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Twenty-three years after Roe v. Wade established a constitutional right to abortion, Holly Born, Associate Director of Hawaii Right to Life, and Eve Anderson, a Republican member of the Hawaii state legislature, discussed with host Randall Roth whether that right should be preserved, restricted, or ended. Born argued that abortion ends a human life—a human rights violation, not merely a religious question—and that adoption rather than abortion should be the response to unwanted pregnancy; she expressed qualified support for exceptions when a mother's life is at risk. Anderson, describing herself as pro-choice, favored access limited to the first trimester and opposed overturning Roe v. Wade, though she objected to including an anti-abortion plank in the Republican Party platform. Both guests agreed on the importance of education about personal responsibility and expressed skepticism about distributing condoms in schools. The question at issue is whether abortion should remain a legally protected individual decision or be curtailed as a matter of collective human-rights obligation.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
