Top International Media Outlets Seek Professor Ziegler's Insights on Roe Reversal

Professor Mary Ziegler, a leading authority on the history of the U.S. abortion debate, has provided vital context to more than a dozen top media outlets -- from the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Guardian to CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, among others -- in the weeks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade via its June 24 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

In a New York Times op-ed published June 24 and headlined “Roe’s Death Will Change American Democracy,” Ziegler wrote: “The decades-long fight to reverse Roe was not an effort to restore democracy but instead an attempt to change the way American democracy works — one that, now realized, will touch areas of life well removed from reproduction.”

Ziegler spoke to the Times for June 24-25 stories on Chief Justice Roberts, abortion medications, and enforcing abortion bans  She also was interviewed for a July 12 Times story arising from a Texas woman’s contention she should not have been ticketed for driving in a car-pool lane because she was pregnant and thus not alone.

Ziegler wrote a June 24 piece for the The Atlantic headlined “If the Supreme Court Can Reverse Roe, It Can Reverse Anything.” The  same day, she joined NPR’s live special coverage and its Here & Now program and appeared on PBS News Hour and CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper.

On June 25, Ziegler spoke to The Washington Post for a story on abortion medication and out-state care, and addressed the future of reproductive rights for CBS News.  On June 26, Ziegler published a Los Angeles Times op-ed headlined “How to move forward after the destruction of Roe v. Wade,” and spoke to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and NPR’s Elissa Nadworny. Ziegler has made other NPR appearances since. 

Ziegler discussed issues related to the Dobbs decision in June 28 Time, Vox and Slate.com stories, weighed in for a July 1 Guardian article on the anti-abortion movement and wrote a July 2 Toronto Globe and Mail opinion piece headlined “Will Americans go to prison for seeking abortions?” On July 7, Ms. Magazine ran a recap of its Supreme Court year-in-review panel discussion that was moderated by UC Irvine Professor Michele Goodwin and featured Ziegler and UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. 

Ziegler participated in the National Constitution Center’s July 14 event “Abortion Law in the U.S. and Abroad After Roe.” The Live at the National Constitution Center podcast recorded the event.

Mary Ziegler is an expert on the law, history, and politics of reproduction, health care, and conservatism in the United States from 1945 to the present. She is one of the world’s leading historians of the U.S. abortion debate.