Democratic-Liberal Norms Under Fire: Abortion Rights in the United States

Guest: Janne Mende (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law) This episode delves into the US Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, a ruling that sparked intense national protest and division. Janne Mende and Christopher Murphy analyse the decision, connecting it to the concept of norm decoupling, which describes the increasing separation of liberal-democratic norms from their traditional interpretations and applications. The discussion then turns to whether the handling of abortion rights in the US is indicative of a more general backsliding of liberal-democratic norms.