Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the
Speaker 1: thing from my heart radio. Global warming, Donald Trump's presidency
Speaker 1: and the COVID pandemic. Add to that list of things
Speaker 1: that were unlikely and that we were unprepared for the
Speaker 1: overturning of Roe v. Wade. Turn on the television or
Speaker 1: check social media today and you'll hear an abundance of
Speaker 1: outrage over the perceived betrayal of our current Supreme Court
Speaker 1: Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all professed to respect
Speaker 1: the president of Roe v. Wade during their confirmation hearings,
Speaker 1: and yet we are on the cusp of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court overturning the nineteen seventy three landmark case that found
Speaker 1: abortion to be a constitutional rights. My guests today are
Speaker 1: in the trenches on this issue. Annarupani is the executive
Speaker 1: direct of Fund Texas Choice. Her organization helps Texans access
Speaker 1: abortions out of state following the passage of SP eight,
Speaker 1: which banned abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat
Speaker 1: at around six weeks. But first, I'm talking to one
Speaker 1: of the world's leading authorities on the legal history of
Speaker 1: the abortion debate. Mary Ziegler is a professor at Florida
Speaker 1: State University College of Law, a visiting professor at Harvard
Speaker 1: Law School, and as a frequent guest on CNN, ABC News,
Speaker 1: and NPR. She's also written opinion pieces for The New
Speaker 1: York Times The Atlantic, as well as four books on
Speaker 1: abortion law in America. Considering her extensive background and exhaustive
Speaker 1: research on the subject, I wanted to know if Mary
Speaker 1: Ziegler was surprised to learn the likely fate of Roe v. Wade.
Speaker 1: I think when Trump was elected, I thought this was
Speaker 1: going to happen. But I still find myself being some
Speaker 1: rise by I guess how it's happening by there's a
Speaker 1: sort of um. I don't know that the if cruelty
Speaker 1: is the right word, or indifference, but just the people
Speaker 1: on the court don't seem to think this is even
Speaker 1: a big deal. And I think that's surprising me. I mean,
Speaker 1: the fact that it's happening doesn't surprise me as someone
Speaker 1: who studied this, because I think for the past fifty
Speaker 1: years there's been a really concerted movement to do it.
Speaker 1: The movement required lots of luck. Right, So if Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton is elected in twenty six or Ruth pader Ginsburg
Speaker 1: dies a year later or retires several years earlier. We're
Speaker 1: not where we are now, But there have been plans,
Speaker 1: you know, very sophisticated plans of foot for a long
Speaker 1: time that make this less than surprising. But I guess
Speaker 1: I still find myself feeling surprised emotionally, even if kind
Speaker 1: of rationally I knew this was coming. I'm assuming with
Speaker 1: the work you do, you watch these confirmation hearings carefully
Speaker 1: correct they did. Yeah, And did you feel that they
Speaker 1: were lying at the time that they were testifying. Did
Speaker 1: you feel that it was like a trojan horse thing
Speaker 1: where they were going to say whatever it took to
Speaker 1: get on the court. It's like a game they were playing.
Speaker 1: They were going to it better than everybody else. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think unfortunately Supreme Court confirmations like no one answers questions,
Speaker 1: So I mean, there was nothing particularly revolutionary about the
Speaker 1: fact that they weren't answering questions. No one does. I
Speaker 1: was more surprised by politicians like Susan Collins who seemed
Speaker 1: to believe that that was not what was going on.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody knows the game and the rules of
Speaker 1: the game, which is that people don't answer questions. Antonin
Speaker 1: Scalia said a bunch of similar things about Row and
Speaker 1: then voted to overturn Row in the first case he
Speaker 1: heard on the court, which is what amy Cony Barrett
Speaker 1: is going to do. So it's not as if we
Speaker 1: haven't seen this movie before. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was wishful thinking or just naive tay or dishonesty on
Speaker 1: the part of those politicians, but the nominees, for better worse,
Speaker 1: I think it's like a process defect. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's not just that these are people who are liars.
Speaker 1: The process is that you go and say a bunch
Speaker 1: of vague things that could be reassuring to people who
Speaker 1: want to hear them, and you don't really answer any questions,
Speaker 1: and then you get confirmed, and everyone knows what you're
Speaker 1: going to do when you get confirmed because of who
Speaker 1: you are and the reasons that you were nominated, and
Speaker 1: that that's been how it is, unfortunately since probably at
Speaker 1: least two thousand eight. One of the things about this issue,
Speaker 1: which is always of concern to me, is that if
Speaker 1: you focus on the viability issue, when we say that
Speaker 1: it's not a life until a certain point what the
Speaker 1: role has been or may have been of the American
Speaker 1: Medical Association and helping to define this debate, which is,
Speaker 1: if if the pro life people are correct, then the
Speaker 1: American Medical Association as a body is standing by watching
Speaker 1: while all these people are killed that are life conception
Speaker 1: m Well, the American Medical Association in the early years
Speaker 1: was absolutely crucial. So if you're trying to sort of
Speaker 1: imagine where did the idea of criminalizing abortionately came from,
Speaker 1: it came from the American Medical Associations, and that came
Speaker 1: from a variety of desires. There were people in the
Speaker 1: early anti abortion movement in the American Medical Association who
Speaker 1: believed that life began at conception. There were people who
Speaker 1: wanted a competitive edge over midwives and other alternate at
Speaker 1: medical practitioners. And there were people who were doing this
Speaker 1: for sort of nativist eugenic reasons right, who believed that
Speaker 1: women from and other people who could get pregnant from
Speaker 1: places like Ireland and Germany immigrants were having too many babies,
Speaker 1: and people from Anglo Saxon countries were not having enough babies,
Speaker 1: and that abortion was the reason right, that wealthy people
Speaker 1: were having abortions, and so if you had no more abortions,
Speaker 1: the quote unquote genetic stock of the United States would
Speaker 1: be better. Um, And so all of that sort of
Speaker 1: went into this mix. But the A m A for
Speaker 1: a long time was the sort of authority for the
Speaker 1: idea that abortion should be illegal. If you fast forward
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, even the nineteen sixties, doctors and
Speaker 1: the American Medical Association were baby movers in the campaign
Speaker 1: to legalize abortion. And then for a long time, I
Speaker 1: think in the years in between, the American Medical Association
Speaker 1: was largely on the sidelines right, sort of didn't really
Speaker 1: take a position one way or another about abortion. And
Speaker 1: now we've come full circle where you see the American
Speaker 1: Medical Association again beginning to take a position. But I
Speaker 1: mean that that sort of feels as if it's I mean,
Speaker 1: not too little, too late, exactly, but but it's waited
Speaker 1: a good long time until we ought to a point
Speaker 1: where things are changing pretty rapidly. Before the organization renewed
Speaker 1: its involvement in this issue. And what's their recent renewed involvement. Um,
Speaker 1: they've been getting involved in particular with laws that are
Speaker 1: just scientifically wrong. So, for example, some states have had
Speaker 1: laws saying you need to hear information that medication and
Speaker 1: worships can be reversed, and there's no reason to think
Speaker 1: that that's true or that it's safe for people to
Speaker 1: try to take the drug regime that conservatives in these
Speaker 1: states have recommended, and the a m A Has been
Speaker 1: involved in lawsuits essentially saying we as doctors, think this
Speaker 1: violate it's our First Amendment rights to be forced to
Speaker 1: say things that are not true that are going to
Speaker 1: endanger our patients. I believe that this law now will
Speaker 1: because of the narrowing of the time allowed, it is
Speaker 1: going to push for more abortions. I think people when
Speaker 1: you give them a shorter time to think about it.
Speaker 1: If you discover if the average woman discovers she's pregnant
Speaker 1: so many weeks into the term, and it's three or
Speaker 1: four weeks before you even find that, what if you
Speaker 1: miss a period, all those things that in terms of
Speaker 1: women's bodies, and let's say you find out you're pregnant
Speaker 1: and you've only got two weeks left to decide. I
Speaker 1: think an increasing number people are gonna go, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have an abortion. They're not going to have time to
Speaker 1: really consider it. As much as they want to. Do
Speaker 1: you agree that there's going to increase, Yeah, totally. There's
Speaker 1: some evidence that that's already happening in speed where Texas
Speaker 1: has functionally banned abortion, that there are more people having
Speaker 1: early abortions in the way you describe, and there are
Speaker 1: some people who are actually reporting to abortion clinics that
Speaker 1: they're not sure they made the right decision because they
Speaker 1: feel that it's sort of now or never. And I
Speaker 1: think that in a world where overweight is gone, we're
Speaker 1: going to see a lot of states just straight up
Speaker 1: criminalizing all abortions, which is going to make people desperate
Speaker 1: to get to other states, and that feeling of sort
Speaker 1: of it's now or never is going to be intensified.
Speaker 1: And it's also worth saying we know that in countries
Speaker 1: where abortion is criminal across the word, the abortion rate
Speaker 1: doesn't go down. For example, in places like Ecuador and Kenya,
Speaker 1: where most are all abortions are criminal, the abortion rate
Speaker 1: is much higher than it is in the United States.
Speaker 1: So the reasons people have abortions have more to do
Speaker 1: with whether they feel in their lives that they're able
Speaker 1: to have the children they want and raise those children
Speaker 1: in a healthy way. And it has almost not much
Speaker 1: to do with criminal laws. Like people will will often
Speaker 1: try to find a way if they think that it's
Speaker 1: the right decision for them to have an aborshion, they'll
Speaker 1: often try to find a way to do it anyway,
Speaker 1: and sometimes theyll face criminal consequences for doing that. I
Speaker 1: was told that the United States is going in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction of other countries like Ireland, where they're relaxing
Speaker 1: their national abortion laws. That's correct, That is correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's not just Ireland. It's Mexico, it's Columbia, it's Thailand,
Speaker 1: it's South Korea. It's really across a variety of continents.
Speaker 1: And so you often hear people say the US is
Speaker 1: an outlier because it allows abortion relatively late into pregnancy.
Speaker 1: That's true, and part because the United States doesn't have
Speaker 1: health insurance for people who want to have abortion early
Speaker 1: in pregnancy. But if the US is going to um criminalize,
Speaker 1: allow states to criminalize abortion, there are other countries doing
Speaker 1: that too. They're a handful of them, like Poland, but
Speaker 1: they tend to be places that are increasingly illiberal, and
Speaker 1: a lot of other countries have been moving in the
Speaker 1: other directions. So the US will be an outlier again
Speaker 1: just in or I think in somewhat and more meaningful way,
Speaker 1: I feel like this is all part of this march
Speaker 1: towards this like super right wing agenda taking over so
Speaker 1: many areas of the country, critical race theory. Don't say
Speaker 1: gay in Florida. And now you add this to the mix.
Speaker 1: Do you see it that way? Do you see that
Speaker 1: abortion is linked to a bunch of other things that
Speaker 1: this extreme right wing agenda wants to cultivate. Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that there's some direct connections. So,
Speaker 1: for example, there's obviously a connection between abortion and birth
Speaker 1: control because many abortion opponents define common contraceptives as abortion right.
Speaker 1: So you may remember during the debate about the contraceptive
Speaker 1: mandate of the Affordable Care Act that people described drugs
Speaker 1: like Morning after Pill and i E. D s as
Speaker 1: abortion inducing drugs. There's a legal connection between overruling Row
Speaker 1: and overruling cases on things like same sex marriage, because
Speaker 1: the legal foundation is the same. And there are political
Speaker 1: connections because quite clearly, the effort to transform the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court to create a court that is not responsive to
Speaker 1: popular opinion in any way, shape or form, was done
Speaker 1: in large part to secure a decision overruling Row. Really,
Speaker 1: the effort to have an unlimited amount of dark money
Speaker 1: and politics was connected to view. The book I have
Speaker 1: coming out in June is about that. It's about the
Speaker 1: fact that there are people in the anti abortion movement
Speaker 1: who led the litigation of Citizens United and are now
Speaker 1: leading litigation to allow for more anonymous big donations and politics. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was because I think the was an awareness
Speaker 1: that a lot of big donors in blue areas. Right
Speaker 1: conservatives living in blue states did not want to sign
Speaker 1: their name to donations for things that would undercut policies
Speaker 1: people favored, so they wanted anonymity, and abortion opponents were
Speaker 1: the first people recognize that because they had that experience
Speaker 1: with donors. So a lot of this is connected even
Speaker 1: voting rights. The gentleman who's the attorney for True to Vote,
Speaker 1: one of the groups that was trying to overturn the election,
Speaker 1: who's been the attorney for Marjorie Taylor Green and other
Speaker 1: members of Congress whom accused of leading an insurrection, was
Speaker 1: is again that the General Council of the National Right
Speaker 1: to Life Committee and the guy who led the litigation
Speaker 1: of Citizens United right and that's because from the standpoint
Speaker 1: of people who are opposed to abortion, you know, banning
Speaker 1: abortion is more important than all of these other things.
Speaker 1: It's a human rights issue. It comes before any fidelity
Speaker 1: you have to any kind of other principle in the democracy.
Speaker 1: And so it's all connected in ways that I think
Speaker 1: are pretty transport parent and easy to document. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, for practical purpose, is because I feel like
Speaker 1: the pro choice people, many of them, ade all of them,
Speaker 1: seem to be playing this game with one hand get
Speaker 1: tied behind their back. And is there anything wrong in
Speaker 1: your mind with the president of the United States who
Speaker 1: goes to Ginsburg when she was alive and says, you
Speaker 1: really need to retire. Why don't we cut the bullshit
Speaker 1: and just say that both sides have their opinions as
Speaker 1: there is there anything wrong with Obama Sacer it's time no.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a fancy term lawyers and law professors
Speaker 1: used for this, which is asymmetric polarization, meaning there's been polarization,
Speaker 1: but one side has been doing it more than the
Speaker 1: other side, and the gloves have already come off for conservatives.
Speaker 1: Progressives are sort of catching up to this that sometimes
Speaker 1: being the kind of moral authority, being above it all
Speaker 1: party when it comes to the Supreme Court lands you
Speaker 1: in this position right where you're just waiting several weeks
Speaker 1: to watch the cord over worlde wade without feeling like
Speaker 1: there's anything you can do about it in the short term.
Speaker 1: Legal historian Mary Ziegler. If you enjoy conversations about hot
Speaker 1: button political topics, check out my episode with former California
Speaker 1: assemblywoman and labor advocate Lorrena Gonzalez. Income inequality has become
Speaker 1: a real threat. So as we continue to build billionaires
Speaker 1: in California, in Silicon Valley continues to create new billionaires,
Speaker 1: we've got to figure out how we take care of
Speaker 1: people who just work for a living, right, the people
Speaker 1: who service the tourism industry, the people who serve people
Speaker 1: fast food. You have folks who are on their feet,
Speaker 1: working forty sixty hours a week, multiple jobs, especially in
Speaker 1: immigrant communities like mine, and and the fact that they
Speaker 1: cannot afford housing or to put a little money away
Speaker 1: from retirement or to send their kid to college is
Speaker 1: is something we've got to address. To hear more of
Speaker 1: my conversation with Lorena Gonzalez, go to here's the thing
Speaker 1: dot Org. After the break, Mary Ziegler speculates on the
Speaker 1: implications of overt arning Roe v. Wade, including the potential
Speaker 1: consequences of crossing state lines for abortion care. I'm Alec Baldwin,
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Mary Ziegler is
Speaker 1: a legal historian, professor of law, and leading expert on
Speaker 1: the history of Roe v. Wade. After fifty years of
Speaker 1: conflict between the pro life and pro choice communities, I
Speaker 1: wanted to know what Ziegler thinks the future holds for
Speaker 1: abortion rights in America. I think in the short term
Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious that the court is going to overrule Row,
Speaker 1: but I think it's worth emphasizing that that is not
Speaker 1: going to be where the story ends. I like to
Speaker 1: tell this story because I think it's really revealing. Um,
Speaker 1: Harry Blackman had, the author of Roe v. Wade, had
Speaker 1: a news clipping in file that said, you know, seventy
Speaker 1: something percent of Americans think that the abortion decision should
Speaker 1: be between a woman and her doctor, right, and their
Speaker 1: little notes were pretty clearly black And was thinking, like,
Speaker 1: we've got this thing right, Like we're going to decide
Speaker 1: this case. We're doing it in exactly the way most
Speaker 1: Americans want us to. You know, it's going to be settled, right,
Speaker 1: and we all know how that turned out. Right Here
Speaker 1: we are fifty years later, still talking about this, and
Speaker 1: so I think if this Supreme Court thinks that it's
Speaker 1: going to just settle this and Americans are just gonna
Speaker 1: go home and forget about it, they're equally wrong. So
Speaker 1: I think what will happen in the short term will
Speaker 1: be a pretty intense state by state conflict. There will
Speaker 1: be battles within states like Florida and Michigan to see
Speaker 1: how far they're going to go in criminalizing abortion. They'll
Speaker 1: be battles and red states like Alabama about whether they're
Speaker 1: going to ban contraception or treatment for infertility. There will
Speaker 1: be national battles in terms of who controls Congress in
Speaker 1: the White House about whether there's going to be protections
Speaker 1: for bands of abortion. And they're gonna be interstate conflicts
Speaker 1: because we've already seen blue states like California and Connecticut
Speaker 1: saying either one, we're going to help you pay for
Speaker 1: an abortion if you want to travel from out of state,
Speaker 1: or two, we're going to shield our doctors and our
Speaker 1: nurses from legal consequences if they perform abortions on people
Speaker 1: from other states. And you've begun to see red states
Speaker 1: say actually, we're going to prosecute you, the doctor or
Speaker 1: the abortion fund if you help someone from our state
Speaker 1: who comes to your state. So there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: whole round of conflicts about whose law flies in those settings,
Speaker 1: who gets to decide that is it unconstitutional to tell
Speaker 1: people they can't travel to get at abortion like a
Speaker 1: lot of So the idea is also going to just
Speaker 1: get messier from here. So you think that's a possibility
Speaker 1: that some states could make it illegal for the residents
Speaker 1: of their states to go to another state and have
Speaker 1: an abortion, they are probably going to try. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've seen Missouri kind of float this proposal. Whether they
Speaker 1: can legally do that, right, I have no idea because
Speaker 1: when was the last time you even heard of a
Speaker 1: state doing that. I mean, they wouldn't make it illegal
Speaker 1: to travel. What they would do is say you can
Speaker 1: travel as much as you want, but when you get home,
Speaker 1: we're going to put you in jail. Right because they
Speaker 1: can't tell you not to do the travel. That's clearly
Speaker 1: unconstitutional because there is a right to travel and the
Speaker 1: right to travel is one of the most like, it
Speaker 1: has one of the best pedigrees in constitutional law. It's
Speaker 1: more like, if you say we can criminalize the reason
Speaker 1: for the travel right, maybe the Supreme Court would sign
Speaker 1: off on that. And the reason we don't know is
Speaker 1: because the Supreme Court has decided a grand total of
Speaker 1: one case about the right to travel in nineties something
Speaker 1: and has never you know, so who knows what they
Speaker 1: would do with that, other than you could just make
Speaker 1: the educated guests that these folks are extremely conservative and
Speaker 1: that probably they'll just side with the conservative state. But
Speaker 1: you know, that's about all we know. We don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of specific guidance. So how do we explain
Speaker 1: to people legally that you can't force people to get
Speaker 1: vaccinated when you can force them to carry a baby
Speaker 1: to term. Yeah, I don't know if there's a good
Speaker 1: legal explanation to that. I think the Court's explanation in
Speaker 1: this draft is that abortion is different because it's a
Speaker 1: taking of a life, and that that's not true of
Speaker 1: a vac scene. Obviously, pregnancy is different from vaccine and
Speaker 1: lots of other ways, in the sense that if you
Speaker 1: say you take a COVID vaccine, and you have a
Speaker 1: really bad reaction, like maybe that lasts for a couple
Speaker 1: of days. Um, if you've ever been pregnant, you can
Speaker 1: have some negative consequences that last for more than a
Speaker 1: couple of days. You could die, for example. But the
Speaker 1: court doesn't seem plugged into that. I think there's probably
Speaker 1: more the political point, which is that the people who
Speaker 1: are on the Supreme Court now are not just conservative,
Speaker 1: they're sort of siloed from people who are not conservative.
Speaker 1: They are clearly not having conversations with people who have
Speaker 1: had abortions, They're clearly not having conversations with people who
Speaker 1: are pro choice. And so this feels sort of like
Speaker 1: an opinion written by people who really genuinely don't get
Speaker 1: it right, who are so isolated and so plugged in
Speaker 1: only to their own legal communities that they don't even
Speaker 1: understand that what they're doing is going to upset people.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how this reads to me. I want
Speaker 1: to get back to when you said about other things
Speaker 1: that this might embolden once Roe v. Wade is struck down.
Speaker 1: I've never been a big fan of court packing per se,
Speaker 1: but I wonder if when you realize that there's a
Speaker 1: good chance we could quantify that a minority of people
Speaker 1: in this country want word v way to end. And
Speaker 1: this is all the very highly skilled gamesmanship of these
Speaker 1: right wingers. Do you think that court packing is an
Speaker 1: option and it's right. I think it's an option. I
Speaker 1: think it's not a great idea, only in so far
Speaker 1: as I don't see where it stops. I think I've
Speaker 1: been more a proponent of term limits because I think
Speaker 1: it's disturbing that someone who's been on the court, I mean,
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas has been on the Court since nineteen ninety one, right,
Speaker 1: and if you think about when the Anita Hill incident
Speaker 1: went down, our norms around a whole bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: have changed since in ninety one, and that you could
Speaker 1: have someone who's views maybe reflect what voters wanted in
Speaker 1: probably not even because there was probably not what a
Speaker 1: majority of voters wanted even then. That's weird to me
Speaker 1: because the Court is a political animal. But that's set
Speaker 1: with court packing. I think then just whoever's in power
Speaker 1: will just add more justices to the Court, and then
Speaker 1: the Court will look more like the Senate, which may
Speaker 1: be won't be that different in terms of outcomes, given
Speaker 1: how the Court is behaving now, there may not really
Speaker 1: be that much daylight between how political this court is
Speaker 1: and how political that court would be. But I also
Speaker 1: don't think it would really add any value to have
Speaker 1: court packing. So with the writhing where we've arrived now
Speaker 1: with this court, do you feel that this issue in
Speaker 1: terms of abortion is better decided ultimately by the Congress
Speaker 1: or by the Court? I mean probably by Congress, although
Speaker 1: I think that that would be a political football. There
Speaker 1: seems to be an emerging international human rights consensus that
Speaker 1: some forms of abortion bands violate international human rights, not all,
Speaker 1: but some. It would be great if the US was
Speaker 1: subscribed to international human rights treaties. We don't, but that's
Speaker 1: I think another potential guide. But I think that obviously
Speaker 1: you see with this court that the Court can be
Speaker 1: a profoundly anti democratic institution in ways that are problematic.
Speaker 1: My other inclination, having seen what happened in Ireland, would
Speaker 1: be that it would be better to have this not
Speaker 1: decided by Congress or the Court, bit directly by from
Speaker 1: some sort of plebiscite for the people, because I think
Speaker 1: what politicians are likely to give you is not likely
Speaker 1: to reflect what Americans want there's been a disconnect between
Speaker 1: polling and policy on abortion since the seventies, and so
Speaker 1: I think it would be nice to give people, as
Speaker 1: was the case in Ireland, just go directly to people
Speaker 1: and say what do you think it should look like?
Speaker 1: Like here are some options, you know, do you want
Speaker 1: to ban at like fourteen weeks with exceptions afterwards? I
Speaker 1: think you would end up with something probably more stable
Speaker 1: than what we get from politicians or judges. What part
Speaker 1: of this do you think the pro choice community got
Speaker 1: wrong in terms of their messaging? What did they get wrong?
Speaker 1: I think part of it was that the pro choice
Speaker 1: communities prioritized messaging and strategies that help people they know,
Speaker 1: which tends to be for people who are privileged, like
Speaker 1: white people who don't really need abortion very much. And
Speaker 1: that's had the effect of making it less comfortable for
Speaker 1: people of color to be pro choice or be active
Speaker 1: in the movement because they feel that people who are
Speaker 1: running the pro choice movement don't get it right. They
Speaker 1: don't get it they don't care about themselves and the
Speaker 1: plant parenthood right and they and they also don't see
Speaker 1: plan parent in talking about all their issues. There's a
Speaker 1: famous incident in when Mississippi was going to ban abortion
Speaker 1: and also was doing a voter ide law that was
Speaker 1: going to make it hard for some people of color
Speaker 1: to vote, and there were activists of color in Mississippi
Speaker 1: begging Plan Parenthood to campaign on the voting rights issue too,
Speaker 1: and they just wouldn't do it because they said, it's
Speaker 1: not our issue. Our issue is abortion. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of missed opportunities I think like that. I think
Speaker 1: there were things that were done wrong in terms of
Speaker 1: underestimating conservatives. Like often when people would interview me historically,
Speaker 1: the press would say there's always what of progressives done wrong?
Speaker 1: And it was never what of conservatives done right? Because
Speaker 1: conservatives have been really smart and savvy about this for
Speaker 1: fifty years, and the general attitude I think progressives have
Speaker 1: had as conservatives are kind of like a little defcye,
Speaker 1: not super sharp, and you know, if we just got
Speaker 1: our stuff together, this would be no problem. And that's
Speaker 1: not clear that that's true. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: very sophisticated strategists on the right who've done a lot of,
Speaker 1: you know, things that progressive strategically could learn from. And
Speaker 1: then there are things I think specific blind spots progressives
Speaker 1: have had Progressives tend to gravitate to glamour races like
Speaker 1: senate races, presidential races, gubinatorial races, and conservatives have been
Speaker 1: down there in the muck focusing on things like racist
Speaker 1: for sheriff races, for school board races, for prosecutor attorney general,
Speaker 1: state legislative races, and have then had these laboratories for
Speaker 1: policies in the states where they pretty much can have
Speaker 1: untrammeled access to really out their policies with no political consequences.
Speaker 1: Progressives have been really outcompeted that way, and I think
Speaker 1: progressives have been out competed in how they deal with
Speaker 1: the courts, because if you look at how you know,
Speaker 1: democrat at presidents approached the courts, it feels very much
Speaker 1: like things have not changed since Ruth Bader Ginsberg was
Speaker 1: nominated in the nineties, and if you look at how
Speaker 1: Republicans approached Supreme Court nominations, it's a completely different story.
Speaker 1: And so I think there needs to be kind of
Speaker 1: an updating of strategy around the federal courts. And at
Speaker 1: least I think Biden has done a good job of
Speaker 1: putting a lot of people on the courts right like
Speaker 1: getting the nominations through Congress, but you still don't see
Speaker 1: I think. I think progressives have historically not cared as
Speaker 1: much about the court or gotten people to care about
Speaker 1: the Court in the same way conservatives of Well, I
Speaker 1: would imagine that until things move on, if they ever
Speaker 1: due to the federal level, where you, as you said,
Speaker 1: we you have the control of both houses of Congress
Speaker 1: in the White House, god forbid, I would assume that
Speaker 1: before we get to that point, have things changed dramatically
Speaker 1: in that we're going to see a stampede of abortions,
Speaker 1: people seeking a board persons until it's made illegal in
Speaker 1: your home state for you to travel to another stay
Speaker 1: to be discussed. And then next to that, I predict
Speaker 1: we're going to see a dramatic drop in the birth
Speaker 1: rate in this country as people have a terrible feeling
Speaker 1: about getting pregnant and being forced to make a choice
Speaker 1: that could involve some criminality on their part. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's definitely realistic. I think if people
Speaker 1: feel rushed into making decisions, I think, as we said before,
Speaker 1: they sometimes make the decision to end of pregnancy because
Speaker 1: it's it's a weighty decision to be a parent, right.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that's probably worth emphasizing is like,
Speaker 1: who is it that disproportionately has abortions? So I mean
Speaker 1: a majority of people in absolute terms who have abortions
Speaker 1: are white, but the abortion rate is much higher in
Speaker 1: communities of color than it is in the white community.
Speaker 1: And you might ask yourself, well, why is that, And
Speaker 1: it's because those are people who probably are not feeling
Speaker 1: good about how those children are going to live in
Speaker 1: the world, right, because of poverty, because of racism, because
Speaker 1: they don't have opportunities they want to have for themselves
Speaker 1: and for the children they already have. You know, the
Speaker 1: average woman who has an abortion has a child or
Speaker 1: more than one, and so I think it's quite likely
Speaker 1: that people in that position who are already feeling that
Speaker 1: the world is not going to make it easy for
Speaker 1: them to raise a child in the way they want,
Speaker 1: are going to feel that way even more when on
Speaker 1: the other side of the equation is potentially prison time. Right.
Speaker 1: And it's realistic too that if you're thinking about, well,
Speaker 1: how are you going to get caught having an abortion?
Speaker 1: There are a couple of different ways. One is, you know,
Speaker 1: you're in a community that gets heavily policed. Right, It's like,
Speaker 1: how do you get caught using marijuana because the police
Speaker 1: are checking out there doing all the time. Right. The
Speaker 1: other way is that you wait too long to have
Speaker 1: the abortion. And because the later in pregnancy you have
Speaker 1: an abortion, the more complications there are, and that again
Speaker 1: is going to push you toward having the early abortion
Speaker 1: because it's going to be less likely you're gonna get caught,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be less likely you're gonna have criminal consequences,
Speaker 1: and so people who may have thought about carrying a
Speaker 1: pregnancy to term are probably going to feel that it's
Speaker 1: safer to get into the pregnancy on the earlier side.
Speaker 1: There are women on the Supreme Court, and I was
Speaker 1: wondering which one do you think has been the greatest
Speaker 1: and spokesperson on behalf of reproductive rights for women on
Speaker 1: the courts and the group that's there now, it's definitely
Speaker 1: Sonya Sodomyer has been the most outspoken. I mean, Elena
Speaker 1: Kagan sort of m O. I think is more to
Speaker 1: be a kind of behind the scenes dealmaker. She's a
Speaker 1: really powerful writer, though, and so I would kind of
Speaker 1: expect that to change if Row is overturned because The
Speaker 1: dynamic between those two is that sodomyor Is is sort
Speaker 1: of like the conscience of the liberals, who sort of
Speaker 1: says what everybody thinks, regardless of how that makes her
Speaker 1: colleagues feel. And Kagan only does that, I think, after
Speaker 1: exhausting her options and coalition building. But when she's done
Speaker 1: that exhaustion, she's written some pretty scathing descents, and so
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if when come June, when the
Speaker 1: Court reverses Row, we get a pretty striking descent from
Speaker 1: her too. What do you think is the best that
Speaker 1: progressives and pro choice people can hope for now? What
Speaker 1: should they do? What can they do? I think there's
Speaker 1: not much that can be done to convince the court now,
Speaker 1: although there may be, because I think that s P. Eight,
Speaker 1: that Texas law banning aversion was a trial balloon, and
Speaker 1: you could view this League opinion as a trial balloon.
Speaker 1: And so if people are consistently protesting and donating and
Speaker 1: kind of demonstrating that this issue is not going away,
Speaker 1: that this is not just what's in the headlines today
Speaker 1: and then people move on with their lives, that may
Speaker 1: give the court pause. But I think mostly what people
Speaker 1: who are appro choice need to realize is that they
Speaker 1: have to play the long game. I mean, it took
Speaker 1: fifty years to reverse Roe v. Wade, So they have
Speaker 1: to be willing to try to focus on success at
Speaker 1: the state and local level and the short term in
Speaker 1: facilitating access for people who have to travel out of state,
Speaker 1: and then I think in the long term, you know,
Speaker 1: doing the kind of political work to change the court
Speaker 1: and change politics again, right, and not look for quick fixes.
Speaker 1: Because the supreme world is going to over row in June.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's much anybody can do to stop that.
Speaker 1: So I think it's more a question of what is
Speaker 1: the price that people have to pay when that happens,
Speaker 1: you know, whether that's politicians or the court. And I
Speaker 1: think that's something that people can determine going forward. Attorney
Speaker 1: and author Mary Ziegler. Last year, politics in the state
Speaker 1: of Texas became an ominous bell weather for the rest
Speaker 1: of America. In September, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill eight,
Speaker 1: colloquially called the Texas Heartbeat Act. The law banned abortions
Speaker 1: after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, around six weeks
Speaker 1: before Some women even know that they're pregnant. Anna Upani
Speaker 1: is the executive director of Fund Texas Choice, an organization
Speaker 1: whose sole purpose is to provide funding and assistance to
Speaker 1: Texas who need help traveling to their abortion appointment, both
Speaker 1: in and out of the state of Texas. This Rupani
Speaker 1: earned a masters in social work at Florida State and
Speaker 1: a law degree from the New England School of Law
Speaker 1: before returning to the state where she was raised. I
Speaker 1: wondered what it was like growing up in Texas and
Speaker 1: if abortion was treated like a dirty secret there. It
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't discussed really. And it's funny you say that
Speaker 1: because something that I've been talking about recently a lot
Speaker 1: of people is about language access and how if you're
Speaker 1: raised in certain parts of the country, you don't understand
Speaker 1: what sometimes you're saying because of the culture and the
Speaker 1: community you're raised around. So when I went off to college,
Speaker 1: I kept saying it was pro life because I personally
Speaker 1: may not have had an abortion, but the person next
Speaker 1: to me could have could have. And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: that's pro choice. But in Texas you're taught your pro life,
Speaker 1: and so you keep thinking you're pro life, even though
Speaker 1: that is not at all what I was actually intending
Speaker 1: to say, And so abortion wasn't talked about. The idea
Speaker 1: of being pro choice wasn't talked about. All that was
Speaker 1: talked about is abortion is bad, pro life is good.
Speaker 1: We have to save babies, even though what we know
Speaker 1: now is their embryos or fetuses and they're not actual children, right,
Speaker 1: And so it was something that wasn't talked about, and
Speaker 1: even in a Muslim upbringing, it wasn't talked about. I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, first when I took the job at Fund
Speaker 1: Texas Choice, it was like, how is my family going
Speaker 1: to react to this? And luckily they're very happy that
Speaker 1: I'm doing this and they say the word abortion out loud.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't always happen that way. You're raised in Texas,
Speaker 1: you graduated from New England law school. How soon thereafter
Speaker 1: did you return to Texas? Could you live in Texas
Speaker 1: now obviously and work from there? Yep? I came back
Speaker 1: in so immediately after graduation. I took the Texas Bar
Speaker 1: Exam in Texas and have been in Texas since. And
Speaker 1: when you got down there, how quickly did you get
Speaker 1: into the work you're doing now or what other work
Speaker 1: that preceded this, yep. So I became staff attorney doing
Speaker 1: family law with undocumented survivors of domestic violence pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: like within a year of coming back to Texas, and
Speaker 1: I stayed. I worked in immigration and family law with
Speaker 1: undocumented survivors for nearly eight years, and then I came
Speaker 1: to fund Texas Choice. I don't know what the best
Speaker 1: words are, but people kind of sort of knew this
Speaker 1: was a possibility because while people were operating from a
Speaker 1: place of comfort that Roe v. Wade was safe, that
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade was established law, it was president that
Speaker 1: the pro life people, the anti abortion people were in
Speaker 1: the garage doing push ups all night getting ready for this,
Speaker 1: you know, big Fandango of theirs. What do you think
Speaker 1: abortion law once Roe v. Wade is overturned? What will
Speaker 1: become of abortion law in the state of Texas? Where
Speaker 1: will it go? The question we is heavy on me
Speaker 1: because I think about it like every night. And you know,
Speaker 1: Texas has been living in what is a postro future
Speaker 1: for the last eight months, and so if row is overturned,
Speaker 1: it just exacerbates what we have seen in the last
Speaker 1: eight months, and so of our clients have had to
Speaker 1: leave the state to access care. It's not just to Oklahoma, right,
Speaker 1: It's not just to Louisiana. It's to Colorado, it's to
Speaker 1: Washington State, it's too d C. It's to New York. Now,
Speaker 1: if Roe v. Wade is in fact overturned like we
Speaker 1: think it is, twenty four more states are likely going
Speaker 1: to limit or ban abortion. And if that happens, the
Speaker 1: states nearby that Texans used to go to, like Oklahoma
Speaker 1: and Kansas, are also not going to have access to abortion,
Speaker 1: and so more folks are going to have to leave
Speaker 1: the states to get to care in safe haven, so
Speaker 1: to speak. And those safe states are going to be inundated.
Speaker 1: And so if they still have the ten clinicians in
Speaker 1: the same city, ten clinicians can see a hundred patients, say,
Speaker 1: now all of those were Texans. Maybe now they're going
Speaker 1: to be from twenty four more states. So the amount
Speaker 1: of folks that are going is going to increase. So
Speaker 1: time to get an appointment is going to be longer.
Speaker 1: Folks are going to be pregnant longer. Then on top
Speaker 1: of that, yep, and if you're pregnant longer, you're dealing
Speaker 1: with all of the complications of a pregnancy but then
Speaker 1: the further along you are, the harder. Um the appointment
Speaker 1: is on your body. So the abortion appointment takes longer
Speaker 1: than just say an hour in the office, right it's
Speaker 1: it can be. And then you have the day, the
Speaker 1: two days you have to take off of work. You know,
Speaker 1: if you go to a clinic in Dallas, for example,
Speaker 1: if it still was providing abortions beyond six weeks, then
Speaker 1: you could go just down the road come back home.
Speaker 1: Now you're having to take off of work, you're having
Speaker 1: to find childcare, and then you're having to travel, right,
Speaker 1: and sometimes if you can't find childcare, you have to
Speaker 1: take your children with you. And what if you're a
Speaker 1: nursing parents, So all of those things are going to
Speaker 1: be further exacerbated if the opinion that we saw is
Speaker 1: in fact what ends up happening. In Texas would be
Speaker 1: the largest state to ban abortion. It is the largest
Speaker 1: state to ban abortion um and so you're talking about
Speaker 1: fifty six thousand people around to get abortions every year,
Speaker 1: and now we're trying to move fifty six people out
Speaker 1: of the state, and that's just not possible. People have
Speaker 1: an abortion in Texas they did so in around fifty
Speaker 1: six thousand folks an abortion in Texas. I think in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen it was like fifty three thousand, So fifty
Speaker 1: thousand plus folks get abortions in Texas. That doesn't include
Speaker 1: all of the Texans that have left the states. That's
Speaker 1: just how many people have got an abortion in Texas.
Speaker 1: So on average, we're looking at fifty thou people trying
Speaker 1: to leave this state every year. Now your work, you're
Speaker 1: in an office with a bunch of other lawyers and staff,
Speaker 1: or how much do you interact with people who your
Speaker 1: organization is helping to facilitate them to get an abortion.
Speaker 1: You don't pay for the abortions, correct, right, We don't
Speaker 1: pay for the abortions, but we directly talked. So our
Speaker 1: team we're made up of eight fall time staff and
Speaker 1: one part time staff. I'm the executive director, so I
Speaker 1: do not actually practice law here. But we have five
Speaker 1: programmatic staff, so three folks are doing the actual trip
Speaker 1: planning for clients. So if you call today and we
Speaker 1: in fact can't help you, if someone will do your
Speaker 1: intake and then they'll transfer you over to a program
Speaker 1: coordinator who will work with the individuals seeking an abortion
Speaker 1: from the time they call us to the time they
Speaker 1: come back home from the abortion appointment. So we will
Speaker 1: book their ticket, we will book their hotel, we will
Speaker 1: book their right chairs, we will provide food, will provide childcare,
Speaker 1: all of the things that are kind of the in
Speaker 1: between from booking an abortion appointment to getting there, and
Speaker 1: then we'll help you get back. And so our staff
Speaker 1: is constantly talking to clients. Do you book the appointment
Speaker 1: for the abortion itself, No, we don't because those needs
Speaker 1: are being filled by other organizations, and so we wanted
Speaker 1: to We identified a unique need that folks were having.
Speaker 1: We're struggling to get to their abortion appointment, because if
Speaker 1: they struggle to pay for it, they likely can't pay
Speaker 1: to get to their abortion appointment, and so we focus
Speaker 1: on that specific and unique need. Are we headed toward
Speaker 1: a reality in which the services you provide will be
Speaker 1: outlawed by the state of Texas. If you have to
Speaker 1: book air fair for you, to book hotels, for you
Speaker 1: to intercede or aid in a bet in any way
Speaker 1: this process in and of the state, they're going to
Speaker 1: try to criminalize that too. We think so, Yeah, We've
Speaker 1: received a season to this letter about a month or
Speaker 1: so ago from a Texas House representative who basically said
Speaker 1: what we're doing is criminal, and the statutes that existed
Speaker 1: pre ROW are still the law of the land if
Speaker 1: ROW were to be overturned, and so we're criminal entities
Speaker 1: and we're going to be criminalized basically for doing the
Speaker 1: work we're doing. So that's not a far fetched reality
Speaker 1: in our world. That is the likelihood that's coming post ROW,
Speaker 1: with the level of counseling and the level of care
Speaker 1: that is provided to women who go off and have
Speaker 1: this procedure where they want them to fully understand and
Speaker 1: and and make that choice freely and fully informed. Would
Speaker 1: you say that any significant proportion of the women that
Speaker 1: are having an abortion today are regretting that, I'd say
Speaker 1: most folks that we serve, so all of the pregnant
Speaker 1: folks we serve, have never come back to us and
Speaker 1: said that we regret having or making this decision. We
Speaker 1: often reach back to our clients two to four weeks
Speaker 1: after their abortion appointment, and almost always clients say thank
Speaker 1: you so much for helping as you saved my life,
Speaker 1: or thank you so much for supporting me. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been able to have another child sixty two pers
Speaker 1: and our clients are already parenting, so they know what
Speaker 1: it's like to parent. They know if they can and
Speaker 1: can't have this pregnancy go to term right, And so
Speaker 1: a lot of our most of our clients, in fact,
Speaker 1: say this was really important for me. I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been able to get an abortion without your help, and
Speaker 1: so you know, you saved me. That's what we hear.
Speaker 1: We don't hear the regret. The clients often say it
Speaker 1: is the best choice they have made. It allowed them
Speaker 1: the freedom to do what they are doing today. But
Speaker 1: otherwise they wouldn't have been able to have the freedom
Speaker 1: to pursue lives in the way that they have, either
Speaker 1: to have a child later when they were ready, or
Speaker 1: to get a master's degree, or to move any of
Speaker 1: those things, and all of those things or things our
Speaker 1: clients have said to us. So when when Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade viewed for so many decades now as settled law,
Speaker 1: and now we're faced with the rather likely proposition that
Speaker 1: it's going to tumble and it's going to be gone,
Speaker 1: which is just unthinkable to me. And I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: the second thing that's on that list is a federal
Speaker 1: abortion ban and that we are closer to that now
Speaker 1: than we've ever been. Do you agree, Are we closer
Speaker 1: now than we've ever been to a federal abortion law? Yeah? Probably.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that would happen, but you know,
Speaker 1: I did read it in the news this weekend that
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell said that that's honestly on the table now
Speaker 1: and why not? And I and I think it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny and almost hypocritical, Like the whole point
Speaker 1: of overturning Row is to give back the power to
Speaker 1: the states to decide, and then if you do a
Speaker 1: federal abortion band, you're going completely opposite of that, because
Speaker 1: now you're taking it away from the states once again.
Speaker 1: And so do I think abortion should be protected at
Speaker 1: the federal level? Yes, Do A think that there's a
Speaker 1: possibility the discussion for a national federal or a federal
Speaker 1: abortion band is on the table. Yes, I don't think
Speaker 1: that would pass muster, just because if we think about
Speaker 1: who gets abortions, it's across party lines, it's it's across race,
Speaker 1: it's across gender, it's across this economic status, it's across ages.
Speaker 1: And so the idea that if abortion was banned federally,
Speaker 1: no one would be able to act as an abortion
Speaker 1: including folks like Republicans who were anti abortion, who have
Speaker 1: in facts gotten an abortion right. And so the outcry
Speaker 1: I think for a national band would be higher than
Speaker 1: what it is right now. And as we know, polls
Speaker 1: have showed us that at least sixty percent of Americans,
Speaker 1: regardless of party, believe that abortion should at least be
Speaker 1: accessible in some capacity. Fund Texas Choice executive director Anna Upani.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be
Speaker 1: sure to follow Here's the thing on the I Heart
Speaker 1: radio app spot of y or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Anna Rupani speculates on what other
Speaker 1: laws are at risk if Roe v. Wade is indeed overturned.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Anna Rupani of Fund Texas Choice is engaged in the
Speaker 1: on the ground work helping Texans gain access to out
Speaker 1: of state abortions. The native Texan told me why her
Speaker 1: state has been ground zero for the anti abortion movement.
Speaker 1: I mean Texas is large, and lots of people are
Speaker 1: moving to Texas. I mean I think Dallas Austin and
Speaker 1: Houston are some of the top three largicities growing in
Speaker 1: the nation. And so I think people are flocking to
Speaker 1: Texas because of the Texas Yeah, I think for Texas.
Speaker 1: Let's not kid ourselves, it's mostly that, right, and the land. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you live in California and you're paying one point
Speaker 1: two million dollars for foot house, you could get a
Speaker 1: lot more for one point two million in Texas, or
Speaker 1: you could get a four thousand square foot house with land,
Speaker 1: and so we think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1: And you don't have state taxes, and so now you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can think about living in Texas. And parts of
Speaker 1: Texas are very beautiful, and the larger cities are very
Speaker 1: much welcoming and you know, progressive. But Texas is so
Speaker 1: massive that you think about the rural areas and Texas
Speaker 1: could be five states, right, and so there are parts
Speaker 1: of it and pockets of it that are somehow overshadowing
Speaker 1: the larger cities. But then let's not forget jerrymandering as
Speaker 1: a thing, and states like Texas are jerrymandered, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. There's massive populations and cities like Dallas Austin, Houston,
Speaker 1: San Antonio, Corpus Christi, al Baso. What ends up happening
Speaker 1: is all of the smaller cities make up more in
Speaker 1: the voting power because of the Jerrymander districts, the state
Speaker 1: legislature is full of more republic against the Democrats, and
Speaker 1: you ended up having more Republicans voting for Center Bill eight,
Speaker 1: which has you know, become known as a six week ban.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter that all of the Democrats said no
Speaker 1: or could have said no, we still didn't have a
Speaker 1: majority or even fifty. And so you have more people
Speaker 1: that are anti abortion and anti choice voting against abortion access.
Speaker 1: And so that's what happened in Taxas. It's not just,
Speaker 1: you know, all of these folks are anti abortion, it's
Speaker 1: all of these folks are probably and likely feeding on
Speaker 1: power and want more power and want to continue to
Speaker 1: suppress the folks too, that are already lacking power to
Speaker 1: continue to access it because they don't get a choice
Speaker 1: over their bodies. It has nothing to do, I think,
Speaker 1: with not actually wanting to access healthcare. It has a
Speaker 1: lot more to do with what is the impact of
Speaker 1: not accessing healthcare? When I first heard someone say in
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks, Roe v. Wade was now
Speaker 1: likely to topple. I thought, oh god, this is another
Speaker 1: sign that this country is having a nervous breakdown. I
Speaker 1: do believe the United States isn't a full blown nervous
Speaker 1: breakdo and ever since Trump was elected in two thousand six,
Speaker 1: And what's next? Is contraception really next? Do you believe
Speaker 1: that's possible? Yeah, I mean I think I read something
Speaker 1: that Tennessee is trying to allow Plan B. And if
Speaker 1: folks have access Plan B, there's like a fifty fine.
Speaker 1: It's literally a two step pill and you're supposed to
Speaker 1: take that within seventy two hours of having unprotected sex,
Speaker 1: just to make sure you don't get pregnant. It doesn't
Speaker 1: cause an abortion, it's literally to help prevent getting pregnant.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, contraceptive care is probably next. So it's
Speaker 1: probably gay marriage, and so it's probably in a racial
Speaker 1: marriage because when you think about how Roe v. Wade
Speaker 1: was defined, it was it was under the privacy that
Speaker 1: individuals are afforded under the fourteenth Amendment from the number
Speaker 1: of rights that they have, and so privacy was the
Speaker 1: underpinning to access to contraceptive Karen Griswold, privacy is the
Speaker 1: underpinning of what you do in your home and against
Speaker 1: anti sodomy laws in Texas v. Lawrence. It was the
Speaker 1: underpinning for obergha Fell, for gay marriage, and it was
Speaker 1: the underpinning of who you choose to marry in loving
Speaker 1: And so once you get rid of privacy, all of
Speaker 1: those things are up for debate again. And and Alito's draft,
Speaker 1: they are talking about getting rid of privacy. Right that
Speaker 1: privacy is not in the constitution and therefore you're not
Speaker 1: afforded that right to privacy. Um, so anything that comes
Speaker 1: from that is gone. And and just so you know,
Speaker 1: folks in the reproductive justice reproductive choice abortion movement, I
Speaker 1: have been sounding the alarm about Roe v. Wade for
Speaker 1: a very long time, where it has always been the floor,
Speaker 1: not the ceiling. And folks have been sounding that alarm
Speaker 1: for long before Trump came into office. I think folks
Speaker 1: thought that that was more of a reality once Trump
Speaker 1: came into office, But that alarm has been ringing well
Speaker 1: before that time. And it's because we've seen things like
Speaker 1: House Bill Too. So House Bill Too was a law
Speaker 1: past in Texas. They basically said that if someone wants
Speaker 1: to provide an abortion, they have to have admitting privileges
Speaker 1: in a hospital nearby, which is nearly impossible for lots
Speaker 1: of clinicians who are in smaller cities where hospitals aren't there.
Speaker 1: They aren't there, and so that shuttered fifty of the
Speaker 1: clinics overnight. So we went from forty to clinics to
Speaker 1: about twenty clinics overnight in Texas, and then throughout that
Speaker 1: year several shutdown and we were left with eight clinics
Speaker 1: in the entire state of Taxes and so fun Texas
Speaker 1: Choice came to be because we're like, oh, folks are
Speaker 1: gonna have to travel really far to get to their
Speaker 1: abortions in Texas is how are they going to do that?
Speaker 1: And so we decided to provide that logistical support. But
Speaker 1: I bring all that up because that alarm in pretty
Speaker 1: much was there eight clinics one fifth of the clinics, right,
Speaker 1: And so we all knew this was coming pre because
Speaker 1: there have been so many laws that have just been
Speaker 1: passing and trying to be passed, even if they've been
Speaker 1: ultimately banned by the Supreme Court. Anti abortion folks and
Speaker 1: anti cho choice folks have been doing this and we've
Speaker 1: been sending the alarm for a long time to say, hey,
Speaker 1: this is coming, this is happening. It's not just that
Speaker 1: started about. You know, if people want to know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen, if we're always overturned to ask Texans
Speaker 1: that are doing this work, that have been doing this work,
Speaker 1: they know what this is like. We've spent three or
Speaker 1: four times our annual budget in the last eight months
Speaker 1: for programmatic care because that's how much more expensive it's gotten.
Speaker 1: That's how much money we have to spend. And so
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: listen to Texans and make sure that doesn't happen again
Speaker 1: by electing folks that are pro choice, that are pro abortion.
Speaker 1: And I know folks are. I'm not pro abortion, people
Speaker 1: say that all the time, but really pro abortions about
Speaker 1: getting access to abortion care because it's health care decisions
Speaker 1: and you should have access to your health care. What
Speaker 1: does fund Texas Choice, what is it telling its constituency
Speaker 1: in Texas? And beyond that they can do between now
Speaker 1: and the mid terms to have any impact whatsoever on
Speaker 1: what's happening right now. Three things that we've been talking
Speaker 1: about not just to our supporters but just out loud,
Speaker 1: is support your local abortion funds, their local abortion funds everywhere,
Speaker 1: support them there on the ground doing the work. They
Speaker 1: are supporting the folks in paying their abortion, getting them
Speaker 1: to their abortion, helping them leave the stat if need be.
Speaker 1: The second is vote like your life depends on it,
Speaker 1: and make sure that people around you were voting too,
Speaker 1: because it really, in fact does right. The more of
Speaker 1: your rights that get diminished and turnished, the less human
Speaker 1: and less citizen you are. So make sure you're voting
Speaker 1: for pro choice and pro abortion folks. And then third,
Speaker 1: talk about abortion. Stop making abortion the word abortion stigma.
Speaker 1: Stop saying I don't want anyone to have an abortion,
Speaker 1: or abortion only happens when you know there's dire circumstances,
Speaker 1: or we should have exceptions for rape. No abortion should
Speaker 1: be allowed whenever someone needs it and wants it, because
Speaker 1: we shouldn't allow them and bodily autonomy be autonomy to
Speaker 1: be violated. But before we say they should access healthcare,
Speaker 1: So talk about abortion. De stigmatize it as much as possible,
Speaker 1: because that's the only way forward. Right. If we keep
Speaker 1: making abortion stigma, we're never going to be able to
Speaker 1: move past that. It's a decision for someone to make
Speaker 1: for their own healthcare. My thanks to Anna Upani at
Speaker 1: Mary Ziegler. This episode was recorded at CDM Studios in
Speaker 1: New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeice,
Speaker 1: and Maureen Hoben. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social
Speaker 1: media manager is Danielle Gingwich. Hi'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio. The Sun
Speaker 1: Time to come.