Abortion on TV: Storylines affect our real-life views and laws

Press Play with Madeleine Brand

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case about a Mississippi law that bans almost all abortions after 15 weeks and punishes doctors who violate that law. The high court is also looking at Texas’ law that prohibits abortions even earlier — once a heartbeat is detected.

TV has lied about abortion, says Tanya Melendez, a researcher at the University of Illinois. “We were taught that women should feel badly because every woman we saw felt badly. I think we were taught that women regret their abortions, which we know from data is not true. ... When you absorb those lessons for decades, when you're raised thinking that's what it looks like, you vote according to those values. … And yet this was a procedure that we know one in three women will have,” she tells KCRW.

At least four LAPD officers and a deputy in the LA Sheriff’s Department knowingly bought stolen guns from the LAPD Police Academy’s gun store, according to a new investigation.

Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of Twitter, announced in a Tweet early Monday that he is resigning. What’s next for the company without him?