As the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, we speak with law professor Michele Goodwin, who has written extensively about how the criminalization of abortion polices motherhood. She discusses how on the eve of the court’s oral arguments in the Dobbs case in November, she wrote about how an abortion saved her life. She describes how the U.S.

As protests continue across the country in response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, we speak with two leading legal scholars. Kathryn “Kitty” Kolbert is co-founder of the Center for Reproductive Rights and argued the landmark case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992, which upheld Roe v. Wade. She is the co-author of “Controlling Women: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom.

Amanda Gorman became the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history last year when she spoke at the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. She was 22 years old when she read “The Hill We Climb,” a poem she finished right after the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6. We continue our July Fourth special broadcast with Gorman’s remarkable address.

We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.

As activists across the U.S. are mobilizing to defend reproductive rights, we speak to the Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, who has dedicated her life to circumventing anti-abortion laws, including providing abortions on ships in international waters and sending abortions pills around the world. She also discusses navigating censorship on social media platforms, telemedicine, the future of contraception and more.

We go to San Antonio, where 53 migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. died earlier this week after being confined to a sweltering tractor-trailer. Human rights advocates blamed the tragedy on restrictive immigration policies like the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as MPP or the “Remain in Mexico” program.

In a blow to climate activism, the Supreme Court on Thursday severely limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to place emission caps on power plants. In the case, West Virginia v. EPA, several states led by West Virginia and fossil fuel companies fought against the regulations imposed by the Obama administration under the Clean Air Act.

Eight years after the deadly Flint water crisis began, the state’s Supreme Court has thrown out charges against former Governor Rick Snyder and eight other former officials for their complicity in the public health emergency.