It’s easy to become inured to the state of abortion in the United States, but every so often someone sends a shock to the system.

In a new book about the history of Roe, Abuse of Discretion, lawyer Clarke Forsythe combs through the historical record of the Supreme Court’s decision, from case files to personal papers, to show exactly how pell-mell the verdict was. And in the course of all this he highlights how out-of-the-norm America’s abortion regime is.