Plain English with Derek Thompson: Abortion Pills Are a Game Changer, Plus Our Next Big Culture War

In last week's instant reaction pod, Derek said he thought abortion pills were one of the most fascinating and important aspects of the end of the era of Roe. In this episode, he goes deeper into how this new technology could change the abortion debate and national politics. Abortion pills that weren't in use 50 years ago are popular, common, safe, hard to track, and legal in more than half the country. Dozens of conservative states are moving to outlaw most abortions, including medication abortions, but banning pills is going to be very tricky. After all, it’s one thing to shut down a clinic with one address. Banning a pill that you can order online? Banning a pill that goes in the mail? That is much harder. And the lengths to which states might have to go to surveil packages—or to spy on women’s digital activities in order to track down pill buyers—will be invasions of privacy that make a lot of Americans uncomfortable, even those who want to reduce legal abortions. This is the next battleground of the abortion culture war: the pills war. Today’s return guest is Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times. Margot explains the basics of abortion pills, and how they’ll change the abortion debate forever.
Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Margot Sanger-Katz
Producer: Devon Manze
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