Carolyn Cline, Executive Director of Involved for Life, which operates two pregnancy centers and a mobile sonogram unit in Dallas, TX, shares her reflections on Roe v. Wade with Terry Gross:

I don’t think that probably the Supreme Court had any idea that there would be thousands and thousands of women who regret that they ever had an abortion. And so I think there’s two sides always and that somewhere in between is the reality of it all. … We’ve learned so much more … about prenatal development … and with the advent and the usage of sonograms we see so much more: that there is a beating heart at 21 days and that there is a life there. I know I have very close friends that have had abortions. They were lied to. They were told it was a lump of tissue. That’s not a lump of tissue. That’s a life. It has a heart beating. If you see a heart beating anywhere else it’s a life.

Journalist Carolyn Jones, who has written about her personal experience with the Texas sonogram law for The Texas Observer, talks with Terry Gross about whether a state-required script detailing the abortion procedure impacted her decision to have an abortion:

It had no impact on my decision to go ahead with the abortion. None, whatsoever. It was a private choice I’d made and I was going to stick with that private choice no matter the people who tried to interfere with me. In terms of my broader frame of mind, it did make me feel very angry — and I still do, I still feel very angry — that someone who had absolutely no say in, you know, my personal decisions could still be there at that moment. The darkest, the darkest day of my life was the day that I found out that information and had to make that decision. That someone could invade upon that — a politician who has absolutely no jurisdiction over my private life, that they could invade upon that and so reduce my dignity — I do feel that that’s an incredible injustice and I still do.”

“I am so sorry,” the young woman said with compassion, and nudged the tissues closer. Then, after a moment’s pause, she told me reluctantly about the new Texas sonogram law that had just come into effect. I’d already heard about it. The law passed last spring but had been suppressed by legal injunction until two weeks earlier.

My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the procedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram or listen to the baby’s heartbeat, adding weakly that this choice was mine.

“I don’t want to have to do this at all,” I told her. “I’m doing this to prevent my baby’s suffering. I don’t want another sonogram when I’ve already had two today. I don’t want to hear a description of the life I’m about to end. Please,” I said, “I can’t take any more pain.” I confess that I don’t know why I said that. I knew it was fait accompli. The counselor could no more change the government requirement than I could. Yet here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day, and I wanted this woman to know it.

— “We Have No Choice: One Woman’s Ordeal with Texas’ New Sonogram Law” by Carolyn Jones in The Texas Observer. Today marks the 40th anniversary of Roe V. Wade. Jones will be on the show today to talk about her experience and the series of articles she wrote for the Observer about the changing landscape of women’s health and family planning regulation.