For two years, since the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion, the country has waged a fierce fight over women's health, the reach of government, individual choice and efforts to ban or guarantee access to the procedure.
Facing this conflict is Mary Ziegler: interpreter, guide, forecaster.
Whenever a law is passed, a court decision is handed down, or a medical horror story emerges (which happens frequently), Ziegler is invariably asked to intervene from his position at UC Davis. She has given up to 15 interviews in one day.
That omnipresent presence, Ziegler's frequent written comments and the six books she has published, with a seventh on the way, have made the 42-year-old law professor, in the opinion of historian David Garrow, the preeminent authority on the last 50 years. years. of the abortion wars.
“One of the distinguishing features of Ziegler’s scholarship,” he noted in a glowing 2021 book review, “is his outreach to activists and litigants on both sides.”
That's why she is a valuable and trusted source, residing on the speed dial of countless reporters across the country.
Ziegler, who came to Davis in 2022 by way of Florida State University, did not set out to become a one-stop clearinghouse for abortion history, commentary and arcana. Her curiosity led her there.
He developed his interest in the mid-2000s, as a student at Harvard Law School.
Ziegler, an avowed “legal history nerd,” found a dearth of academic research on the social and political consequences of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision detailing a constitutional right to abortion. He began diving into digitized newspaper archives to learn more and began writing, prolifically, on the subject.
Initially, “I didn't think I would do anything professionally,” Ziegler said last week over lunch in this bayside enclave he calls home. “What interested me was pure curiosity.”
“At the time,” he added with a laugh, his scholarship “was obviously not as relevant as it later turned out to be.”
(Ziegler's father, a French professor, urged her to pursue a career that was practical and reasonably well-paying. She considered medicine, but she doesn't like the sight of blood. So she went to law school.)
Ziegler, who published her first book on the abortion issue in 2015, did not necessarily anticipate the Roe reversal, which helped make her a quasi-legal and media celebrity. While opponents continually attempted to undermine the landmark ruling, many considered the matter “settled law,” which is how Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh described Roe in 2018 when she was facing confirmation. Senate. (In 2022, Kavanaugh was part of the 5-4 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson that overturned the nearly half-century-old decision.)
The day the court issued that ruling, Ziegler immersed himself in his work, writing furiously and conducting a long series of consecutive interviews. When she finished, she broke down and cried.
It wasn't just about the destruction of a constitutional right, said Ziegler, an avowed feminist and supporter of legalizing abortion.
“I remember reading Dobbs and the idea that somehow this would make things better and people would stop fighting. “I remember thinking that was definitely not going to happen,” he said. “I thought about all the unintended consequences it was going to have,” such as the denial of urgent medical care, even in cases unrelated to abortion.
“That doesn't mean I look down on people who think abortion is wrong. But to me, criminalizing it and everything that comes with it has always been a dark part of American history. I saw that it was leading us toward more conflicts, not less.”
Which has proven to be completely true.
Ziegler sees the next few years as a tug-of-war between conservative judges, anti-abortion lawmakers and the majority of Americans who generally want to keep abortion legal and accessible.
(Bill Lax/UC Davis)
In a recent article about Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis and her gubernatorial ambitions, your friendly columnist ventured to say that abortion rights were rock solid in California, with its constitutional guarantee and the Democrats' hegemonic control over Sacramento.
Ziegler doesn't necessarily agree.
“I don't think Congress is going to do anything,” he said, noting the risk of a serious political backlash. “I am less sure of [former President] Triumph.”
If elected in November, he said, Trump could unilaterally invoke the Comstock Act, a dusty 1873 vice law that could serve as an effective nationwide abortion ban. While he didn't make any predictions, Ziegler didn't rule out the possibility. With Trump, you never know.
“I don't think it's a crisis,” he said. “That seems exaggerated to me. But I also think that complete complacency… is also wrong.”
“On the one hand,” he continued, “it won't be popular if he does it. On the other hand, I don't know what his incentives are if he can't run for re-election. Maybe his donors will like him. Maybe the grassroots voters who buy his merchandise will like it.”
A pale sun shone on San Francisco Bay as tourists strolled along the boardwalk. Politics and the debate over abortion seemed distant for the moment.
Ziegler sees the next few years as a tug-of-war between conservative judges, anti-abortion lawmakers and the majority of Americans who generally want to keep abortion legal and accessible.
“I think it depends on who decides, and I don't mean in the classic 'it's my body, my choice' way of who decides,” Ziegler said. “We have seen to date that, for the most part, when voters are asked directly, they want abortion to be broadly legal, particularly in early pregnancy and increasingly also in the later stages of pregnancy… But I think that there are many possibilities. where that doesn't happen.”
With that, he boxed up the leftovers and headed home to further explain and explore the fight against abortion in America.
