It’s been exactly a year since the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, thereby eliminating the federal constitutional right to abortion. Last May, shortly after that decision was leaked to the press, bioethicist and legendary abortion rights activist Frances Kissling visited The Unspeakable to talk about the likely implications of this ruling.  Now Frances is back to reflect on what’s transpired since then, whether things are better or worse than many people feared, and what the downstream political effects have been. She talks about organizational efforts on the part of medical providers, activists, and even airplane pilots to get women to places where abortion is legally available and how American women are actually now traveling to Mexico to get safe and legal abortions. Finally, she expands on her comments from last May about how the “abortion on demand” messaging of the pro-choice side contributed to the extreme polarization that has made compromise impossible. 

Frances is president of Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy and was president of Catholics for Choice from 1982 until 2007. She worked as an abortion provider in New York State in the early 1970s, before the passage of Roe, which she talked about in her May 8, 2022 interview on The Unspeakable. She just celebrated her 80th birthday and she stays over time for paying subscribers to talk about what it’s like to be 80, how she was once told she’d die unless someone donated a kidney to her, and, finally, what it’s like to grow older without children or a partner (it has its upsides!) To hear that portion, become a paying subscriber at https://meghandaum.substack.com/.

Guest Bio:

Frances Kissling is currently President of the Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy in Washington, DC and a professor of philosophy and ethics. She was the president of Catholics for Choice from 1982 to 2007 and has been working in the abortion rights movement since the very early 1970s.