A Dispassionate Review of Roe v Wade

since h That's right. So, uh, just so folks know, we're gonna just sort of take a look at the case, the original case itself, and this idea was hatched, um quite a few weeks ago, and obviously we kind of sped that process along and we'll talk about that towards the end. Okay, cool, that sound good. We're doing this episode apropos of nothing at all. We just decided to try to do it finally, right, So, um, we're talking about Roe v. Wade. It's a Supreme Court case again

from nineteen seventy three. I think it was um published at the very beginning of nineteen seventy three, and it basically said, um, all you states which at the time. Most of the states in the late sixties early seventies had bands on abortion, some of them almost total. Uh. The Supreme Court said, all those laws are unconstitutional. We have to re refigure this. And it was the culpination of like um, a whole process, a whole bunch of lawsuits were kind of file at the same time about

the same thing. UM. But it was in no way shape or formed less sweeping because you know, it was kind of in the zeitgeist. It's what people were talking about. I think it took I read it took both sides of the abortion issue by surprise. It was that kind of sweeping and that much of a complete course reversal for the United States as far as how we approached abortion goes right. It's a good way to say it.

Abortion is nothing, and we'll probably do I mean, but I think we've long wanted to do just a full episode on abortion, and so we'll probably work that one in at some point in the near future. But abortion has always been around. Uh, It's usually always been regulated in some form or another. UM, usually in what we'll call the third trimester. But we'll get to that stuff

later as well, or later in this episode UM. But in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there were no federal laws on the books, and it was left to states to kind of come up with their own interpretations of UH what was kind of usually originally based on English common law. And beginning in the eighteen hundreds is when a lot of the states started really restricting or outright banning abortion. And I believe in the nineteen sixties there were not these states left at all UH that didn't

have bands or restrictions on abortion. Yeah, And the nineteenth century UM was kind of a pivotal point for UM the concept of abortion in the United States for a

couple of reasons. There's a historian named Leslie Jay Reagan who wrote When Abortion was a Crime UM, And she wrote that in eighteen fifty seven, the American Medical Association, which had just been founded, basically said, Hey, we need to start a campaign to outlaw abortion in part, UH, historians say, to help wrestle UM control of women's health away from midwives and to help consolidate basically all aspects

of health, including that under doctors. That's one thing that people say led to the rise of abortion laws anti abortion laws in the United States. And then there's there's on both sides, there's allegations that some of the earliest proponents for for or against abortion UM were racially mo

devated to on the UM. On the the proponent the abortion proponent side, they say that some of these earliest UM laws were basically white Protestant Americans starting to get nervous at all of the immigrants that were coming over and saying, we need to step up, you know, the birthrate among white Protestant Americans, and UM, one good way

to do that is the outlaw abortion. And then the UM the anti abortion side says, no, no, that may or may not be true, but you guys were eugenicists, and you actually wanted abortion so that you could control UM undesirable meaning non white populations in the United States. So both sides are slinging mud all the way back, starting in the nineteenth century. It just kind of gets worse from there. Yeah, and of course you're using that terminology because they didn't have terms like pro choice in

pro life at that point. Yeah, but I also see UM it seems to be more UM academic to call it pro abortion an anti abortion because pro life is such a it's such a loaded term. It's like, oh, oh, you don't like life. You know, if you're if you're if you're pro abortion, do you that doesn't mean that

you're against life. So I saw a pro abortion and anti abortion kind of settling that dispute well, and the both sides have also taken those terms and bent them to their own will uh in more recent years, by saying things like we're not pro abortion, we're pro choice, and other people saying we're not anti choice, we're pro life, and then other people saying you're pro birth, not pro life.

So it's uh. This sort of leads us into what I like to call the central mess of this, the whole debate really um and this is as it relates to. You know, legally speaking, there is a larger ethical and moral debate which you know obviously plays a huge party. You can't um remove that, but we're here to talk

about the legal case. But legally speaking, the all caps huge mess, which has always been around and always will be around, is that nobody, doctors and certainly lawyers and justices and judges have never been able to agree on what life means and when that starts. And that is the central crux and the central mess of it all that will never get solved and has never been solved because it's unsolvable. Um, there is no definition that everyone

agrees on. And even the justices in the original Roe v. Wade case admit to this and say, you know, doctors don't agree on this. We certainly can't decide this. So that created this, this quagmire and this uh many pronged debate um over you know, when is it okay? If ever is it a crime? When is it a crime? How severe is that crime? What about the mother and her health? What about the health of a fetus? And

who decides all this stuff? Yeah, we've I mean despite not knowing and maybe not being able to know when life actually begins. Um, there have been attempts over the years at abortion regulations that kind of try to take a stab at it. And one of them was quickening. I saw this was an early nineteenth century one. And quickening is a two for right for yeah, for that moment when you first see Highlander two in your life

changes forever for the better. No, it's actually when the the mother first feels the fetus moving inside of her. They call that quickening, and it's like a super nineteenth century a grarian FARMI um, kind of weird, almost animal term, but that's that's what they called it. And that's when they defined the beginning of life. And that's when they said, okay,

after that, we're regulating abortion after a quickening. That's that was the first attempt and that kind of um that kind of underscores like the the attempts since since then, which are basically based on this idea of viability, Like if that fetus was removed from the mom what chance would it have to survive on its own? And if the if a doctor consensus of doctors say after about this time or at about this state or about this

stage and pregnancy of fetus could probably survive on its own. Um, that has helped kind of define where, uh, where abortion regulation begins and ends. That's right. So um, the Supreme Court back then in the nineteen seventies grappled with this and like I said, they they flat outside. I mean,

here's the quote. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus as to when life technically begins, the judiciary at this point in the development of a man's knowledge, UM is not in a position to speculate, is to the end, sir. So they you know, at least the Supreme Court has flat out said over the years like hey, we can't define this UM. That would have made it even all the trickier if they weighed in saying, well,

here's what we think. Right. So the upshot of all this is, we don't know when life begins, but we do know that there are plenty of women out there who don't, who get pregnant and don't want to carry the fetus to full term. They don't want to have that child for one reason or another. UM. So the government decided that it needed to step in and figure

out how to balance those two things. They said that the state has an invested interest in protecting the life of the unborn while also protecting the interests of a woman's right to choose whether she has a child or not. And they basically took a bunch of plates, they put them on the end of polls, they started spinning them. They got on a unicycle and rode out on a high wire over the Green Canyon. That's right, Yeah, I think that's a good time for a break with that

image in people's heads. And we will talk about the case itself and who Row was and who Wade was right after this, all right, So if you're gonna talk about Roe v. Wade, you gotta talk about Row and Wade. Um Row. And I think, you know, I'm not sure that a lot of people have really studied this. They know, may know a lot about the case, but um, I had never studied it to this degree until we did that, and it's just good information to have, especially these days.

So Row was Jane Rowe obviously a made up name like Jane Doe, and they usually do use Jane Doe. But when there are a bunch of doughe cases on the docket, uh, and especially in this one, there was another dough on the docket that had to do with abortion, uh, Doe v. Bolton, which we'll talk about as well a little bit. Uh, they just change it to Row. It's that simple. But we do know, and we've known for decades now, who Jane Roe really was, and that was

a woman uh named Norma McCorvey and her twenties in Texas. Yeah, so at the time Texas had um one of the most comprehensive band on abortion. It was basically UM. It said, if if the fetus is malformed, their words, if the mother, UM, if the mother's life is in danger, or I think if UM, if the what was the last think, if if it's the product of a rape. Then those are the three different criteria that an abortion could possibly be

UM carried out, under performed under and UM. That meant that since Norman McCorvey didn't didn't fit any of those criteria but still didn't want the kid, that she was looking for an abortion but couldn't get one in Texas. She also didn't have very much money UM and so she couldn't travel out of state like a lot of more well to do women in her situation would have done. So she um started to get desperate because I mean, I didn't say this, chuck, but she had already had

two kids. This was her third child. She wasn't married to the man who UM she had gotten pregnant by, and in fact was a lesbian who was in a committed relationship I think at the time. So yeah, she really did not want to have this kid. Yeah, she had given the other two up for adoption just so everyone knows. It's not like she had two kids at home. Um, she had given the other two up. I think one to a family member, I'm not sure about the other one.

Definitely adopted the second one. The first one was raised by her parents, right, which is also adoption. But she is now in a position where she doesn't want to have this third one and was put in touch with an attorney name Linda Coffee and Coffees partner Sarah Weddington, two recent law school grads who were who were looking

for a case like this. And this is where I don't know if you've seen the great Alexander Payne movie Citizen Ruth, But it's a movie about basically the Roe v. Wade Um debate with Laura Dern and it's his first movie and it's great and it's a great comedic satire. But wait what, you haven't seen it. No, it's comedic. Oh yeah, it's a it's a Alexander Payne satire. Is it a musical comedy? No? No, no, it's just a

movie basically. You know, Laura Dern is the central figure who was a drug addict who is pregnant and gets co opted by both sides like they both have think they have found the golden case to make their case and and true Alexander Paine fashion like, you know, both sides are played rather satirically and there are no, um, no winners. Really. Uh that's great one that sounds like real life for sure. Yeah, but that that basically is

what's happened. So she was um you know, later says she was kind of co opted and manipulated, which we'll get into by these two uh women who were her attorneys. Um. Later in life she became a born again Christian and this is when most of that stuff out about the attorney's manipulating her came out and after being pro choice for her whole life, was pro life. And then uh came out later almost like a deathbed confession, and said, you know what they paid me. The quote was it

was a mutual thing. I took their money. And this is to be clear, the uh, the pro life side paid her uh to reverse course is what she says. At least, it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they put me in front of the cameras told me what to say, and that's what I said. I did it well because I was a good actress. Yeah, and there's a there's a lot of people who argue that she wasn't ever really pro choice either. Um, that that she was um and ed helped us with this one.

That she was basically more of a mercenary who looked out for herself. And I've read quotes from her that basically say as much that she she didn't really care about this whole huge um case that she was the center of. She just wanted an abortion, and that was the thing that she said that she was manipulated about.

That coffee in Weddington basically talked her out of getting an abortion because they were worried that if she didn't um, if she didn't have the child by the time the the Supreme Court heard this case, she would no longer of standing because at the time, the courts used to rule that if you weren't actively pregnant, if you'd already had the kid, your case would just get thrown out

because you weren't pregnant anymore. So who cares. And we'll talk a little more about that in a minute, But that was why, Um, they they supposedly talked her out of it. They say they definitely didn't talk out of it. But at the same time, they didn't help her find an abortion, which is what she was after when she contacted them in the first place. Right. So, uh, if you're wondering why this happened, she was, I believe, pregnant in nineteen sixty nine, and this case wasn't rendered until

nineteen seventy three. It's because a lot of stuff happened in nineteen seventy one. They were gonna begin hearings in December of that year when both Justices Hugo. Black and John Marshall Harlan the second retired from poor health. That was in you know, they died. They both died before the end of nineteen seventy one, so they were definitely in poor health. Yeah, the prophecy turned out to be

correct well and just crazy timing. I mean, I don't think we've seen I we definitely haven't seen anything like that since then. But for two justices to retire, you know, within days of each other as pretty monumental. Um. And so President Nixon of course was looking at chops and appointed William wind Quist. Always have the trouble with that wind Quist. I know, I just go pretend like the

h is called Prince's pride in that moment. Uh and Lewis F. Powell Jr. Nominated on the same day in October seventy one, came in and because these Supreme Court cases take so long to get through, Um, they decided basically, after a lot of handwringing, that even though they had begun hearing arguments on that case, that they would redo it all with the nine justices instead of the seven. Yeah. So this was October two when the case that was

eventually decided started in earnest Um. So yeah, by this time, um. Uh, Norma McCorvey had already had her child, Her child was two and a half years old, and already had been given up for adoption. Um. But they still ruled that she had standing. That essentially it was not moot right, No, it wasn't so so that that's um, let's just talk

about that real quick. So, like I was saying, like courts used to rule that if you weren't actually pregnant, you couldn't have standing in a pregnancy related case, even if you'd filed the initial lawsuit while you were pregnant. You weren't pregnant any longer. So whatever, So the Supreme Court.

One of the things they did in Row was established that um, pregnancy could not be rendered moot because, as they put it, pregnancy provides a classic justification for a conclusion of non muteness, which apparently is a real legal term because it says it could truly be capable of repetition yet evading of you, meaning that any time you um that, like an appellate said, Hey, these guys passed

me over for lack of standing because I'm not pregnant anymore. Um, the following the letter of the law, the appellate court would be like, well, we can't hear because they're right, you don't have standing anymore. So the Supreme Court finally said, forget that pregnancy is a recurring thing. Um, it's a it's a transitory thing, but it's actually a thing, so we need to be able to review it. So they said, yes, if you are a woman who has been pregnant or

even could be pregnant, you have standing in cases like this. Yeah, because basically they would never hear a case because it takes way longer than nine months to like get this thing up to the court system and review it. Yeah, and I mean all the initial prosecutor have to do with be like file a bunch of emotions to delay it for nine months and then the case gets automatically thrown out. And they even say, like, our law should not be that rigid. So that was a big thing

that they did in in the row Um opinion. For a brief side track into levity, I cannot hear the word moot without thinking of that great Saturday Night Live sketch with Jesse Jackson years ago, the question is moot? Did you ever see that one? No, it was a game show called the Question Is Moot, and Jesse Jackson was the game show host, and basically he would just he would laugh out a big question and anytime someone would go to answer it, he would just interrupt him

and say, the question is moot. And like my brother and I said the question is moot to each other over and over for your period of years when we were kids. It was pretty great. No, I've never seen that one. Alright, So back to Roe v. Wade funniness now over Um, we have to talk about a few of these cases because you know, we tend to think of Roe v. Wade as this sort of this vacuum single case but there were many cases that went into

UM kind of shaping what ended up happening UM. The first of which was probably UM United States versus v Which, which was in one when a doctor in d C, Dr Bowich, was performing abortions and said uh, and was prosecuted for doing so under d C law because d C law said, um necessary it can only be done if it was necessary for the preservation of the mother's life or health. Key under the direction of a competent

licensed practitioner of medicine. And he said, this is really unconstitutionally vague of of what that means, like what does health of the mother even mean? And a really key thing came out of that, right, Yeah, they they said, Nope, it's actually not overly vague. It actually makes sense. But they ruled in their opinion, so they ruled against voisch

Um and in favor of DC's abortion law. But they did say, but we could see how health could include something like a mother's psychological health or the impact an unwinded child might have on a family that but he knew and that was huge. So that was a precedent. And we saw in the Freedom of the Press episode that sometimes justices will like rule against the person, but then we'll establish a foundation for a later case by just mentioning something like that, and that's what they did

in that case. Another few cases that had a big impact were the first two were Meyer versus Nebraska in nineteen twenty three, which was post World War One. There was a large anti German sentiment, so they basically enacted laws and said, you can't teach foreign languages in school anymore. Only English is the only language you can teach. Uh. And then Pierce versus Society of Sisters, which was based on based on an Oregon case where the state of Oregon said all kids have to go to public school.

You can't go to private school because of the Oregon Compulsory Education Act. So those two factor in and how they affected how the Fourteenth Amendment and the Ninth Amendment

were framed in terms of row. And it's a little confusing, but it's a little wonky, but the upshot of it is that the the in nineteen twenty three and nineteen twenty five, the Supreme Court established a precedent by saying we're going to start in interpreting the Ninth Amendment, which basically says, even though we've mentioned some stuff in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights specifically, that doesn't mean that other stuff isn't constitutionally protected, like there are other

rights to that we didn't mention. Figure it out, Supreme Court basically what the framers were saying, or the Ninth Amendment writers, and then the fourteenth Amendment UH grants equal protection under the law with due process. It's called the due process clause. And so they put these two things together and they basically said that um, that that the Court now has the ability to interpret whether something not

mentioned in the Constitution is a constitutionally protected right. That's what those two cases did, and that established a longstanding precedent that gave the Supreme Court that ability. Sure, because the Constitution was written in the eighteenth and nineteen centuries, and obviously there were not things like the Internet back then and all kinds of things that we have to

decide upon these days. So but if you're an original list, then that's great because that just means that you can overturn the existence of the Internet by outlawing it if you're a Supreme Court just that's right. What did Thomas Jefferson think uh. Griswold versus Connecticut was the other case in ninety five, and they used that. I don't think we said that was the doctrine was ended up being called substantive. Jeez, here we go, substantive due process. Can

I take a crack at it? I would say substantive due process. Substantive. Yeah, you know why, because that's correct. I knew I was tripping over it a very obvious thing. They're substantive, substantive due process. Let's just call it SDP. Uh So in sixty five with Grizzwald versus Connecticut, they use that s DP doctrine to say that Americans also have a right to privacy because that's not mentioned in

the Constitution either. But like I mean, this kind of opened up all what we you call like the bedroom cases, which is, hey, we can't um legislate what happens in someone's bedroom. That's that's a right, inherent right to privacy, and that covers and that ended up covering according to Scotus, marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education, which was sort of

the basis of everything in terms of row. Yeah, and Grizzwald versus Connecticut was not really the first case that tested that. I think Loving versus West Virginia, which UM the Supreme Court overruled laws that that UM kept interracial couples from marrying UM. But but Grizzwold versus Connecticut was short on the heels of that, and it was over

birth control rights. But also that led the that right to privacy, that substantive due process doctrine kind of led to the creation of UM, led to everything from the the support for gay marriage, UM overturning laws that band gay sex, I mean, all sorts of different stuff. It just basically said there's really private things in people's everyday lives that the government has no business or no saying.

So we're just gonna leave that alone. But there's a big problem with that, Chuck, And this is a huge problem, at least as far as law goes. The idea that Americans have a right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution is technically illegal fiction. If you're an originalist and you read the Constitution literally and you say, okay, what would the founders think about this? What were they thinking at

the time they wrote this document? Then they would say they didn't put right to privacy in there, and maybe they do have a right to privacy. Americans do, but it's not in the constitution, meaning that it could be overturned later by a court because it's not constitutionally protected. And that is what put Roe v. Wade on shaky ground from the beginning, is that it was argued and

decided as a right to privacy case. And again, privacy in this sense is not privacy like you and I would think of like you know, nobody looking over his shoulder, but more um, the an American's ability and freedom to make decisions about what affects their own personal life without government intervention, that term of privacy. But by basing it on that, it's set Roe v. Wade up on rather shaky legal foundation. Uh. And that was actually a kind

of a pet argument of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Yeah, I mean, she was on record as saying that she thought it was on shaky ground and for good reason, and that it should have never been decided on those grounds. And and uh was was certainly not saying that she was pro life, but was on record as saying that it tried to do too much, to sweeping too fast, and the way it should have gone about, Uh was you know X y Z and uh So who knows what had happened, what would have happened had she um you know,

had to cover one of these cases. But well, what she was at the time one of her cases was was on its way to the Supreme Court and it was an abortion case. It just got um decided or or it was resolved because the Air Force changed its policy. So she could have been the one who argued the abortion case in front of the Supreme Court. Yeah, I'm

really curious how that would have panned out. But the well, the way that she suggested it should have been done is rather um basing it on the right to privacy, it should have been based on the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth Amendment, because she her her logic was that by forcing women to be pregnant, the government is forcing a condition on women that men are not subject to, and that that is by definition, gender discrimination, which is

uh protected against by the Equal Protection Clause. So that's in the Constitution. So what Ruth Bader Ginsburg was saying, if you had argued and decided row on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause, it would have been virtually ironclad from day one, and it wasn't. It was on shaky legal ground, and anybody who knew the law knew that it could be challenged. He just had to chip away a road at it, make all these different arguments, and sooner or later a changing court would start finding

holes in it because they knew the law too. That's right, Uh, great, time for another break, I think, So let's come back, uh and talk a little bit more about Rob Wade. Yeah. Sure, that's a good idea. I was thinking we changed the Zeppelin's mid mid episode led Zeppelin. I would do that actually, all right, So, Chuck, I think you said, um that the Roe v. Wade was, um, just one of a number of cases that we're making its way to the Supreme Court. At that time around, I think there was

something like eight teen cases. And the reason that America went from abortion laws starting in the nineteenth century to all of a sudden, a bunch of them being challenged from different states all at once, was because in the sixties there was so much social change, and one of the big changes is that women were getting out from

under men's thumbs. They were going into the workplace, they were taking birth control pills, they were taking control of their lives in ways that they never had been before. But they saw very clearly, very early on and long before the sixties, that one of the major paths to self determination was their ability to choose whether to terminate

a pregnancy or not. And that's why, all at once they were like at least eighteen cases coming to the Supreme Court that that UM sought to overturn abortion bands. That's right, Uh, And all of these cases sort of played into it. Some were actually joined to ROW, some were decided alongside Row. One of them was John and Mary Doe. They filed a complaint because uh the wife Mary. Of course, that probably wasn't her real name, right, I don't think that they would have been a heck of

a coincidence. Well, I mean Mary. They couldn't use Jane anymore either, so oh yeah, I guess not. They went from Jane Doe to Jane Row to marry at Dough and maybe there would have been a Mary Row eventually, who knows. But she couldn't continue to take birth control role uh pills for health reasons, and so they argued that the government was infringing on their right to have sex as a married couple without getting pregnant. Basically, Um James Halford was a Texas doctor who was arrested for

violating the Texas abortion band that was tagged on. And then we mentioned Doe versus Bolton earlier. This was a Georgia case which was really similar to Roe v. Wade. Georgia just had a bunch of kind of hoops you had to jump through to get a legal abortion, and they they decided that at the same time, and we could be talking about DOVEE. Bolton more. It just kind of went the other way and we talked Roe v. Wade more, but it was the same kind of deal

equally as important. Yeah, the thing is I read that UM Bolton went further, like way further that the the case was. They were both published on the same day. But then in Dovie Bolton, the Supreme Court essentially said, like a woman should be able to get an abortion and for basically any reason she wants that they couldn't see any genuine reason why, um, the government should be able to tell a woman that she she couldn't terminate

a pregnancy. That there just wasn't a good reason. And I guess that fact or that argument didn't come up in Roe v. Wade, but it did come up in Dovie Bolton, and you mentioned that it was a Georgia law and that there were some hoops that that basically um the um. The Jane Doe in that case was saying, um, like George is just putting up obstacles barriers just to

keep me from getting an abortion. And there were a bunch Your doctor had to agree to it in the first place, they had to go consult with two different doctors who both had to agree that you should have the abortion. Then your doctor had to go get permission from a hospital review board where the abortion would be performed. If it was um. If it was because of rape, you had to produce proof of rape, proof of the

rape to get an abortion. So you basically had to bring a note from the local police saying, yes, this woman was raped and became pregnant as a result of it. Like that's nuts in and of itself. And then also your family or even a court attorney could block it, could could petition to for you not to have the abortion, and it would come before a judge to hear whether

it should proceed or not. I would say there's a lot of obstacles mixed up in there in that Georgia law, I would agree with you, um, And that was decided, like I said, alongside row and in the end, uh, well the end at the time at least, um, Supreme Court World seven two in favor of Jane Rowe uh January. Justice Blackman wrote the majority opinion did the same for Doe versus Bolton, also a seven two decision, and Byron

White and William oh God, William Renquist, thank you very much. UM. They were the ones who did not join the majority in those cases. And you know again it was it was based on those ninth and fourteenth Amendments, and they basically said that an unwanted child can be a serious problem for both the physical and mental health of the mother uh and the family and even the child. And the government forcing families to take uh, to take this

burden on violated the right to privacy. Um, you want to hit us with a little bit of the uh. The majority opinion. Yeah, they were saying, like, um, you you like it could be harmful to the woman's health, and you could diagnose that even early in pregnancy, So why should the government block that treatment from a doctor

or Um, it might force the stressful life onto a woman. Um, she might suffer psychological harm by it, just from even raising a kid, especially a kid that is unwanted, which is going to have an impact on the child itself and how the child is raised. Um. They basically said, like there's an also, don't forget like the stigma of unwed mothers. Like, are we going to also force the woman to get married too because she's uh an unwed mother. No, we're not gonna do that, but there is a social stigma.

They called out like a pretty decent handful of reasons why the government saying no, you cannot get abortions was unfair to women and unconstitutional as a result. And you know a lot of that has been um uh well basically proven in what's called the Turnaway Study, which for some reason I was calling the Takeaway Study. Uh. The

Turnaway Study is um a longitudinal study that was performed. Uh. They basically took a thousand women from three different groups, women who sought an abortion up to three weeks over the limit who were called and we're denied. They're called turnaways, uh, which is where the study gets his name. Women who sought an abortion up to two weeks under the limit and did receive the abortion. And then women who received an abortion in the first trimester, and we'll talk about

all the trimester stuff here in a bit too. But what the Turnaway Study found was a lot of things. UM. Women who were denied abortions were more likely to experience UH complications from the indo pregnancy UM, including death, more likely to stay tethered to abuse of partners very big one, less likely to have aspirational life plans for the coming year. UM. What else? UM, I mean, there's a lot of financial

burden to being denied an abortion. UM was linked to a lower credit score, a higher amount of debt, and increasing the number of negative public financial records like bankruptcies and evictions just from being denied an abortion. And women reported that having the abortion was the right decision over a five year period after the procedure. That's a pretty

key finding. Yeah, And that turn Away study has been like widely lauded as a gold standards buddy, because these researchers figured out how to create, um, you know, an experiment under natural conditions like the women involved in the experiment in the study, the only essentially the only thing that differentiated them was when if they had gone to the abortion clinic just before the cut off or just

after the cut off. That was it like, there was a follow up Okay, so but those the first two groups, like that was the only difference. UM. There was a follow up study that looked at the methodology that they used and found that UM like analyzing the different participants credit scores showed that they were like. They virtually had

the same credit scores. They were that similar economically education wise, UM and that when where they diverged was when they were either granted an abortion or turned away for an abortion. And the turned away for abortion groups life like started

to go downhill. The UM the receiving an abortion UH groups UH suffered a slight dip in mental health that that recovered, they recovered from and then apparently over five years, the thing that they most frequently expressed as an emotion or thought about it was relief UM for having been able to to get the abortion that they'd wanted. So that's a turnaway study. Like I encourage people to go check this out and read more about it. UH. Back to Roe v. Wade, one of the crucial parts of

the decision was this legal term strict scrutiny. Uh, And that means that if you have a uh, if it is a right that you're deciding upon this guaranteed by the Constitution, then any restrictions on any laws that you're gonna put down or put forth have to be narrowly tailored, uh, to only limit the right in that case where the government thinks like we should get involved here. So that's why, like the Second Amendment is in the Constitution that you

have right to keep in bear arms. So any restrictions place, and this is why it's so hard to get anything passed any on gun legislation. Any restrictions on that is protected by the Second Amendment, so it has to be

narrowly tailored to serve just that case. Yeah, because the the government has an inherent interest in protecting human life, but they also have to protect the Second Amendments guarantee to bear arms, right to have a gun, So they have to figure out through their laws how to say, like prevent mass shootings without infringing on people's right to have a gun. That's why this is so hard and so pernicious. Like you were saying, that's just gun rights.

I mean the abortion issue makes gun rights seem like a walk in the park. Yeah, absolutely, because in in the case of Roe v. Wade, Scotis determined that laws restricting abortion had to be narrowly tailored um to that state's compelling interests to protect the health of the mother. Uh. And this is where we get back, kind of for

full circle to that central mess. With this quote, some argue that the woman's right is absolute, that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time and whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. We uh sorry with this, we do not agree. Uh. And in that quote kind of sprang up this the central mess again, which is how do we define life and how do we define where life starts? Again there, everyone has their own opinions. Some people say, from the second two cells

are joined together, then that's a potential human life. Uh. Other people say that is not the case. So they had to come up with what ended up being a pretty uh initially arbitrary system of deciding this. So they invented trimesters, which is, you know, months one through three, uh four through six, and uh seven, eight and nine during a pregnancy. And in terms of rov Wade, the first trimester you could get an abortion and that it was legal, and second trimester there were restrictions if your

state wanted to have them. And in the third trimester, uh, you could ban an abortion outright if he wanted to in your state. And the quote here is that's the point where a fetus is quote presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb. And what I thought when I was hearing this was I'm surprised that hasn't been challenged, because that would be the stickiest of all cases if someone really wanted to to throw a

wrench in this whole idea. Is for a woman to say, I've just entered my seventh month and I want to have a c section today because you're telling me that I have a viable, uh human being growing inside of me at this point, and if you don't agree with me, let's take it to court and let them decide. Huh. That person would be the most reviled person in America for trying that. But yeah, that would definitely be a

messy test case for sure. But the problem with this trimester framework, like like we said earlier, with quickening, with the idea of viability outside of the womb, like science

doesn't know. We just don't have that information right now, and so the the whole idea is kind of arbitrary because science is actually advanced by leaps and bounds and its ability to keep a baby alive way earlier than the first trimester than the third trimester, which led abortion anti abortion UM groups to say, well, wait a minute, if we can do that and it's before the third trimester, we should be banning abortion earlier than that, just the

third trimester. And that led to a bunch of challenges UM against Roe v. Wade because again, like we said, it's widely considered to have been based on shaky legal foundation. So there have been challenges a plenty. But the thing is is, up to this point, the Supreme Court has always overruled those challenges to large decree or at the

very least in every single case upheld Roe v. Wade. Uh, and it's it's ban on full bands on abortion, that's right, and UH Planned Parenthood versus Casey is a shining example of that. This was the case where the Supreme Court upheld UM almost all of the two Pennsylvania law that was kind of like the Georgia law in Dovie Bolton, where they had a series of obstacles. Um, I believe in this case it was spousal notice, parental consent for miners,

and uh a twenty four hour waiting period. So in this case there was not It was decided on um plurality. I can't believe I can say that word. Um, there was no majority that agreed to one specific verdict in this case. That's a plurality. And nowlet's see there, I go jinx myself. Um, that's what that substantive plurality of ring quists. Oh my gosh. Um, So in this kind of case, you don't have like a majority opinion and

the dissenting opinion. You have a bunch of opinions, or you know, several opinions that are written with different parts agreeing with different elements. Basically, yeah, and that's what happened. Apparently four of the judges wanted to overrule Roe v. Wad or overturn Roe v. Waight entirely in this case. Two wanted to uphold it entirely and just throw the Pennsylvania law out. And then three of them, Um, Sandra da O'Connor, David Suter and Anthony Kennedy. I think all

of them were appointed by conservative presidents. Um basically took the middle ground and they said, you know, um, we're we're just gonna say, the only part of that Pennsylvania law that should be struck down his spousal uh notification, because that is an owners undue burden. Um. But we're gonna tinker with the law a little bit. And one of the things that they did they got rid of the trimester framework and they instead said, um, the viability of the fetus, as determined by a doctor should be

when abortion restrictions can begin. So you take I means as unscientific as the trimester system was chuck, at the very least a provided objective guidance for women and abortion providers. Um. They threw that out with with Casey and replaced it with viability of a fetus right. And they also downgraded that strict scrutiny that we talked about, that standard that

came along with row of undue burden. So, UM, a law could be unconstitutional if it placed a substantial quote substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a non viable fetus. Uh. End quote. And the long and short of what all of this did was it made it easier to put more restrictions on abortion without overturning a row. Yeah, because, um, the Supreme Court didn't say and here's what an undue burden is.

They they didn't at all, which means that it's open to state legislatures to start passing more and more restrictive abortion laws to test where that boundary is. And then that's how we we got here. Casey opened the door for that to basically say, let's find out what is

an undue burden. Let's see what you got state legislatures, and they started tripping over themselves to come up with the most restrictive abortion laws that they could um and and fin and get them into the Supreme Court in the hopes of eventually reaching a court that would say, you know what, let's just let's just forget about this whole thing. We don't think that Roe v. Wades should stand at all. And that's exactly what happened last week. Of course, it was leaked earlier in the year, but

officially the Dobbs case was rendered last week. Uh Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Aid and said it's now up to the states. Many states that trigger laws and effect. Many more had laws that are soon to follow. And this is just the beginning of what is to come, which is a lot of uncertainty, including people like Mike Pence saying, uh, even though we have long said it should be states right, what I really think we should

do is make a federal ban. UM. People on the pro choice sider obviously very upset uh for a lot of reasons, but namely because of a few specific things. Uh, first of which is Brett Kavanaugh. Justices Kavanaugh and Neil Gorcichu in particular led people to believe under oath during their confirmation hearings that this was settled law and quote precedent upon precedent. Um. People like Alexandria Occacio Cortez have said, Um, just in the last couple of days, like, hey, that's impeachable.

They were under oath. But when you look at their quotes, Uh, they didn't say they would not overturn row. They use that very slippery confirmation language. Um, it's misleading under oath, but that is not going to end up being an impeachable offense. I have the quotes, but you can you

can read them. There are all kinds of articles out there. Yeah, when you read them, you're like, Nope, they didn't And that was a huge failure on the UM Democratic senators who couldn't bring themselves to apparently ask them directly, would you overturn Roe v. Wade? They wouldn't answer, though. They asked Amy Coney Barrett, they asked Clarence Thomas, and they

they literally didn't answer. So the other thing that is uh that pro choice, the pro choice that is pretty upset about is uh the idea that five of these justices were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote. UM. So we're in a situation where five of the nine justices sitting on the Supreme Court were decided by a minority of Americans voting UM, and people like Elizabeth Warner calling for the end of the electoral college as a result. Man,

wouldn't that be a gift? The third thing that is upsetting to the pro choice side or how two of these justices were confirmed with Mitch McConnell um not allowing the Obama nomination Merritt Garland to even go before committee because it was eight months before an election. In an electioneer whereas Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed in the thirty five days leading up to the election, the shortest gap

between the confirmation and election in US history. And the third thing or is that the fourth thing four is that Uh, people like Elizabeth Warren are rightfully bringing up the notion that the Constitution was written in at a time when women not only had no vote, but they had no voice. And it was written entirely by men in the eighteenth and nineteen centuries. Uh, white men who Um, they believe that the Constitution is a living document. That

and those things need to be taken into account. Like had women been able to have their hand in the Constitution, things might have been written differently, differently. And we're in a different world now where women do have a voice and they do have a vote. Um. But this is you know, this is a decades long victory for conservatives. Uh. That started long long ago, Uma far farmalaxy, far far away. Like you know when when Trump had his list, you know, he he doesn't come up with a list, He gets

handed a list. Uh. And this list of justices, potential justices were hand picked by the Federalist Society, an organization of conservative lawyers run by or at least the list was basically tailored by men and Leonard Leo. And you know, I think there are people on the left that say these justices were hand picked because they absolutely knew that they would overturn Row and that was always a part of the plan, and that they were coached to be

as vague as possible in the confirmation hearings too. What people on the left side would fool, people like uh, Susan Collins and uh and uh, what's his name? Mansion Mansion, Yeah, mansion qui. So, uh, that's what has really upset people on the pro choice side, those specific things, and that just that has nothing even to do with the the ethics and morals of abortion even well. Plus also there's there's some other things that people are really really concerned about.

One is that the Supreme Court just basically said that Roe v. Wade was based on that right privacy, which is a they decided was um a legal fiction created by activist justices back in the sixties, UM, and that they overturned that. And since um not just Roe v. Wade, but also gay marriage, the ability for a married couple to access birth control, UM, gay sex a whole bunch of different privacy issues are based on that same legal fiction.

Then all those things are up for grabs too. So a lot of people are worried that this Supreme Court will overturn gay marriage and all of a sudden, your marriage will be null and void if you're a gay, if if you're a gay couple who was married in the United States, that's incredibly scary as well. Piled on top of you know, the um a ban on abortion essentially is what what's happening now or at least in

some states. And then, like you said, Mike Pence was calling for a federal band and uh, that's another thing that are making people on the pro choice side really

worried that essential personhood will be granted to fetuses. That some state somewhere, I would guess probably in the Midwest or the South, would come up with an abortion ban or even a resolution that they adopt as a law that says life begins at conception in the state of Oklahoma, right, and that somebody would sue them and it would go to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court would say, you know what, Oklahoma's right, Fetuses are people and they

deserve all the constitutional protections under the law, if so facto you could not abort any fetus anywhere at any time. There is now a federal ban on abortion entirely. That's something that's scaring um uh, proponents of choice as well. Yeah, and you know just the kind of worms that's been opened up now as far as enforcement and are you going to send police after people? Are you going to send police across state lines if people are able to get the funds to travel across state lines to a

state still allows abortion. Uh, it's just the beginning of of a lot of uncertainty for a lot of people. Well. Plus, also, if you are pro life or your anti abortion, and you have um a problem with the with the the decision of Row and say that it was judicial activism, you have to admit that what just happened in Dobbs was judicial activism. It just went the opposite way. And there's a lesson in there. Judicial activism is bad on

either way. We're supposed to leave it to Congress to create laws that say this is the law, not the Supreme Court to come up with laws on its own and then overturn those same very controversial laws. Fifty years later, that's not what's supposed to happen. It completely erodes any trust in the Supreme Court and its ability to be like the final arbiters of what's right and what's wrong in the United States. And that's what's going on right now. But you know, that's that's just because the shoe is

and the other foot to the other foot. There were plenty of people who lived from nineteen seventy three onward with that same view of that Supreme Court and are perfectly happy with this Supreme Court. And that's the that's the big problem, not just with this issue, but with America. I feel like today is it's just all tipped for tat. You know, yeah, maybe there should never be lifetime appointments. Oh,

definitely not. That's definitely not. That is I mean, if there's one thing that's just a no brainer as far as American law is concerned, lifetime appointments to the panel that decides ultimately what's law and what's not in the United States is just a bad idea. Yeah, let's have term limits to pour at it. It's too much power. Man's people are supposed to have that much power for

that long. It creates a really screwed up system. Yeah, it definitely does, all right, since I said screwed up system, wait a minute, Wait a minute, that's my part. I'm always want to say it though. Anyway, since Chuck's had screwed up system, it's time for listener mail chime. I'm gonna end this on a lighter note. Uh, that might bring a smile to people's faces. Hey guys, a few years ago, on one of your numerous and wonderful tangents,

used the phrase don't yuck someone's yum. I love how simple this was and summed up in ethos of being kind of people no matter their beliefs and opinions. Fast forward and now, and I've used this simple saying when bringing up my two daughters, who have just turned five and three, as a way of teaching them manners and kindness. Yesterday I had a message from my three year old childminder saying that my daughter had told another child not

to yuck someone's young and how great that was. She liked it so much, she's going to make it a saying that she used when teaching the children that she looks after going forward. Uh. It was then passed on to the parents of the other kids who all reported back that they would also be using it in passing on nice Uh. And by the way, Matt, we didn't invent that. I believe that could from a listener, right, yep, definitely,

So hats off to the anonymous listener who that's right. Uh. Some people might wish you stay on topic for but I'm here to tell you that even you're off the cuff, comments can educate others, and you can be safe in the knowledge that you've helped in still good manners and a growing number of children in Berkshire, England. Oh wow, I wasn't expecting that Barkshire even give me a pronunciation. Keep night, so you said sheer right, sheer, Like I

said Burke, not bark Barkshire. So it's Barkshire, but it's spelled Berkshire. Okay, you get my drift. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I'm gonna start calling up state in New York. Now, barks here, let's go weekend in the bark shears there, let's do it. Uh. That's from Matt Walford. Thank you, Matt. That was very kind of you to let us know we're glad that we're enacting really positive change. In your kids schools and uh that was kind, so thanks. Uh

keep it up. If you want to be like Matt and get in touch with us and tell us something kind that we helped to you. We love to hear that stuff. You can send us an email to stuff podcast did i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.