Abortion Cases Since 2016
- From the webpage: “Today’s Postscript focuses on abortion politics in the United States, with particular attention to the April 7, 2023 federal court decisions in Texas and Washington controlling access to mifepristone and the wider political forces at play. We have a slightly different format for today’s emergency podcast – spanning four time zones. First, legal historian Mary Ziegler, Martin Luther King Professor of Law at UC Davis, shares insights on the two cases – and why the Texas opinion is such a radical departure with regards to standing and legal language. Then Political Scientist Rebecca Kreitzer, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides a deep dive on the role of the Comstock Act of 1873 and why this 19th century law helps us understand 21st century reproductive politics. The podcast concludes with two scholars of politics and law Dr. Renée Ann Cramer, Professor of Law, Politics, and Society at Drake University and Dr. Joshua C. Wilson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Denver). They pull back the curtain on the cases to expose the ways in which those who oppose abortion have created parallel organizations to provide the false expertise relied upon in the Texas decision. We also talk about the wider implications of banning approved medications for trans people.”
- From the webpage: “On November 8th, American voters did something relatively remarkable for a midterm election. We now know that Democrats will keep the Senate (perhaps even expand it by a seat) and that Republicans will narrowly take the House. This is a massive underperformance for Republicans.Along with a lot of other people, I’m interested in understanding what happened – and specifically, how the Dobbs decision and the abortion question might have influenced this election – if at all. So, my guest today is…”
- From the webpage: “The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse abortion rights is reverberating across America. Arguably nowhere more so than in South Bend, Indiana, a small city in the heart of the Midwest”
“Post-Roe Politics,” Postscript/New Books Network, May 13, 2022.
- From the webpage: “Today’s Postscript uniquely engages abortion politics by addressing structural political issues (voter suppression, gerrymandering, dilutions of minority voting, obstacles to women registering their positions politically), inconsistencies in Justice Samuel Alito’s majority draft, the ascent of the medical profession, the intersection of race, gender, and religion, narratives of morality, the genesis of white evangelical opposition, myths created by popular culture and abortion stereotypes, and more. Dr. Lilly J. Goren (Professor of Political Science and Global Studies at Carroll University), Dr. Rebecca Kreitzer (Associate Professor of Public Policy and Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Dr. Andrew R. Lewis (Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati), Dr. Candis Watts Smith (Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University and co-host of the Democracy Works Podcast) and Dr. Joshua C. Wilson (Professor of Political Science at the University of Denver).”
- From the text: “Earlier this month, as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over Mississippi’s restrictive abortion law in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the justices gave serious consideration to dubious science. This was not the first time. For decades, right-wing funders and advocates have invested in institutions and individual researchers that will question scientific consensus and advance unproven theories…Our research suggests that the investment in the politics of doubt has also been aimed at the courts. Rather than investing in replicable scientific inquiry, various organizations fight science by peddling doubt and discord.”
- From the episode description: “The debate over abortion rights has been looming in this country for years – and in early December, the Supreme Court heard arguments about a Mississippi state abortion ban (Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization). On today’s show, I chat with Josh Wilson, who is a professor and the chair of the political science department at the University of Denver, about this case, the shifts on the Supreme Court, and what this decision will mean for the court’s legitimacy.”
- From the text: “…the most striking parts of the oral argument in Dobbs put the Supreme Court on trial. The liberal justices repeatedly warned that a decision that upheld this abortion ban would irreparably damage the public sense of the court’s legitimacy. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor remarked, ‘If people actually believe it’s all political, how will we survive? How will the court survive?'”
“Abortion Ban in Texas: On the Future of Reproductive Justice and Constitutional Rights,” (with Profs. Carrie Baker, Cora Fernandez Anderson, Krystale Littlejohn, & Jamie Rowen Moderating) Center for Justice, Law, & Societies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, September 14, 2021.
- From the CJLS Webpage: “On September 14th, a group of featured speakers discussed the recent developments in Texas abortion law. Each speaker has unique experience in reproductive rights such as the gendered nature of birth control, abortion politics, reproductive justice, and the decriminalization of abortion.”
“The Changing Landscape of Abortion Politics,” (with Profs. Renée Ann Cramer, Rebecca Kreitzer, Andrew R. Lewis, Mary Ziegler, & Susan Liebell Hosting) Postscript: New Books Network – Book of the Day, Political Science, Law, Public Policy, Medicine, & American Studies, September 13, 2021.
- From Postscript: “Today’s Postscript (a special series that allows scholars to comment on pressing contemporary issues) engages the latest chapter in American abortion politics as the United States Supreme Court has just allowed a Texas statute banning abortions after 6 weeks to go into effect. Lilly Goren and Susan Liebell have assembled a panel of experts in political science and law to interrogate the construction of the Texas law, the Supreme Court ruling, and how these cases map onto the wider political landscape.”
- This one-hour panel discussion covers a broad range of issues related to the history, politics, and potential future ramifications of Texas’s SB 8 and the Supreme Court’s initial response to the law. While a range of issues are covered, it still provides substantial depth.
- This Washington Post Monkey Cage piece was the subject of misreading by some progressives and misappropriation by conservatives. It is meant to situate Texas’s SB 8 in historic context; showing how conservatives have adopted and modified a legal strategy–private enforcement–that has a largely progressive history. Both sides of the political spectrum have gravitated to private enforcement when the state lacks the capacity to meet the ends they seek. Beyond the shift in substantive focus, SB 8 is unique in this lineage in that conservatives have untethered the strategy from the standing limitations that have constrained past private enforcement laws. Ironically, they seek to use what they have long criticized, and they are able to do so because of the legal infrastructure that they have built in the past three decades.
- With a string of 5 “culture war” opinions released in the course of a month, the Court’s face value rulings appear to hand out wins to both progressives and social conservatives. In this piece, though, we argue that the Christian Right’s record is far stronger than it first appears–both in the immediate, and, importantly, moving into the future.
- This is a University of Denver produced podcast discussing three major Supreme Court decisions announced at the end of June 2020. My segment on the political implications of June Medical Services covers the opening 13 minutes. From here, Professors Rachel Arnow-Richman & César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández cover Bostock v. Clayton County and Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California respectively.
- This piece attempts to put the June Medical Services v Russo decision in a broader political context – both in terms of Trump’s relationship with white evangelicals, and the recent abortion legislation in both conservative and progressive states.
- Written in the wake of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the piece posits the ways that the anti-abortion movement will likely have to reframe and reimagine its efforts.
Letter to the Editor, New York Times (Print & Electronic), June 28, 2016
- Written in response to the New York Times’s coverage of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the letter asks readers to consider the ruling’s affects on the dominant form of abortion politics.
- Written in the wake of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the piece posits how the ruling will fundamentally change the politics of abortion.
- Written immediately before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the piece accurately predicts the ruling and posits why Justice Kennedy will side with abortion-rights advocates.
- Written after the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Whole Woman’s Health v Hellerstedt, this piece discusses the cases importance – both before and after the death of Justice Scalia.
JC Wilson 