Executed with surgically frightening precision, this work shows how the repeal of Roe v Wade plays out for women. Justice is blind, and the law is an ass is the powerful message in Arlene Hutton’s play; she rage-wrote the first few pages one afternoon in February 2022 as speculative fiction. Public policy is the art of shaping individual lives, and when Nessa (Dana Brooke) loses an early-term foetus in an inter-state flight, the results are harrowing. Dialogue between Nessa and Val (Elisabeth Nunziato), a god-fearing Dallas lawyer with a tribe of kids of her own, reveals the backstory. A minefield of potential serious crimes, not to mention the health risk to Nessa, are uncovered through Val’s representation of the unborn, dead, foetus. But law-makers refuse to recognise this; legislators are excited about using Nessa as a test case. There are a few rough patches, notably a telephone conversation between Val and her male colleagues that portray her as a ballsy woman, contradicting her actions as a foot soldier for the patriarchy in taking the case. But perhaps that’s the reality of well-educated women trying to navigate a man’s world. Ultimately this play reminds us that despite feminism’s achievements, equality, like democracy, is always precarious.