Call Your Girlfriend · Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow

SCOTUS vs. Abortion (sponsored by Rewire News Group)

October 5, 2021·41 min·3 clips

Imani Gandhi exposes how the Supreme Court used the shadow docket to let Texas's abortion ban take effect without hearings.

Abortion rights feel frighteningly immediate. Anne starts in that dread, with the sense that this issue has been watched for a long time and is now right in front of people in Texas and Mississippi. The comfort comes from people who can explain the law without draining the feeling out of it. Imani Gandhi and Jessica bring the legal fluency, while the show keeps its usual intimacy around courts, clerks, and procedure. Texas sits at the center. Aminatou asks what it means when there are no lawyers arguing, no amicus briefs, and only thin paperwork in front of the justices and clerks. The answer is rough. The guests describe a process that let a six-week abortion ban take effect even though existing precedent treated that kind of law as unconstitutional. Mississippi is still waiting in the background. Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health is the case already on the court's legitimate docket, the one where Roe could be reconsidered directly. But Texas moved first, and the guests read that as a message from the conservative justices, not as a harmless procedural wrinkle. Procedure changes real life. A technical move can still reshape how Roe works for people in Texas right now. Other states are watching, too. If they copy the same enforcement mechanism, the effects could spread before the court says the bigger thing out loud. The episode stays personal all the way through: Anne wanting steadiness, Aminatou asking blunt questions, and the guests keeping the legal pieces readable. By the end, the frame widens for listeners looking at law school or public work with despair. The advice is practical: build critical thinking, writing, and reasoning, because those skills carry beyond one courtroom.

As heard by us

A clear, warm abortion-rights conversation that treats legal precision as part of the point.

A sponsored conversation about abortion rights in Texas and Mississippi moves quickly, and that speed helps it stay grounded in the legal details instead of drifting into abstraction.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play for a long-distance-besties conversation that breaks down abortion rights in Texas and Mississippi.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Call Your Girlfriend