In 2018, host Kai Wright visited the Alabama Women’s Center in Huntsville, to learn how abortion providers were dealing with the state’s new law that sought to make their practice a felony crime. The law was one of several that Republican controlled states passed in an effort to provoke a Supreme Court ruling on Roe. 

A leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in a separate case suggests the Court is now poised to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.  So we revisit this 2018 story, to hear first hand from the medical providers who are determined to provide this health care – and learn the political history of this moment.  

Reporting for this episode was supported in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Jane and Gerald Katcher and the Katcher Family Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Companion listening for this episode:

How to End the Dominion of Men 

Why is masculinity so often conflated with domination? And how do we separate the two? Kai turns to a historian and to a novelist for answers. 

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

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Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.