This week’s episode: Policing pregnancy

If the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade, states could set their own rules about abortion. Some states already have closed clinics, and for those that remain, they’ve added obstacles – such as collecting personal data about people who get abortions and declaring that fetuses have civil rights from conception.

Exploring Americans’ unequal access to abortion 

In Arizona, when someone goes to the doctor to get an abortion, state law says they have to fill out a form with their demographic information and also pick a reason why they’re seeking the medical procedure. This week’s episode explores the current legal frontier of abortion access in the United States, including what data states collect about people who get abortions and the push for “fetal personhood” laws that give fetuses legal rights. Emily Harris helped both report and edit the episode, which arrives at a crucial time in American history as the right-leaning Supreme Court could soon take up the issue of whether Roe v. Wade will remain the law of the land. 

What was the impetus for this show? 

We got a freelance pitch back in 2019 from reporter Ashley Cleek. She was specifically looking at the increase in personal data that states collect on people who get abortions. She wanted to dive into how much personal identification state governments gather and the purpose. That was her real driving question: What is this used for? What’s done with this data? 

What felt important to you about reporting this episode right now? 

When you go back and listen to the arguments that Sarah Weddington made – she was the lawyer who represented Jane Roe in front of the Supreme Court in 1971 and again in 1972 – it's amazing how relevant they still are 50 years later. She told the justices that pregnancy is a defining experience in many ways.

Noting that it changes your body, it affects how you are viewed in society, it affects your employment. It is both a beautiful, wonderful thing and a very disruptive thing. When I heard her speak on that old tape, I was struck with how true much of that still is today. And right now, we’re at what feels like a potential tipping point for abortion access in the United States. If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, states would likely get to fully regulate how this piece of health care is offered. If you can imagine, it could be a patchwork system. Based on where you live, as a United States citizen, you have very different options for your reproductive health. And as (Reveal host) Al (Letson) points out in the show, “states’ rights” goes back to one of the most horrific pieces of our history: enslaving Black people. If you think about a country where everyone has equal rights under the law, but if you live in a certain place, you have different choices for your body and your future, that seems like a reckoning that this country is about to have. 

Abortion has been built up into one of the most polarizing political issues in the United States. How did you try to report on abortion in a way that didn’t feel entrenched in any political angle?  

What we tried to do was look at things that are new, that are happening right now, and tried to spend time understanding the people who are close to those things. We weren’t focused on abortion as a political issue exclusively, but more looking at how political decisions affect peoples’ lives. One piece of new scholarship is a big, in-depth study, The Turnaway Study, which followed 1,000 women over 10 years who sought abortions and tried to track the outcomes from people who did get abortions and people who were turned away from clinics. They found that 95% of people who have abortions feel later on that it was the right decision for them. This stuff isn’t necessarily new to scholars or activists on the issue, but abortion is one of those topics that many people kind of vaguely think they know something about, but usually it stays extremely surface.  

It’s important to note that it’s not just women who get abortions. Can you talk about trying to use trans-inclusive language in this episode? 

We use a mix of “women” and “people” throughout the show. We chose in this episode to include the most inclusive language around pregnancy, recognizing that some people who are assigned female at birth don’t identify as being female, yet still can and do get pregnant. We also recognize that the history of laws, rules and social behavior around pregnancy-related restrictions is highly gendered – the control has for centuries been of women by men. We have heard from some listeners about this, and we’d love to hear from more. 

Listen to the episode: Policing pregnancy 

In the Field 

The challenges of creating a serial podcast

Over the summer, Reveal released our first-ever serial podcast, American Rehab, which explored the history of work-based rehabs over eight episodes. Telling a story over eight hourlong chapters instead of fitting it into one swift episode meant taking a different approach to writing and reporting. 

“It was kind of like Jenga,” says senior producer Laura Starecheski, who was a lead producer on the show along with Ike Sriskandarajah and Shoshana Walter. “Any change that we made in, like, chapter seven would affect how we introduced chapter one.”

Figuring out how to write such a massive show took months, as the team aimed to craft a cohesive narrative from dozens of interviews and years of reporting. Starecheski says one skill they learned about producing a serial podcast is being open to changing the entire structure of the show based on what interviewees share about their experiences. “Once you get into listening to your tape, the story changes – the tape will tell you what the story is.”  

American Rehab tells the story of the origins of a controversial drug and alcohol rehab program called Cenikor and deals with some complex subjects that are often poorly represented in the media, like addiction. “We wanted to keep the story told mostly through the voices of people who had lived experience in these kinds of programs and with addiction,” Starecheski says. “Let's see this through their eyes, whether they love the program they were in or hated it or felt exploited or felt that it had saved them. Let's allow it to unfold as they see it.” 

The producers’ hard work paid off: The New Yorker just named American Rehab as one of the best podcasts of 2020.

Listen to the series: American Rehab 

Reveal Recommends 

Andrea Henderson is a Reveal investigative fellow who is looking into whether immediately restoring voting rights for formerly incarcerated people will reduce the rate of recidivism in Missouri. 

Listening: “You Go To My Head,” by Lee Morgan. Lately, things have been a little out of the ordinary, so I listen to jazz to calm my nerves.

Reading: The Wall Street Journal Magazine’s profile of Regina King. I love writing and reading profiles, and the journalist really captures the essence of Regina King’s glow-up all via Zoom! 

Watching: OWN’s “Ready to Love.” Lately, I’ve been thinking about the L-word and what it means to me, and this show presents questions that I need to make sure I ask while dating.

You can keep up with Andrea on Twitter at @drebjournalist. 

Do you have feedback for Reveal? Send it over! This newsletter was written by Sarah Mirk, who will share your thoughts with the team.