Elie Mystal, justice correspondent at The Nation, was recently on C-SPAN with host Greta Brawner discussing the slew of new abortion laws, or more specifically the attack on women’s reproductive rights being waged by conservatives across the country. Laws like the one recently passed in Texas that makes abortion illegal after a woman has been pregnant for six weeks.
When host Brawner opened the phone lines up for questions, a 67-year-old conservative lady presented what she probably felt was a real legal ‘gotcha’ question to Mystal. Explaining that she had an abortion when she was in her 20s, which she says she has prayed about “every day [since] to the Lord to forgive me for what I have done,” she asked how it was even possibly constitutional that abortions are legal at all. It seemed very clear from her statement that she has been fed a lot of hooey from right-wing circles saying that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was “beat” and “stomped” and “crammed into the Constitution.” She wants to know: Where in the Constitution is abortion legal?
She tells Mystal that she will hang up and has a pencil and paper ready to write down his response. Hopefully she has a sharpener, because she’s got a bit of writing and researching to do.