Candis Watts Smith takes a turn in the interviewer's chair this week for a conversation about abortion and American democracy following the passage of SB8 in Texas and the Supreme Court's response to it. Like a lot of things in American democracy, it's complicated.

As Candis says in the episode, it isn’t typical for us to discuss “hot topics” or policy matters, per se, on Democracy Works. But, this policy and the Supreme Court’s response to it throws a great number of matters related to democracy into relief, including federalism, the role of the Court to protect and uphold the U.S. Constitution and constitutional rights, state politics as laboratories of democracy and policy innovation, and partisan strategies to create the country in their ideological image. 

Candis talks with Rebecca Kreitzer, associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an expert on gender and political representation, reproductive health policy and political inequality.  Rebecca was one of our first guest on Democracy Works back in 2018 and we're thrilled to have her back for a second appearance on this critically-important topic.

Additional Information

Rebecca's Monkey Cage article on Texas's  heartbeat law

Postscript podcast on abortion from the New Books Network

Rebecca Kreitzer on Twitter

Related Episodes

Behind the scenes of the "year of the woman" - Rebecca's first appearance on the show