The Fall of Roe The Rise of a New America

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We enjoyed your book very much and also were thoroughly horrified by all of it, obviously. But so many Americans felt kind of blindsided when Roe v. Wade was overturned, and yet you walk us through every step of the way. This was not an overnight shocking decision.

This was decades in the making.

This was a moral commitment for them, the greatest moral calling of their lives. And they were not successful until about 10 years ago, something changed. And we've taken to calling it the, this was the last decade, the final decade of the Roe era in American life.

I think one of the most interesting things we found in our book was the role that abortion plays. Of course, abortion is about the right to terminate a pregnancy and when a woman can legally do that. But it also has this great symbolism in American life.

I guess you articulate that Roe has taken on such a larger... Yeah. It's not just one thing anymore. Was that always the case or is there... Can you pinpoint when that really started to pick up steam?

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At the New York Times and co-authors of the bestselling book, The Fall of Roe, The Rise of a New America. Please welcome Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer.

We enjoyed your book very much and also we're thoroughly horrified by all of it, obviously.

For 50 years, the anti-abortion movement tried so hard, right? They made it their life's work, generational commitment to try to overturn Roe. This was a moral commitment for them, the greatest moral calling of their lives. And they were not successful until about 10 years ago, something changed and we've taken to calling it the, this was the last decade, the final decade of the Roe era in American life.

I think there's also this broader effort and what they effectively want to do is overturn elements of the sexual revolution and return the family, the American family to a more traditional time.

This is a really different kind of story. This is, you know, a majority of America supported Roe for decades. But these activists on the right were, these conservative Christian activists, were able to seize controls of these levers of power and change the culture effectively through force.

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I cannot recommend this book enough to our audience. I told Elizabeth it is absolutely riveting.

It is a page turner. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to know, obviously what happened, but about our new America, what is happening and will happen without Roe.

It is also an account of how the minority can eclipse a majority. It's about the intersection of politics and the judiciary and an ascendant Christian movement that people should be aware of.

It is most of all, a stunning audit of the rights of women gained and lost in just 50 years.

I want every woman to read this book. I want everyone to buy this book.

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The book is titled The Fall of Roe, The Rise of a New America.

It explores how the rights most fervent anti abortion activists end up persuading the court to end nearly 50 years of precedent.

And what we did was look at the final decade of what we call the Roe era.

And what we saw in this period is this tightly connected web of conservative anti abortion activists were able to move the levers of power in their favor in ways big and really small.

They get really you know, they jump on that train. It becomes a bullet train for them and they get really lucky. They get those three seats on the Supreme Court and they're dealing with an abortion rights movement that's really ill equipped and unprepared to take on this threat.

And a country that's really has this pervasive sense of denial that this right that's been part of American life for two generations could suddenly disappear.

It was a new Republican Party and the redefinition by political activists in 1979, 1980, which it meant to be an evangelical, what it meant to be a Christian.

The anti-abortion movement, conservative Christians think in generations about change. It's not just a political cycle, but also the people that you mentioned.

It's not just the story of kind of the 80s religious right. There's a modern religious right that is enormously influential.

And it's not just on issues about abortion. It's a vicious issues, all kinds of cultural issues in this whole in this whole realm about rolling back the sexual revolution.

They were talking about trans rights. They were talking about parental rights. They were talking about religion and public squares, things like schools or town meetings, same sex marriage.

Look, I think for this anti abortion movement, the fall of Roe was not the end. It was the beginning of the end.

The goal here is to eliminate all abortion if they believe it's morally wrong.

They want to eliminate it.

The right was planning in really actually 50 year periods.

They were never going to let up the deluge of laws in state courts, how they were in state state houses, the way they were transforming the courts slowly over time.

These are things that are just like bit by bit by bit.

It makes why so many people and why we wrote this book really were so surprised by why how did this actually happen?

The left just, you know, and Hillary Clinton talked about this to us in our interview with her, the left just doesn't have that same kind of infrastructure at all.

And so this is a big reckoning on on the left for how are we going to or are we going to respond to this? And what's that actually going to take?

You have to build building blocks over time.

And so they were really fighting for public opinion.

And the anti-abortion movement was fighting for the levers of power.

And it turns out power is more powerful than public opinion, certainly when it comes to the courts.

I'm sure you guys have I know you guys have talked a lot about the politics of abortion now.

Like, you just have to look at Donald Trump and how he behaved in 2016 when he eagerly sort of made common cause with this movement and how he's behaving now.

Nobody can see what they do not believe is going to happen.

And now that's just been shattered.

And there's this steady drumbeat of news coming out of these states, you know, the cases of women seeking medical attention or some new ruling or some new law that just keeps this issue again and again in the news and is sort of showing people like how it is butting up directly against public opinion and what a majority of people in the country want.

So I think it's a much harder task for them going forward, for sure.

And we're seeing that play out in the politics.

We'll certainly see it play out in twenty twenty four.

And I think we'll see it play out in several cycles to come.

You heard even Donald Trump himself blame the abortion issue for the losses in the midterms in twenty twenty two.

But from your reporting, what are the activists looking at next?

We saw IVF come up in Alabama, even very conservative Republicans even running from that taking the idea of taking away IVF.

Right after Roe was overturned, we have some reporting about the anti abortion movement asking, you know, talking behind the scenes with different state lawmakers. When could they do that?

You know, how long would that time horizon be?

And they said a few years, but it's actually just happened so much faster.

And so that like especially for their base, like the people who've talked about themselves as pro life voters, especially evangelical millennial moms, this is now reframing how they're thinking about this and kind of wondering, OK, these are there are some bigger questions here that we need to figure out, like how does our how do our our own cultural, moral and religious views fit in with how that has played out and really become this politically powerful, dominating and kind of one track lane?

America is being confronted with questions from voters to state lawmakers that they never thought they would have to ask.

Like I mean, I'm sure everyone remembers right after Roe fell, there were these debates over kids and whether a 10 year old girl could like terminate her.

Like this is not something that was part of our political discourse now.

And it was an issue that politicians on both sides could skirt.

And now all these politicians have to talk about uteruses, you know, and it's like really not comfortable for them.

So I think it's forcing these really direct confrontations for people and for politicians about like the actual lived reality of what this is beyond sort of the political like talking points and sort of phrases.

You know, the obvious irony of the idea of issue, of course, is that it brings the gift of life to people who otherwise could not have it.

The new book is titled The Fall of Roe, the Rise of a New America on an issue that will hang over this presidential election.

It's on sale now.

Co-authors Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lair.

Thanks for being here.

Congrats on the book.

Thanks.

Thank you.