Today, NARAL Pro-Choice America released its brand-new podcast, The Lie That Binds, which accompanies a recently released, bestselling book by the same name, authored by NARAL President Ilyse Hogue and NARAL Research Director Ellie Langford.
The evidence is clear: The Radical Right weaponized abortion to hijack our democracy. For decades, shadowy figures on the Right have been working behind the scenes, creating a web of lies designed to exploit Americans’ internalized misogyny and manipulate the conversation around reproductive freedom. The Lie That Binds is a limited series podcast that retraces how the Radical Right weaponized the issue of abortion in order to rig the political system in their favor. This series features many voices on the frontlines fighting back against attacks on reproductive freedom and justice.
Join us as we dive into the origins of the Radical Right, starting with the racist evangelical outcry against desegregation and Phyllis Schlafly’s anti-feminist fight against the Equal Rights Amendment. We’ll reveal how conservative leaders built a web of propaganda and disinformation to consolidate power, leading to the Moral Majority’s cultural takeover and Ronald Reagan’s presidential victory. What this 50-year history has shown is just how successful the Radical Right has been at using the issue of abortion to silence their opponents while they dismantle the framework of our democracy — even though reproductive freedom has always had majority support. So how do we fight back?
If we stand any chance of shifting the tide and defeating these extremists, we must understand how we’ve arrived at this moment. This podcast series features prominent movement leaders, political experts, and those on the forefront of this fight who help us pull back the curtain on the Radical Right’s agenda of power and control. The first two episodes of NARAL’s six-part podcast series, narrated by Jess McIntosh and produced by Jackie Danziger, are available today for download here or wherever you listen to your podcasts. The series features interviews with:
- Amanda Marcotte (Politics Writer for Salon; author of Troll Nation)
- Angelo Carusone (President and CEO of Media Matters)
- Brianna Wu (Former 2020 Candidate for US House in Massachusetts).
- Dahlia Lithwick (Senior Editor and Legal Correspondent for Slate; podcast host: Amicus)
- David S. Cohen (Author of Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America)
- Imani Gandy (Senior Legal Analyst at Rewire News, podcast host: Boom Lawyered)
- Karen Muhlhauser (former president of NARAL)
- Laura Bassett (Political Columnist at GQ)
- Linda Greenhouse (Senior Research Scholar, Yale Law School)
- Loretta Ross (Author, Professor, and Reproductive Justice activist)
- Melissa Ryan (writer of newsletter “Ctrl Alt-Right Delete”)
- Pamela Merritt (co-founder / co-director ReproAction)
- Stacey Abrams (Founder and CEO of Fair Fight and Fair Count)
- Vanita Gupta (President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights)
- Wendy Davis (Former Texas State Senator and 2020 Congressional Candidate)
More information about this podcast and Ilyse Hogue and Ellie Langford’s bestselling new book, The Lie That Binds, is available here: https://theliethatbinds.com/.
