. This is part of Arizona, newest abortion law passed in twenty eighteen. You want me to check a box. Why I'm having an abortion? No, I can't just my life and a little wine and a box and click check. That's.

Do I am the form has boxes to check next to possible answers, you having an abortion for your emotional health because of incest, rate relationship issues, Rebecca says? None of these reasons explain her decision, it wasn't just one decision. Why I'm having a it's? Not my mental health or money, There are so many reasons and. They will never understand why each and every women has an abortion, because everyone has a different story. since the early days of legal abortion. Government agencies have collected some basic data. Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University who specializes in abortion. History says researchers did not have good data on abortions back then, and they had real questions. their abortion when performed legally with safe or not whether this states that had changed. Their laws were seen better health outcomes

back in those early days, the federal government tried to standardize abortion data and treat it like any other public health information around pregnancy like miscarriage data or premature delivery data centers, for this these control. It made a form and asked doctors to report each abortion to compare that from state to state in country to country abortion. Opponents read the to some wanted to amend the constitution to ban abortion after Roby Way, but the movement recognized that that was going to take time. So opponents concentrated their efforts on lobbying states pushing for more incremental changes like waiting periods and spousal notification and according to many activists, it's because of these states Fritz the Data collection balloon see you again to see data collection and record keeping requirements written into a kind of big abortion restriction. Legislation right, so those obviously had a different kind of a job.

Behind them than some of the earlier data collection stuff. We have been talking about partially a thanks. motion. Opponents could make the case that abortion was bad for patients and bad for the country, but also that abortion opponents could paint a kind of unflattering picture of who had abortions and why Some states have been asking them and wise in the nineteen eighties. Now more than a dozen states require clinics to collect women's reasons and pass that information on one state asked whether a woman is HIV positive. Another asks the reason she wants. An abortion is because she's not married or she's on welfare. Dapper good wreck sees no health related reason to ask why this is not something any woman in the United States, Hasta justified to any agency any person or even myself. If they want to talk to me

about their reasons, and they want to get that off their chaster. I need someone to talk to bind, but I dont care right, you're, getting an abortion. Ok you're here you have a legal right to get it under certain station. The state doesn't ask people why you know they choose to have a child in the clinic facing the question. Why and the list of possible answers Rebecca found one option that felt. Ok, I checked it's. None of your business. I declined to sir. It's not the states possess, it's, not the doctors business. It's not even my friends. Business admire my body. My decision, my my life Rebecca, wants to know who thinks her reasons are their business. The answer, at least in Arizona, is Cathy Herod.

Hello. This is getting this Ashley. I think Gad coffee leads the centre for Arizona policy. A conservative lobbying group that she describes as a christian evangelical organization, elected officials shower the group with love in promotional videos, Jennifer's and policies courageously, stood up and said that we're going to be a voice for the unborn and we're going to Trent Franks the strongest antiabortion members of Congress for years. There is team here at the State Capitol Hill. We can always count on and they are the Senate for Earth policy team there here, former state rather than Kimberly, is now state treasurer, they're, the ones on a day to day basis will at the down the hall, cynicism, email call us on the phone meet with us to explain the issues to us.

current Adams was speaker of the Arizona House when he said this later. He served as a top aid to the current governor. Cathy started. Put abortion regulations in Arizona about a decade ago. At the time a democratic governor who vetoed several bills restricting abortion had just left office. So even with a consistently republican legislature, Cathy felt that Arizona had fallen behind many other states. The state didn't even require clinics to count the number of abortions so that was the first law category passed before the first, a Bush reporting line, Arizona. The numbers were all over the place. really didn't know what was happening with abortion, Arizona or how to meet them if women, what was really going on

for that series of new abortion regulations. Doktor could wreck called relentless Cathy Herod in her organization pushed hard for them a twenty four hour waiting period. The ban on nurses performing abortions, the mandatory ultra sound Cathy's, has her bottom line is to help women to quote meet their needs, is the way shouted puts it, example. She says patients deserve to see a doctor in person, so in seventy thousand eleven she gonna build pass that bans telemedicine for anything related to abortions for our patient. That means two visits to a clinic one first, eight mandated counselling another for the procedure. Then the year four Rebecca gotten abortion Cathy proposed that anyone seeking linen Arizona must tell the government why I beseech you want to reduce the number of abortions are better meet the needs of women that if you know why we're having a bush, and then you obtain the data to be able to help me

It's a lemon Cathy's group wrote a bell, got it on the legislative agenda, sherry and public, and then testified all support ok, we have Cathy Herod, welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you, MR chairman. Embers makes me think of a hearing. as a woman, Daniel Hernandez. As a Democrat on the committee Eastern, I think it was your German misheard here If knowing why women get abortions led to policies that reduce unwanted pregnancies, so if this were to be put into effect, The data showed that one the reasons why women were seeking the lack of access to affordable inaccessible, birth control. Would you be supportive of making that women have, let's say, a twelvemonth

scripture, instead of one on prescription for birth control edge of this, but this is a job like the scope of this bill. That's the committee chair, interrupting a Republican named Eddie finds worth Farnsworth, received thousands of dollars and campaign contributions from a group associated with Cathy's organization answered quickly a man. Let's limited Oh, please, at Mister Channing website Hernandez, obviously would have to look at the data. I think it's a much longer discussion on sex education and access to birth, control and separate from this discussion and it stays separates the bill passes along pretty lines? Besides the? Why question? It also requires clinics to report any complication, however minor and the medical specialty of the doktor performing the abortion

the language of this areas on the bill closely resembles a template written by a national antiabortion group, Americans, United for Life Katy clean. As a lawyer there we have always sought to provide lawmakers with information on how to has good laws had passed? Defensible lies. That's what AOL attorneys have been doing long before I go. Even born Americans united for life, is a driving force behind all this data collection. It lobbies states to require clinics to give state health departments detailed information about each abortion. Reds really Understanding what's going on in this facility is whether they're following the law, whether they are safe, whether their sanitary, whether their providing informed consent like reporting information, is all about understanding. What's going on inside, I asked Katy why she thinks it important for the government to

why women have abortions. Why, as women, why their white? Why ask their reason? Why think if we want to understand the motivations that they drive women towards abortion? We need to ask the very simple question of why they showed up that day. Why? What is missing? That makes them feel like that. is where they need to be and what they need to be doing. But here's the thing There is already a lot of data about why women have abortions. There are surveys from a group marker Institute in ninety ninety eight and two thousand five, a study by the National Institutes of Health and twenty seventeen and data from other states that asked this question and all of this data points to the fact that women have abortions for multiple reasons, the most common reasons given our

I'm not ready for kids. I have enough children or I have concerns about money, work school where my relationship supporters of a book. Can access, say these reason show women are evaluating their own circumstances responsibly, but so far, all this data gathering hasn't change lies to solve the problems. Women site or if it's not going to be used for policy, is a private kind of question, so I had to divulge it to the state. I think it's used for policy less in a way we are going to pass this law in more nay. What kind of programmes are we doing? I think it's me. more providing, information to the public, so that if there are private charities that want to this women they understand where the need is greatest somewhat. The need really is it's not just. Lawmakers it's about us understanding as a whole

society. What's going on here, Doktor Gabriel Good Rick says she knows. What's going on, I mean there's no beating around the Bush mean they want to ban it. Russian antiabortion groups are trying to do that in many ways. One strategy, since professor marries glare, sees that why question to force the public and law makers to judge a woman's reason tend her pregnancy there's been a long standing effort since at least the nineteen eightys by anti working people to say centrally that most abortions are for reasons that allowed Americans would disapprove of or would find frivolous and that, for that reason, most Americans should be less troubled by a worse and bans that they might think at first at and also, I think, to set the precedent that abortion is about a tonic me or you can make the decision for yourselves its established a precedent that the state can decide when you do or don't have a legitimate reason. Some states already have

new laws and a dozen states that ban almost all abortions do not include exceptions for reasons like rape or incest, which had been standard for decades. But even though these laws have passed, they can't go into effect unless Roby Weight is overturned. Thank you to actually creek and type investigations for that story reveal. continuing to follow the thread on data collection and we're looking for people to help if you hadn't a boy, Shin in the last six years and a willing to talk to us text my data, two hundred and forty seven, four thousand seven hundred and forty seven and will get back to you with next steps. That's my data! All one word to forty seven thousand four hundred and seventy four you can take stop at any time and standard data raids, apply Some states aren't

asking women why they won an abortion just to collect data in certain situations they're using the answers as a triggered step. Then, if they so often occurs, rights of the child, sex, the child or, if there's some sort is known chromosomal or c4. His physical defect of a child Then, of course, this law would not allow that abortion to move forward. That story next on revealed.

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give light, tread lighter all birds from the centre for investigative reporting and p r eggs. This is reveal a reality in the five decades since Roby wind antiabortion activists have taken to the streets to make their case. Protest outside abortion clinics are calm and in recent years

Antiabortion campaigns have targeted black communities billboards along roads and highways. Show pictures of black children and messages like the most dangerous place for an african American is in the wool black people make up about thirteen percent of the? U S population, but black women have about a third of all abortions. The message is simple: that black children are an endangered species because of too many abortions in the black community. The billboards idea that abortion is genocide has made a comeback in some parts of the black community. More recently activists have borrowed the language, the black lives matter, but black lar, pure bar black, mere matter right. The black baby of curbing the abortive clinic matter right.

This idea of abortions, adding up to a black genocide, is very potent given these nations history from slavery to lynchings to mass incarceration tell when the terminology of black genocide is used, it taps into a legitimate source of pain, Michel Goodwin A black woman who's been writing about race and reproduction for decades. She's, a chancellors professor of law at the University of California Irvine, one of the It's here is to resonate amongst black people, given a history that we know where within the matter call feel generally in the United States, there have been harms inflicted on black people. We

oh that there was onto word horrific terrorist dick types of experimentation on black people during enslavement, particularly black women. It resonates with black people. Julie, filling gained, knows the power of a phrase like black genocide, he's a white republican lawmaker from Mississippi who this summer pushed a bill from the state legislature that requires clinics to ask women why they want an abortion, but it goes one step further. If the reason you are seeking an abortion is because of the child's sex race or because of a disability previously known but prior to birth. He can't aboard because those Joey's bill Past Mississippi is now one of six states, that of past abortion bans based on the expected race of the child. Some of these laws have been stopped in court, like other states, Mississippi, bundled race, with other reasons, also banning abortions. Based on this

so a foetus or genetic anomaly, but with zero Indian on raised today, because it raises a lot of questions at a time when the nation is grappling with structural racism and inequity. We wanted to understand how state laws like this fit into the anti abortion movements national strategy. So we set up a video chat with Joey sounded not I can go out and I asked him. Why would someone want to have an abortion because of what the baby skin color might be? The example that ass would find most reasonable to make and that type of race face situation would be. A mother who had come in maybe single mom or something like that and would say you knew my child is not one hundred percent pure, regardless of what the race was an

my family's. Not gonna be supportive of this they're gonna be upset with me, whatever anyone seeking abortion based on on that potential hours, he raised, we looked and found no data to suggest that abortions based on race or actually happening, Michel Goodwin, has found any evidence of the either. When push joy on the issue, he brought up a claim that a lot of anti abortion advocates make that black people are more likely to have abortions, because clinics, open shop and communities of color. Why is that? Is that? Because that's where the people are so that's where the clinic has been located or is it because planned parenthood and other abortion providers low eight instantly in urban communities and for that service to port of american women? Now that's really interesting, because what plan parenthood does a very small fraction of my plan. Parenthood does tiny, tiny,

It happens to be abortion related Michel serves on the board of a planned parenthood clinic in California. a majority of the services that they provide. It related to contraceptive care. Breast cancer screenings ovarian cervical score. Things that statistically, we know that's true, and so, when we hear sentiments like that, I think it's also suggesting that black women don't need those things and, to the more specific point, this Ville innovation of plan parenthood. as being the reason why black women obtain abortions, while that just doesn't actually make much sense, since the conditions of their lies plan, parenthood isn't getting black women pregnant. I speak we're leaving without clear up Joey and others in the pro life movement insist: theirs: aid for laws on the books, the ban abortion because of the race of the fetus,

On the other hand, his law says nothing about IVF treatments for people who need help to get pregnant ivf. Patients can find out the sex and genetic make up of their embryos, then choose which wants to use for Michel. This the double standard, so we're not interfering with your reproductive choices. Wealth white women in Mississippi where only going to interfere, as has been a Thorkel Norm in Mississippi with the poorest of war in that state, and the reason that I keep going back to the history is that I think it's important that we not see this as isolated. But Joe. You insist that the law is about protecting the most vulnerable in his state. Just like the civil rights movement we wanted to make sure Minorities had the same rights as everyone else that they were being targeted or discriminated against. We want to apply that same,

civil right inside the wind. He draws a parallel between his law and the work of civil rights leader Fanny Lou Hammer who, in the sixties, fought for voting rights for black Americans, The man of the freedom of the brain. But we want to leave them. You will be aware this girl came up. You talked about fanning, Lou, Homer came walking through that I bring her into the conversation of this bill and, while the kids Fanny Labour, is one of our civil rights activist in Mississippi History Ass, she actually work the victim of a forest, sterilization back in nineteen sixty one, and so what you had back in the sixties were innocent. Does where black women when they went to the doktor to receive needful, since our surgeries, without

told many african american women were just sterilised by the positions, of course, who were while the town and but she spoke out about that in terms of civil rights in it by criminal. They were would never be treated that way, but african american women chemists He wore a treaty. That way would you Talkin about with Fanny Louis really different from abortion? Like would have Fanny Lou hammer was horrible. Who was a forced sterilization that was done without her consent, what's happening in Mississippi, with black women going to get a boy

is that they are opting to do the surgery that they have full agency to make the decision over their bodies, and so it's like two completely different things that you're rapping in two hundred and twenty one, and I would also say that Fanny is revered because she fought for the right of black people in Mississippi throughout the country to be able to vote and know. If you think about him, voting is really about choice. I don't want to put words into Fannie Lou Hamer's mouth, but I would say that someone who works as an advocate to give people choice. I find it likely that she would be for a bill that was about taking choice away from a black woman. I guess it is always like when we are talking about. Is the mother that seeking

a boy shares of the black and more jobs that is being imported from a show. Twisting civil rights history into Joey's law is a part of a wider strategy to broaden the antiabortion movement, so is inconvenient play because it's never played like that's like. We apologise. Let's have a truth and recognise. Look at what we did. We are so sorry in what we did to you. It's never that, but instead it is then this rhetoric around abortion? She says this rhetoric and the laws it inspires have been key in limiting access to abortion, because the antiabortion movement is one that, while we ve seen the efforts, do away as a hall? For the most part, the firebug has been into chip chip chip chip away, so sat Roby Way doesn't need to be overturned. Instead, there

will be the million blows and strikes where the right. Essentially, cons meaningless for majority of Americans who don't live, in New York or California or can't get onto a plane to go to Mexico or Canada. Abortion opponents don't just won a chip away at row. They hope that is these laws get challenged. One of them will go all the way up to the nations high court. So U S Supreme Court had a chance to hear a case about this from Indiana, but they led a ruling. Stand that tossed out the ban on abortion. based on race. Do you hope the Supreme Court will have another go with this? Our love, that's where we have an hour, For all those in the provide community is that this ought to be a state by state decision, we're not claiming but all abortion should be banned, outright

simply saying that the Ruby waited a one size fits all across the whole country ought not to be the case. The argument you you just made was that this is like basically states. It's ok. Whenever I hear states rights, it sets off an alarm bell to me, because you know I mean at the root of the state right question comes slavery. The idea that, like different states, can put different values on different lives, and that with the federal government is supposed to do- is maintain a fair balance for everybody. I understand the argument and you're gonna continue to happen that I think, until and unless the Supreme Court says load back and actually seventy three. Stop. This is really an issue better reserve at state and we're let fifty states determine the nor is the German how they work The handle this particular issue is when life begins in the mother outweigh the rights of the unborn, or vice versa. I'm very sorry.

He soon, certainly don't envy the judges justice. Is that will be hearing these cases that state senator joy filling gained from Mississippi. We also spoke with you see: Irvine LAW, Professor Michel Goodwin. Our story was produced by narrowly price. This idea of whose rights matter more the mothers with fetuses isn't just about abortion and, as courts way on it there can be big consequences for pregnant people. So we have cases of women being arrested falling down steps during pregnancy, women being arrested for smoking marijuana during pregnancy, women who ve been charged

where's murder because they ve had stillbirths. That story next on reveal, if you think you may be depressed or your feeling overwhelmed or anxious, better help. Online counselling offers licensed professionals who are trained to listen and help with issues, including stress, depression and isolation, get matched with your therapist.

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into a close workers across the. U S are raising doubts about the accuracy of the information collected and expressing worry about how it may affect government funding and political representation. We ve heard from over a hundred and twenty census workers so far and we're looking to hear from even more if you work for the TWAIN twenty Sensus and want to share your experience text. The word senses to four seven: four, seven, four seven standard data raids apply and you can text stop at any time again text. The word census too, for seven four seven. Orson. Thank you from the centre four investigative reporting MP are ex. This is reveal Carmel it when people like Mississippi States Julie, filling game, talk about the rights of unborn children there talking in terms of abortion and as the concept of feudal rights has grown. So having

Creasy severe restrictions on abortion in many states, but constitutional rights for fetuses? Don't just come into play. People seeking enforce, reveals Emily Harris wines the clock back. Thirty, three to a situation that has nothing to do with abortion, but helps us understand how fetal rights laws, if their upholding Courts may change the lives of pregnant people who want to keep their babies The warm pleasant day in New York City, MID June, nineteen, eighty seven, when Lynn Petros phone rings. I got a call from judges chamber in Washington DC, saying we have this case. We might need you to help Lynn as a young lawyer, she's working for the ACL, you mostly, she fights laws that restrict a person's right to abortion, which is still pretty new. It's only been fourteen years since the Supreme Court decided rovers swayed this cases,

different administrators at George Washington University Hospital, want a judge to order assyrian section on a pregnant woman, and I spent the damn farm. as a hearing and emergency hearing was called to determine what rights the fetus inside of her had because The woman doesn't want the operation through numerous Angela Carter, she'd been critically ill with care, sir, survived went into adulthood, got married, got pregnant. She had had an entire leg and half repel this removed. She wanted to be pregnant. This was not an abortion case but when she was twenty six weeks pregnant, she had a recurrence of the cancer and she was very, very ill. The court record suggests, that Angela wants to stay alive as long as she can but word about her. Condition gets around the hospital when a neonatal. I just heard that this twenty six weeks pregnant and they were exploring what they could do to keep her alive. They need

a tall just without talking to Angela, her parents or her doctors, ran to the hospital lawyer and said I can save all twenty six week. Fetuses this foetus has right to life, we should cut her open right now the hospital goes to court. A lawyer is appointed for the fetus and the like, for the fetus essentially argued she's gonna die anyway. The fetus has a right to life, your honor you should order the hospitals performs syrian surgery on her. That lawyer prevails the judge orders. The hospital to try to deliver the baby by doing a c section on Angela, but when her attending physicians, who she loved entrusted, came to her and said, it's been ordered that, you should have the surgery. You know I could kill you. She mouthed, I don't wanna done. I dont want to turn the hospital start surgery prep anyway, Angela's lawyer files, illegal appeal.

The appeals panel says no. They order the surgery, the babies born alive foreign alive, but died within two hours because it was not viable. It was never gonna live. It had been deprived of oxygen because of a tumor in her lungs and Angela died. Two days later, with the syrian surgery listed as a contributing factor that clarified for me the extent to which anti abortion arguments are dehumanizing. It's a case that reveals that the pro life Position is pro life for everyone, except pregnant women. In the five years, before Angela Carter died. Court ordered see, sections had been documented in several states around

the? U S, for a variety of reasons, including when doctors thought it was vital, but surgery went against the pregnant persons, religious beliefs. With that backdrop, Angeles case triggered national attention It is an issue that is becoming a medical on legal nightmare courts, forcing pregnant women to undergoes surgery to protect their unborn children. This was the nineteen eighties, Joan London hosted good morning. America then, and join us this morning, Angela's parents, Daniel ordinary Stoner, Mr Steiner, neither you nor nor MRS Stone sooner or Anschluss husband or the doctors her own doctors. Not if you wanted the surgery know nobody do and what it actually say when when she was told it was an wants, a surgery you to choose my modem under the impression in Bergamo treat her for cancer

radiation chemotherapy when they had the hearing was the judge told that this surgery would possibly short nationalist lifer, possibly caused her to die? Oh yes, he it was told it was called when injury and your parents went through this ordeal. The concept is fatal. Rights was not a common idea, since an anti abortion activists have pushed hard to move it toward the main stream. I wondered how angels experience would sound to one of those activists. now I'm having difficulty conceiving of a court are seen her to do a c section meet Catherine Davis. She runs the restoration projects that she describes as a pro life pro family Pro Education organisation working to strengthen black families.

Catherine, was in her thirties and just out of law school when Angeles case hit the headlines, she doesn't remember catching the story, but, as I describe it to her, she decides. The judges were right to order c section on Angela, you can say wonder the lives and save the life, because she, he's gonna die anyway. This is the key issue. I think that most of US answer for ourselves today because it is the life of another person and a whole life trumps. The other life whose is the greater life. If you were Catherine, ask this question a lot in her work. Attending conferences, testifying in front of lawmakers. Ending abortion is her passion. and it's personal I had to abortions myself and.

I was like Scarlet o hara I'll think about that tomorrow. Her first surprise, pregnancy happened in college, the second in law school, and she says she didn't think about either Orson until a lunch time, Bible steady years later, the topic was abortion. Her feelings overwhelmed the shame of the decision Instead, I had made. I'm came crashing in the guilt because I knew I had taken the life of another human being. and it was something that I had never process through- might the front pardoned brain I mean I knew was in there, but it was the shelf, so I didn't have to deal with it and I didn't have to address it.

A person way to say girlfriend you are selfish. Research shows that the vast majority of people who have abortions. Ninety five percent feel afterward that it was the right decision for them, but Catherine didn't feel that way. and she embraced her pastors help, and that began my journey to speak against abortion. I may seventy thousand nine team that journey took her to a ceremony in Atlanta Georgia, where Governor Brian Cowen, was about to sign one of the most restrictive abortion laws. In the country Catherine had pushed for the law promoted it and now stood right behind the governor

he also much for being here with us this morning in music videos who can see Catherine over his left shoulder ass. He speaks the lie. That is very simple, but also very powerful, a declaration that all life has value. that all life matters and that all life is worthy of protection. Catherine also spoke at the ceremony. This is a historic day for Georgia. She celebrated what she saw as the restoration of fetal rights. This governor is standing restoring somewhat protection for class of people who had the protection system? from them involving way Georgia outlawed any abortion done after about six weeks of pregnancy, that's before many but even realize they are pregnant

also gives fetuses at that stage of development, quote full legal recognition, letting parents claimed tax deductions for the embryos and count them as part of Georgia's population half a day states pass similar laws the same year as Georgia all have been challenged and are on hold right now, as they make their way through federal courts. Attorney. Lend Paltrow is watching closely, it sort of shocking that state after staying to pass laws that, in various ways seek to established, separate right sport, fertilized eggs, embryos in fetuses? without ever mentioning the pregnant woman Lynn began to fail her work on the rights of pregnant people after Angela's case back and nineteen. Eighty seven after Angela died, Lynn helped her parents appeal the court ordered C section. They won Washington DC highest court said the hospital had been wrong. Lynn went

on to start a new organization, the national advocates for pregnant women, is focused on the rights of pregnant people in any circumstances, whether there seeking abortions or not because the- abortion movement for many many years, as insisted that they are trying to protect women and that the only people who would be punished under their laws are doctors, but national advocates repair Women has been involved in numerous cases in which women have been arrested and charged with feed aside and murder here case from Alabama two years ago. A pregnant woman John, in the stomach now facing manslaughter charges for the death of her feet is that not charge in this case. According to call, documents, a woman who was five months pregnant had a confrontation with another woman in a mall parking lot. The second woman fired a gun. The bullet hit the pregnant woman in the stomach and her baby died authority.

is accused the pregnant woman of starting the fight and a grand jury indicted her. For me, slaughter of her foetus. Then the district attorney quickly dropped the case, then it was not in the best interest of justice. It had been all over talk. Radio was I do not understand the logic behind the woman we'll get shot who was hospitalized because she got shot who loses the baby because gotcha, What color Davis who lobbied for Georgia's veto rights law had heard this shooting back when it happened. She brought it up. When we were talking, I read a chase. A new story of this One man who was pregnant hoods elaborate they started a fight with another woman. We might have read the same story. I asked

author and whether criminally charging a pregnant person who got shot for the death of her own foetus made sense to her. The dude makes sense to me because Did you say because she recklessly Engage their behaviour that put her child's life in danger. What, if anything, did you think a woman to be criminally charged for whose pregnant, while I paid the women. Dragon Dragon while their pregnant. It should have some responsibility, for the outcome may feel timer quickly jail time, but this should at least be some kind of penalty. I've thought about it all the way through to suggest let that temptation me

Four Johnson did not get jail time. Instead, she got house arrest and then fourteen years of probation, she was addicted to cocaine and was charged and convicted of delivery. Drugs to her newborn daughter through the umbilical cord. I was with much worse chow an abandoned by my excellent, measured and father, and very alone in the world after the birth child protective sir so, I took her daughter and a young son Jennifer thought she might get help for her addiction, but she got arrested the biggest peace is the shame to reconsider a drug pusher to my kids, watches images you'd come from London stigma. I mean turned and turned in Thailand and down that there be Three years after Jennifer's conviction, Florida Supreme Court unanimously overturned the charges. Justices said, stay

drug law was not written to prosecute drug dependence. Mothers. This all happened thirty years ago, but Jennifer still feels it, I'm just not in agreement with police in people's pregnancy and put them in jail you. I just think it is a public health issue more so than a polish issue, right now in California to women are in prison on murder charges because their babies were still born and hospitals found mess in the baby's bodies. attorneys say: the law was misapplied. Science comes into court. Cases like these, sometimes too, because different drugs can affect developing babies differently. For example, alcohol can be worse than Heroin long term, but the big backdrop to all these such cases is whether a Venus is entitled to legal.

It's that would reduce the legal rights of the pregnant person. The Supreme Court waiting on this in rovers dissuade letting states restrict abortion. Only after the fetus is considered viable that it could live outside the womb. A lot has changed since then. One of the things is changing as nobody talks about viability more. They talk about fertilisation, so what's changed? Is the pressure to recognise separate rights for the unborn now starts at fertilisation. bills saying that human rights start at fertilisation have been introduced several times in Congress, as well as in at least two dozen states as the handful that have become state law move through court challenges expect more wreck over the rights of pregnant people, too.

Thanks to reveals Emily Harris for reporting that story and editing today show shed help from seniors revising editor talk. You telling me this thing's Teresa. Mary redder and executive editor. Sarah blue stain of type investigations for their work on our story about data collection. Thanks also to MRS public radio and reveals energy, but meaning for production assistance, Victoria Baronets gives our general Council our production Manders Amy Mustafa original, go and sound designed by but dynamic, do o J Breezy, Mr Jim Briggs and Finance, though my man, your router, that help this week from bread, Simpson and clear, see no moment digital producer, Sarah Merk, R C yours, Christus Sharpsburg met Thomson is our editor in chief executive producer is given solving a thing, is it is by Colorado, lightning

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