At Liberty

It was a few days after the overturn of Roe v. Wade when a doctor in Louisiana prescribed a medication to make the insertion of an IUD, a form of birth control, less painful for a patient. The medication has several uses. One of them is to act as the second part of a two-drug protocol used to terminate a pregnancy. The pharmacy called the prescribing physician to ask if the prescription was for an...

It’s a precarious time for American democracy. This year, the Supreme Court term resulted in a number of concerning opinions that rollback civil rights and civil liberties across many facets of American life, most notably the decision in the Dobbs case that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, the congressional hearings around the violent attack on the capitol on J...

On Friday, June 24th, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and with it, the constitutional right to an abortion. In the immediate, we spoke with our legal experts Louise Melling, Jen Dalven and Ria Tabacco Mar, about the opinion and the legal concerns ahead. Check out that episode. It’s called Post Roe: The Supreme Court Won’t Stop at Abortion, and it’s worth a listen if you missed it. But tod...

In a landmark decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court has voted to overturn both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, eliminating a 50-year precedent and the constitutional right to an abortion. We expect half of the states across the country to ban abortion either immediately or in the coming days, weeks or months. Pregnant people in these s...

Over the last few weeks, a surge of texts and phone calls have gone out from local politicians. Most of them focus on one issue: crime. Worried about the rising crime? Want to keep you and your family safe? Vote for me. I'll make sure to fund the police and get the riffraff off our streets, direct quote. Crime is being used as a wedge issue this midterm season, and candidates are stoking fears in...

This week, we are bringing you an important conversation about the state of abortion care in Texas. In September, Texas passed SB8, a bill that banned abortions at 6 weeks of pregnancy and deputized private citizens to enforce the ban. Since then, it’s been an “all hands on deck” operation to provide care to those in Texas still eligible in-state, while also helping shuffle others to states still...

June 12th, 2022 marks the 55th anniversary of the landmark case Loving v. Virginia which made interracial marriage legal across the United States. We also know this day as Loving Day. This year, Loving Day has a bit of a weightier feel to it. In the recent Supreme Court leaked draft opinion on the Dobbs case, the legal reasoning that Justice Alito used to overturn Roe could be applied to undo Lovi...

This year brings an unprecedented surge of anti-trans legislation banning everything from sports participation to healthcare access. So far, we’re tracking roughly 280 state bills that have been filed ahead of or during this legislative session. At the same time, the Supreme Court is on the precipice of delivering a final decision that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade, blocking people who can get...

Supreme Court decision season is upon us, and with that, we wait for the final opinion in the Mississippi abortion ban case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. The idea of living in a post-Roe world is terrifying, the impacts will be broad and almost everyone will feel them in one way or another. This is the truth that activists and organizers on the ground in states like Mississippi, Florida, and Te...

May marks Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month. To mark the importance of this month and how it intersects our work at the ACLU, we are bringing you this conversation with Malaysian American award-winning writer and audio producer, Stephanie Foo. Stephanie is the author of the new book, What My Bones Know, a memoir about intergenerational trauma and comp...

Last week, the draft opinion for the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked. Justice Alito wrote the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Everything about what has happened is remarkable: the leak, the decision, and the reasoning. The repercussions for what it means for people who can get pregnant are dire, and if that wasn’t enough, t...

This is “Ask an Expert,” a special mini-series where our constitutional experts answer your civil rights and civil liberties questions. For our first edition, we are diving deep into Free Speech, and talking to expert Ben Wizner, the Director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology project. We have been sourcing free speech questions from you over email, social media, and our phone line. We’...

On Monday night, the news publication Politico leaked a draft of a majority Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Alito. The draft details the highly anticipated decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, known to the public as the case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. Supreme Court decisions typically don’t come out until June, but this leaked draft, confirmed by Jus...

This is “Ask an Expert,” a special mini-series where our constitutional experts answer your civil rights and civil liberties questions. For this edition, we are diving into free speech and talking to expert Ben Wizner, the Director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology project. Last week for our first episode, we established our free speech footing, defining exactly what free speech is and...

For years now, pain has been the leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting more than 50 million Americans annually. This isn’t the kind of pain you endure when you trip onto the pavement, scab, bruise and heal. It’s the persistent gnawing, aching, throbbing that happens over a long period of time. This is chronic pain. One of the most powerful and effective forms of treatment for pain is th...

This is "Ask an Expert," a special mini-series where our constitutional experts answer YOUR civil rights and civil liberties questions. For our first edition, we are diving deep into Free Speech, and talking to expert Ben Wizner, the Director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology project. Free Speech is widely considered the bedrock of democracy, but still, many Americans feel both conflic...

On June 1, 2020, Black Lives Matter protesters gathered in Lafayette Square Park near the White House to protest against police brutality and the police killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In a violation of civil rights and what the New York Times named “one of the defining moments of the Trump presidency,” then President Trump and his administration called upon law enforcement to use forc...

Lawmakers, parents, think tanks, and conservative pundits have waged a war over how to teach students about systemic racism. As a result, school board members have been ousted, and some educators have resigned over the death threats, social media bullying, and harassment they’ve received from those who are adamant that teaching a more inclusive history harms students. These activists and lawmakers...

April marks Sexual Assault Awareness Month and with that, we are bringing you a conversation today about Title IX. One of the protections against sexual assault within our education system and in our workplaces. In May of 2020, then Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos gutted Title IX protections for schools, particularly as they pertained to sexual assault adjudication, giving schools the leeway to...

For over half a century, Affirmative Action has woven its way into the fabric of our society through nondiscrimination policies and initiatives aimed at establishing equal opportunity for women, people of color, and other minorities across schools and the workplace. Over the years, courts and colleges have repeatedly clashed over the role of race in admissions policies. The Supreme Court has repea...

This week, we’ll be talking about something that’s on everyone’s mind: Ukraine. After weeks of building forces on the border, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since then, the UN has reported that nearly 700 civilians in Ukraine have lost their lives - although the true figures are likely much higher. Over 3 million refugees have fled t...

This week, we’re bringing you a conversation about the recent surge of anti-trans bills that have been levied in state legislatures. 2020 saw 79 different anti-trans state bills dealing with everything from education to athletics, and healthcare to bathroom access. In 2021, that count nearly doubled, with 147 proposals aimed at trans people, and especially trans kids. And this year, in 2022, we’re...

Today we’re speaking with music legend Jon Batiste. He’s an Oscar-winning composer, pianist, bandleader and singer who is going into the 2022 Grammy Awards with 11 nominations – the most of any artist this year. You may have seen him on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” where he’s been the music director and bandleader since 2015. You may have heard him on the soundtrack of the Pixar-animated f...

For some of us, simply living in our bodies is a daily act against oppression, against marginalization, criminalization and hate. This work is exhausting…most justice work is. That’s why finding what brings us joy is so central to both our individual and our collective liberation. While seemingly simple, when put in practice, pleasure can be revolutionary. This is the idea that Adrienne Maree Brow...

Our guest today is Imani Perry. Her latest book is “South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.” In it she writes that understanding this country starts with the South. Imani challenges the idea of the South as a backward place, a repository for the U.S.’s shame over slavery, white supremacy, and poverty. To cast away the South, she writes, only props up a...