We need to talk about abortion, says author of ‘Scarlet A’

Three in 10 American women who are 45 or older have had an abortion, Katie Watson, author of “Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law & Politics of Ordinary Abortion,” tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles. For women 44 and younger, one in four are projected to have an abortion in their lifetime. Yet for all the fiery rhetoric about the legality of abortion, Watson–who teaches bioethics, medical humanities and constitutional law at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine–has found a reluctance by people to discuss their own personal experiences with abortion, or even the nuances of their views on its ethics. While the overwhelming majority of people feel comfortable claiming the labels of either “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” when she polls people about the legality and the morality of abortion at different stages of development, there’s a lot more nuance than those binary labels suggest. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Watson talks about ways to have productive discussions about abortion; the emerging areas of contention which could be coming before the Supreme Court; and why she thinks that doctors have been shouldering a disproportionate burden in advocating for reproductive rights and abortion access.

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