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Special Episode: Roe v. Wade Is Overturned

2022-06-25 | 🔗

This episode contains strong language.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that eliminates women’s constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote on behalf of the majority, while President Biden has denounced the court’s action as the “realization of extreme ideology.” In this special episode, we explore how the court arrived at this landmark decision — and how it will transform American life.

Guest: Adam Liptak, a reporter covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

  • Read the majority decision that overruled Roe v. Wade, with notes by New York Times reporters.
  • The court’s decision was one of the legacies of President Donald J. Trump, with all three of his appointees in the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling. Privately, the former president has called the reversal of Roe “bad” for the Republican Party.
  • Abortion is now banned in several states, with trigger laws in others set to take effect in the coming days. See where women would be most affected.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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police presence here is intense, its capital police. I mean shields, face guards and home all kinds of things. What your names miss hotbed daughters? How do I am twenty four years old Are you from the area from California? Do you did your apply yeah. I blew him for for this. Yes, we were expecting that fishing to come down and it did come down and we are very happy with the decision. So anyone be involved at the beginning. I'm not a conservative side. How could I bought with a bunch of republicans you it's like, I don't feel comfortable doing that, but I realized it was much more than that is made up of women is made up of people of color. It's made up of asia's. Would you be de q democrats? There's Democrats relies roma communities
seeing an abortion is murder sign, come in and chanting commitments, people over there, an abortion, violent sign, I see I am the post road generations. I I Can you tell me your name, thorough written by pretty shocked. I wasn't expecting to come here and see a celebration. I think that some activity on my part, so the overturning of ro, means just a lot of women dying and not having access to safe abortions, and it's really horrifying to see people celebrating here, I'm a mom. I had a hard childbirth,
Enforcing not on people is just it's a lot, and it's really emotional to see this right now and we knew that this was happening, and it didn't prepared me for this feeling. It's really hard, why The for new times, unlikable bar
These is a special episode of the day. The supreme court has returned, move verses, we eliminated constitutional right to an abortion after almost fifty years in a decision that will try form american life, I don't know he's? Gonna believe that something like this is happening in this month it's happening around me, I just I was scared per second unrelenting. Then this is what this is. What the It is becoming ever no such an exile day today to know that we are finally reaching and america that knows that abortion is it really necessary or needed only spooky, My colleague supreme court reporter adamant
it's Saturday june, twenty Adam the leak? A couple of months ago, of yes opinion or an earlier version of it really meant that the whole country has known that this was all but inevitable and add, absorbing at all. Today, it's still a shock and clean a further fracturing of the country and, above all, just it difficult to process level of significance. It's one thing to know it: could happen and it was odd with the leak, because you had a pretty good sense of how it would happen if it happened, but in almost two months.
First, there must have been a lot of activity within the court and certainly be pull the abortion right side held out. I hope that the result would be different, So when the decision lands not only the version of the draft, but also concurrence is in this sense, and two hundred plus pages argument it really brings home. Then something really big happened in a nation that women's lives they healthcare system. The political wisdom, even potentially the legitimacy of the supreme court. It's all shifted a bit and some cases shifted a lot exactly right, yeah. So let's talk about what exactly the court has done here by reversing roe, it eliminated a constitutional right to abortion, a right, that's been in
for about fifty years right did generations of women have assumed that they have, and so overruling row, the court said we're going to stay out of this. The constitution has nothing to say about this. States can do what they like. If they want to ban abortion, they can, if they want to allow abortion they can. If congress wants to act in this area it can. This is for the people's political elected representatives enough for judges and in doing that in putting abortion in the hand, of states state lawmakers what kind parameters or guidance. Did the supreme court leaving please to guide what happens next with more the majority opinion tells us essentially nothing about what kind of abortion restrictions may be proper, they certain
suggest that you can ban ocean from the moment of conception and alive questions then are well what are the exceptions? What about the life of the mother? What about the health of the mother? What about rape? What about insist? What about feudal abnormalities? and you can stare at justice Alito in the majority opinion for a long time and really get almost no guidance, and that will be the subject of further litigation, but you have the sense that many of those potential exceptions are not constitutionally required in the eyes of the supreme court, the main exception. I would end this. aid is the life of the mother, but even that is not addressed in so many words tell this. Ruling allows for in theory, some of the most restrictive possible bands against abortion immediately gets right
and we ve talked about the states that have laws in place that anticipated stay at this moment, so called trigger laws. That would automatically do you, that would ban abortion. How quickly those laws now go into effect will they will vary depending on what the text, the moors say, but the very notion of a trigger law is as soon as the court overrules row. The law is meant to spring into effect. Now some of them may have some time He's in their text, but this also practical boy, dear Michael, an abortion clinic in a state with a trigger law, knowing that the law is gonna come into effect tomorrow or next week or next month may well be very cautious about continuing to performance, oceans, because they won't be sure whether this criminal liability attached to it used to be a constitutional right. critics? In other words, there may be a chilling effect that pauses
working in these states even before the trigger law actually goes into a fact exactly right. So do you expect abortion rights groups, why too slow this all their with legal she's with lawsuits. Yes, of course, there are talented and committed litigators on the other side of this issue. Make every argument available to them to try to maintain some access to abortion in the largely red states that seek to ban them, but their leader. tools are limited because we're always gone so their chances of success a very narrow yeah. There may be arguments out there that I haven't thought of, but you would seem too have a vanishingly limited chance of success in lawsuits challenging most of these abortion bans. So, let's turn to the justices rationale for doing this
Opinions released on friday in his leaked opinion that way a glimpse of a couple months ago This is a leader We argued ro view, aid should be tossed out because it constitution makes no mention of abortion. So it's pretty hard to find a right to it and he went on to say that previous just knowing that fact strained really hard to find to an abortion within the fourteenth amendments. Promise that you can't take away people right to liberty without due process, which is a major basis for rail and the lido said that was a stretch and not a legitimate basis for creating a right to an abortion. How much of that argument and logic was reflected in a leaders. Final opinion today, Adam your own. Having done an edit trace comparison, one to the other
In reading the new one, it sounded very much like the old, when only with the addition of some responses to concur in descending opinions, but the basic structure, language tone of the draft, a legal opinion is maintained. In the final opinion, an your account of their basic rights Listening is right. He says that you can't read a right to abortion. Into the constitution, because the word doesn't appear there and the main hook that abortion rights advocates look to the protection of liberty and due process clause of the fourteenth. and does it work either because he says when that civil war era. Amendment was ratified. The people who ratified it didn't think they were crew a right to abortion. In fact, he says most states made abortion a crime back then
so. The lido opinion was not particularly surprising because we had this preview of it and it's not terribly different from the preview, but there were other opinions from conservative justices, concurring opinions and they kind of illustrated that the right, Although there were five votes for this outcome are not wholly united, explained and also clean. Why you're saying that there were only five votes for this outcome, because We are all reporting that this was a six to three votes to overturn rovers, as we hear so. This is quite interesting. This is story about chief justice, John roberts. He doesn't join the legal opinion. There are five votes for the little opinion and chief justice robert says no Thank you. I have my own ideas about how we should have resolved this case and he as a kind of half measure he does. Want to go as far as a leader in the other conservatives went. The question in the case, of course, is whether mississippi
can an act, a law banning most abortions after fifteen weeks, a pregnancy right now, that's at odds with row, which says you can't ban abortions before fetal viability about twenty three weeks of fifteen exists in twenty three, that's at odds with row and the chief justice says: I'm willing to assist in this fifteen weak law, but I'm not willing to overrule row in the part of road that promises women that they have a right. The opportunity to obtain an abortion we should leave in place, at least for now, and that's characteristic of the chief justice is measured in mental institutionalists approach and I suspect he was quite unhappy. that the ambitious justices to his right, are ready to go all the way right away. So what is late here in this roberts dissent, is that he did not want.
rest of the conservative justice is to do what they have very clearly done. Five of them, which is a vote not just to uphold this mississippi law banning abortion. fourteen weeks, but to go much further and invalidate ro, verses wade itself. He didn't want, he's saying you didn't want it, but it happened worried. I think he thinks is bad for the court. I think he's Instead, judicial modesty requires you to answer. Only the question presented to you in there is an be not to decide more than you have to decide in. This was clear from the argument. December, where it was clearly sketching out this approach, and it was an approach that a lot of people thought. That was where the court was gonna end up and I have to think the chief justice has spent the last seven months trying to persuade at least one colleague to come along with him, maybe just Kevin or maybe just as buried any failed, and he finds
self entirely alone, which is not a pretty place to be viewed. The chief justice of the united states, where how did we see disagreement among the conservatives based on their opinions were two of the eu, this is who joined justice leaders, majority opinion who signed Anti every part of it also issued concurring opinions. A thing is in which they sort of set out. What I thought the opinion meant in when they thought the court should go. One of them was just to spread cavenaugh who, by most accounts, is the current swing justice and therefore his out of what the legal opinion means is particularly important, because he has a lot of troll over what the court does next and we, we also had a concurring opinion from justice. Clarence Thomas, the most conservative member of the court who seemed to be a team to go in a different direction or something
cabin assets way makes what interesting point he says that he doesn't think its constitutional foreseen. It's, to tell their residents that they may not travel to other states to get abortions than that? Tells you something at the state of a russian law after this decision, because much of the country the only way for women to get abortions will be to trial When sometimes very far, in his in some noises in some states that even that ability widely try to be made unlawful. Ann Cavanaugh gets out ahead of that mrs notice, a constitutional right to travel and at least that sort of access to abortion is if so, if you're in alabama, even getting your california seventh Have a nice thing to people who are now quite afraid of the repercussions of this ruling? You dont, have this thing to be afraid of the oil would think for most people, small comfort, but nonetheless it is a kind of its not as bad as you might think aspect to it. And what about thomas?
just as thomas claims to be on board with the Alito opinion and one the lido opinion in particular that no other precedents are at risk. This illegal says in so many words this is. abortion. Only we're not talking about gay rights were not talking about. Contraception don't worry. This is only about abortion and justice. Thomas says he. I agree with that. That's true! So far as it goes this opinion is only about abortion. Therefore, it's only about abortion, but then he goes on to say. The logic of the opinion suggests that those other precedents are at risk and that in in fact, we should reconsider them at our earliest opportunity, and why does he make that argument? What do they all have in common? Well, they are all based on the idea that the due process clause protects these rights that just as people used to say, it protects a right to abortion that
clause, was the basis of the decision protecting a right, the same sex marriage, a decision protecting a right to gay, intimacy and basic a decision protecting right to contraception, so justice thomas says the logic of one extends to the logic of the rest and dead. The court should turn its attention to reconsidering those other president's which would be So, just as thomas Critics Alito and articulates kind of liberal nightmare vision of what decision overturning row might me, which is that it could Promises saying should become the basis for overturning all these other constitutionally protected rights that have been won at the supreme court over the past few decades. So should we assume that, because thomas is alone in saying this in his concurring opinion
if he's alone in feeling this way or that a faulty assumption, I wouldn't go quite dead, for I dont think there five votes for overturning anyway, decisions, but I dont know that there's only one vote justices elite own course, which might well be on board. For that and the dish Winters in friday's case certainly think that whatever the court promises The new decision may not predict what the court actually does we'll be right back.
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it's my favorite writers and critics in human beings to coming out with me why she's got wesley morris. Lastly, more ass, you may see we talk about the code. that shape. Does the billboard magazine heads with hose casey, case, in the changing ways we consume it. Now I feel immense guilt for my interest, skipping impulses and why Keanu Reeves is basically a culture unto himself I mean, maybe he's an empty vessel. You can listen to still processing wherever you get your podcast and. So how do we started to turn to the dissenting opinions from the liberal wing of the court, which has gone small smaller over the past three years and has had many months to plan for this moment. So what did those three justices have to say?
product. Well, it's along an impassioned in aggrieved and profoundly sad opinion in which The three liberals writing together in a joint opinion, but much of it sounds like justice. Selina Kagan make the case that the cause of women's rights in women's equality has suffered a great said back and the legitimacy of the supreme court has sustained a blow basically because of a quite recent change of personnel at the court tat adam. What did they say? about the legal logic before we turn to what they have to say about the consequences of this decision? Will they make two essential points? One is about the constitution and they say the constitution is capable of taking account
of contemporary circumstances and it's not frozen in amber in eighteen, sixty eight when the fourteenth amendment was adopted. In fact, they say when the amendment was ratified. One group of people played no role in that process, a fairly significant group of people, women, and that the court is right to take account of constitutional values without being tied to the particular historical understanding of when the amendment was adopted. The second point they make is whatever you think about that. First point: respect for precedent, row itself and its repeated reaffirmation, notably in a case called plan. Parenthood versus case require you to have a very good reason to throw out fifty years of constitutional protections
and they say the majority did not come close to making their case and what say about the likely impact of this ruling, so they're saying that in states that ban abortions, a woman who becomes pregnant as a consequence of birth control, failure were rape or insist, has no choice but to transform her life and carry defeated the term and, from the point of view of abortion rights advocates better. They still been handmade still kind of way of thinking about the world. Michael, let me let me give you a taste of the descent. Let me quote from an I stay:
it can thus transform. What, when freely undertaken, is a wonder into what, when forest may be a nightmare, and in reading these descends it's clear how palpable their frustration is- and I think that is obviously shared by progressive around the country who are absorbing this ruling, but Adam we talked about this. A lot on the show for very long time, legal scholars, even liberal ones, have said that rovers wade was legally vulnerable and they minor. Three with what justice Alito wrote his opinion, but they understood that willing was always on shaky ground to given that for these, three liberal justices and really for anyone who is reeling from this decision today. What is the compelling case that abortion should be a constitutionally protected right verses. One left to elected lawmakers as it now is. So I think
responses to that. One is that the right to abortion, if there is one, really wants to be rooted, not so much in the new process, clause, but in the notion that women need access to abortion to be full participants in american life and that would be grounded in the constitution's equal protection clause. Interesting and many scholars say that would be a better approach and then this second point, is: let's assume that it was on shaky ground. Let's assume that it wasn't the best decision ever rendered by the supreme court. It's been part of the fabric of the nation for fifty years and everyone agrees. You need a very good reason to over. Will a major constitutional precedent and at least the disease I would say that the court did not clear that high bar and that it will be one thing
for justice is to consider the matter and think better of what they had said earlier. It's another thing for a bunch of new justice is to come in. and simply because there's new personal on accord to give rise to a different result? It sounds like these dissenters believe that, no matter How row is decided this group of justice might have found a way to invalidate that's her Their point of view, you so right now it very much feels like a long era in the abortion debate is now over The forces aligned against row prevailed in the biggest possible way. It will unleash his transfer asian and legal system and an american society- but I'm curious, is that how it must have felt back in nineteen. Seventy three when railways decided and suddenly there was a call,
additional right to abortion and the forces fighting for abortion had one I guess what I'm getting at is just how settled is any of this really, especially Given what you just said, which is that personal changes on the cord scene? the biggest decisive factor and play. Well, in the short term, and in the medium term, Michael, RO is gone. The constitutional right to abortion is gone. There will be changes on the supreme court overtime and majorities can shift and its possible that the court will again have a liberal majority that might find a right to abortion in the constitution, perhaps on a different thing, then roe head, but that require a lot of things to happen over a long period of time. I think the story here is not that the supreme court, The thing by maj, but rather
that we have reached a new, in very different and lasting settlement of this issue, one in which states kin Essentially, ban a procedure that, until yesterday and further half century before yesterday was an established constitutional right. Hmm, Why am I here. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Michael I those who call united states expressed They took away cars. Right from the american people, already recognised
they didn't limited, simply took it away. on Friday afternoon, president by announced. The supreme court's ruling in a speech from the white house, never been done to write so important, so many americans, but they did it as a sad day for the court and for the country in florida, his predecessor, trot who appointed three of the justices, who voted to reverse shrill pray The decision calling it quote the biggest when for life in agenda she will be right back Here's what else you need to know that on friday, several republican governors, said they plan to pursue new restrictions on abortion in
of the court's ruling to the governor of Virginia republic Glenn young man said he would push for a ban on the procedure after fifteen weeks of pregnancy currently virginia- allows abortion until twenty six weeks. Meanwhile, a group of major employers act to blunt the rulings in back this need. dick sporting goods, netflix, J, p, morgan and sony, among others, said they would of some or all of the travel costs required to obtain an abortion in a state where its legal, he's episode was produced by roma zipcar, Eric cruk sidney harper. Carlos Prieto. It was edited by LISA shell, with help from mark george and been calhoun,
contains original music by marian Lozano and was engineered by korea shrapnel arthur. This is by Jim, wondered and then land of wonder, that's it for the daily. I might come up I'll, see you on Monday.
Transcript generated on 2022-08-16.