In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, the country has been battling fiercely over women's health, government power, individual choice and efforts to ban or guarantee access to abortion care.

Standing in that conflict is Mary Ziegler, interpreter, guide and seer.

As a senior UC Davis official, whenever a law is passed, a court decision is made or a medical horror story emerges (which is rare), Ziegler is always called upon for her opinion. She is interviewed as many as 15 times a day.

Ziegler's ubiquitous presence, frequent commentary and six books he has published, with a seventh on the way, have led historian David Garrow to rank the 42-year-old law professor as the foremost authority on the abortion wars of the past 50 years.

“One of the hallmarks of Ziegler’s scholarship is its outreach to activists and litigators on both sides,” he noted in a laudatory 2021 book review.

That's why she's a trusted and valuable source who's on the speed dial of countless reporters across the country.

Ziegler, who came to Davis in 2022 after graduating from Florida State University, didn't set out to become a one-stop shop for history, commentary and abortion esoterics. It was her inquisitiveness that brought her there.

She became interested in this as a student at Harvard Law School in the mid-2000s.

A self-described “legal history nerd,” Ziegler noticed a dearth of academic research on the social and political impact of Roe v. Wade. The 1973 decision She enshrined a constitutional right to abortion. She began digging through digitized newspaper archives to learn more, and began writing extensively on the subject.

At first, “I had no intention of doing it professionally,” Ziegler said last week over lunch in the Gulf Coast hideaway he calls home. “I was interested just out of pure curiosity.”

“Obviously, her studies weren't as important at the time as they later turned out to be,” she adds with a laugh.

(Ziegler's father, a French professor, encouraged her to pursue a practical, reasonably well-paying career. She considered medicine, but hated the sight of blood, so she opted for law school.)

Ziegler, who published her first book on abortion issues in 2015, didn't necessarily expect Roe to be overturned. The decision helped make her a quasi-legal and media celebrity, and many considered the issue “settled law” even as opponents continued to try to chip away at the landmark ruling. Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh said of Roe: Kavanaugh, who was awaiting Senate confirmation in 2018, will be the first to rule in 2022 on a 5-4 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning a nearly half-century-old ruling.

On the day the court handed down its decision, Ziegler threw herself into work, writing furiously and giving multiple interviews back-to-back. And when it was over, she broke down in tears.

This isn't just a denial of a constitutional right, said Ziegler, an outspoken feminist and supporter of legalizing abortion.

“I remember reading Dobbs' article and thinking that somehow this was going to make things better and people were going to stop fighting, but I remember thinking that that was never going to happen,” she said. “I thought about the unintended consequences this law would have, like denying emergency medical care in cases that had nothing to do with abortion.”

“That doesn't mean I disparage people who think abortion is wrong, but to me, the criminalization of abortion and all that goes with it has always been a dark part of American history. I see it as setting us on a path that has created more conflict, not less.”

That has proven true enough.

In a recent article about Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis and her gubernatorial ambitions, the kindly columnist dared to state that abortion rights are solidly protected in California because they are guaranteed by the Constitution and Democrats control Sacramento.

Ziegler doesn't necessarily agree.

“I don't think Congress will do anything,” she said, noting the risk of a political backlash. [former President] “Trump.”

Ziegler said that if Trump wins in November, he could unilaterally invoke the Comstock Act, an antiquated 1873 anti-morality law that could serve as a nationwide abortion ban. Ziegler didn't predict, but he didn't rule out the possibility. As for Trump, anything's possible.

“I don't think this is a crisis,” she says, “it seems too much to me. But I also think complete complacency would be wrong.”

“On the one hand, it's not going to be popular if he does that,” she continued. “On the other hand, I don't see what incentive he has to do it if he can't run for reelection. Donors might like it. Voters who buy his merchandise might like it.”

A pale sun sparkled off San Francisco Bay as tourists milled about on the waterfront promenade. Politics and the abortion debate seemed a distant memory for the moment.

Ziegler sees the next few years as a push-and-pull between conservative judges, anti-abortion lawmakers and the majority of Americans who generally want abortion to remain legal and accessible.

“I think it depends on who's making the decision, and I don't mean in the old-fashioned way of saying, 'It's my body, my choice,'” Ziegler said. “So far, when you ask voters directly, they usually want abortion to be broadly legal, they want it to be legal especially in the first trimester, and increasingly in the second trimester, too. But I think there's a lot of room for that not to happen.”

With that, she packed up her leftovers in a box and headed home to further explain and explore America's abortion struggle.