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Speaker 1: dot Com slash as that's the Great Courses Plus dot
Speaker 1: Com slash o z y the Great Courses Plus dot
Speaker 1: Com slash. Aussie March, the United States was in the
Speaker 1: middle of a massive civil rights movement, but the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court was hearing a challenge to a law that
Speaker 1: was almost a century old. The case was called Griswold
Speaker 1: versus Connecticut. It concerned a ban on the use of
Speaker 1: all contraception in the state of Connecticut, even by married couples,
Speaker 1: and the lawyers attempting to defend the law that made
Speaker 1: it a crime to use birth control, Well, they had
Speaker 1: their work cut out for them. During oral arguments, Supreme
Speaker 1: Court Justice Potter Stewart grilled one of those lawyers about
Speaker 1: the purpose of that contraception ban. Well, now, what purpose?
Speaker 1: What is the police power? Purpose of Connecticut and telling
Speaker 1: married people, two people who were married to each other,
Speaker 1: that they could not use contraceptive The attorney responded that
Speaker 1: the purpose was to preserve morality. What kind of morality? What? What? What?
Speaker 1: What moral purposes? Well, it is not unheard of that
Speaker 1: the use of contraceptives themselves would be immoral. Certainly. He
Speaker 1: goes on from there, and the attorney kept digging himself
Speaker 1: a bigger hole. It was a tough task. He was
Speaker 1: trying to defend the somewhat archaic law with appeals to
Speaker 1: contemporary morality. You see, by nine only two states, including Connecticut,
Speaker 1: still outlawed contraception. Meanwhile, almost three quarters of the American
Speaker 1: public approved of making birth control available. The Connecticut ban was,
Speaker 1: as Justice Stewart himself put it, an uncommonly silly law.
Speaker 1: So what's the problem? The U S Supreme Court had
Speaker 1: no obvious way to do anything about it. There's nothing
Speaker 1: in the U. S. Constitution that directly addresses contraception, reproductive health,
Speaker 1: or family planning, so there's a less than solid legal
Speaker 1: rationale to overturn the Connecticut law. However silly it might
Speaker 1: have seemed, So what did the court do? They made
Speaker 1: one up, and that instance of judicial creativity had has
Speaker 1: affected the course of American law and politics for more
Speaker 1: than half a century. Welcome to Flashback, a podcast from Azzie.
Speaker 1: I'm Sean Braswell. This season of Flashback is all about
Speaker 1: unintended consequences, and in this episode we explore the often
Speaker 1: uneasy relationship between law and politics, between morality and a
Speaker 1: changing society. We'll see how the efforts to overturn a
Speaker 1: silly law led to an unexpected revolution, one that has
Speaker 1: had its own unintended consequences today. The years following the
Speaker 1: Civil War were a busy time in America, especially for
Speaker 1: social reformers. This is John Johnson, an emeritus professor of
Speaker 1: history from the University of Northern Iowa and the author
Speaker 1: of Griswold v. Connecticut, Birth Control and the Constitutional Right
Speaker 1: of Privacy. This was a very total period for reform
Speaker 1: from about eighteen seventy to nineteen or so, and the
Speaker 1: reform cut in many directions. Anti slavery reformers were looking
Speaker 1: for new causes after the war to pour their energy into.
Speaker 1: There was women's suffrage and voting rights prohibition, and within
Speaker 1: this context you have what you might call the conservative
Speaker 1: Comstock Laws. They were named after a prominent reformer named
Speaker 1: Anthony Comstock, a veteran of the Union Army. And Anthony
Speaker 1: Comstock was an interesting guy. He did not have an
Speaker 1: elective position. He was sort of a an activist. Comstock
Speaker 1: was a deeply religious man who had moved to New
Speaker 1: York City after the war. He was outraged at the
Speaker 1: vice he encountered, their saloons, flop houses, brothels. He also
Speaker 1: didn't like the sending of what he considered immoral and
Speaker 1: salacious material through the mail. This included pornography, obscene drawings
Speaker 1: and more. And in this so called immoral literature he
Speaker 1: included advocacy for birth control. Believe it or not, in
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies, contraception was a controversial matter in America.
Speaker 1: It was religiously frowned upon, particularly in states like Connecticut,
Speaker 1: with a strong and Catholic population. So Comstock quits his
Speaker 1: job selling dry goods and convinces the New York Y
Speaker 1: m c A to support his full time one man
Speaker 1: crusade to bolster obscenity laws across the nation. He called
Speaker 1: his new outfit the New York Society for the Suppression
Speaker 1: of Vice, and it worked. Comstock convinced Congress to pass
Speaker 1: the Comstock Act in eighteen seventy three. A number of
Speaker 1: states passed their own Comstock laws restricting the use and
Speaker 1: distribution of birth control. Anthony Comstock even convinced Congress to
Speaker 1: appoint him as a Special Inspector of the Post Office
Speaker 1: so that he could ferret out of scene material eels.
Speaker 1: He conducted his own raids. The first year, he traveled
Speaker 1: over twenty three thousand miles across the country and sees
Speaker 1: over sixty tho condoms and diaphragms. He was the elliott
Speaker 1: Ness of birth control. But not many Americans were as
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about following the new law as Comstock was. The
Speaker 1: laws themselves, which were the product of the culture, probably
Speaker 1: didn't have a whole lot of deterred effect. Over the
Speaker 1: next half century, most states repealed their Comstock laws. More
Speaker 1: than sevent of Americans supported birth control, and only two states,
Speaker 1: Connecticut and Massachusetts, still had the laws on the books.
Speaker 1: In Connecticut, many attempts at repealing the state's Comstock law
Speaker 1: were made, and I think there were over twenty attempts,
Speaker 1: but the resistance, particularly of the Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut,
Speaker 1: was determinative in keeping the laws on the books, and
Speaker 1: they succeeded at least until the Church and almost a
Speaker 1: century of legal and political inertia, met one very determined woman.
Speaker 1: She was a very talented lady. She was a singer,
Speaker 1: and for her early adulthood she spent time in France.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty, the clerical worker and medical technologist named
Speaker 1: to Stell Griswold moved to New Haven, Connecticut with her husband.
Speaker 1: She was a small woman, vivacious, she described as feisty.
Speaker 1: They had returned home to Connecticut because Griswold's mother was ill,
Speaker 1: and by pure chance turned out that she and her
Speaker 1: husband lived literally right next door to the Planned Parenthood
Speaker 1: League of Connecticut, and the position of executive director happened
Speaker 1: to be open. So the fifty year old Griswold applied,
Speaker 1: but she didn't know anything. By her own testimony, she
Speaker 1: didn't know much about birth country role. I don't think
Speaker 1: she had even seen a diaphragm when she interviewed for
Speaker 1: the job. Griswold got the job, and she immediately discovered
Speaker 1: how challenging it would be. Connecticut's Comstock law was the
Speaker 1: most restrictive in the country. It made using contraception at
Speaker 1: crime and prohibited groups like Planned Parenthood from distributing it
Speaker 1: or recommending it. This is Mary Ziggler, a law professor
Speaker 1: at Florida State University and the author of the brand
Speaker 1: new book Abortion and the Law of America. But Connecticut
Speaker 1: was pretty much alone at the time in preventing married
Speaker 1: couples from even using first controls. This was still the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, before the birth control pill. The diaphragm was
Speaker 1: the most commonly prescribed form of contraception at the time.
Speaker 1: Some called it quote the rich woman's secret. The Connecticut
Speaker 1: legislature would not repeal the law, and to get the
Speaker 1: courts to address it required a lawsuit. The only problem
Speaker 1: was the Connecticut law wasn't really being enforced, so to
Speaker 1: get Griswold to the court required more than just a
Speaker 1: law that still Griswold thought was unconstitutional. It also required
Speaker 1: some kind of ingenuousness when it came to getting arrested
Speaker 1: in trouble, showing that this law actually had some kind
Speaker 1: of teeth. So in nineteen sixty one, Griswold and a colleague,
Speaker 1: ductor Lee Buxton, decided they would try to test the law.
Speaker 1: Griswold announced publicly that her clinic would start providing contraceptive
Speaker 1: services to married women. This is a stell, Griswold in
Speaker 1: a nineteen sixty two interview with CBS News, describing the situation, Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's very evident that the allow is unenforceable.
Speaker 1: I think if you had a policeman under every bed
Speaker 1: in the state of Connecticut, they still could not prove anything.
Speaker 1: John Johnson again, and so they began to advertise that
Speaker 1: birth control was being practiced and advice was given in
Speaker 1: the facility in New Haven, Connecticut. They literally called upon
Speaker 1: the police to arrest a steal Griswold. A neighbor of
Speaker 1: Griswold's named James Morris, filed the complaint. Morris was a
Speaker 1: Catholic and the night manager at a rental car agency.
Speaker 1: He told local prosecutors quote every moment that clinic stays open,
Speaker 1: another child is not born. CBS News interviewed Morris in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two as well against birth control because it's immoral.
Speaker 1: It's the same as prostitution or abortion or in any
Speaker 1: other than those I moral things. Of course, getting arrested
Speaker 1: is just what is Stelle Griswold and Lee Buxton wanted arrest.
Speaker 1: Warrants were issued and Griswold dressed in her Sunday best
Speaker 1: surrender to authorities that the agreed upon time. So two
Speaker 1: detectives showed up, and apparently Steal was very happy to
Speaker 1: see them, and they had a very cordial conversation. Griswold
Speaker 1: and Buxton were arrested, and a court found them guilty
Speaker 1: and imposed a one fine. The case was appealed and
Speaker 1: eventually went to the Connecticut Supreme Court and then the
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court. Chris Wald finally had her chance
Speaker 1: to end the stubborn Connecticut law once and for all,
Speaker 1: but her case would wind up doing so much more
Speaker 1: than just that. That's next. Do you have an interesting
Speaker 1: tale about unintended consequences from history or your own life,
Speaker 1: Please share it with us By emailing flashback at Aussie
Speaker 1: dot com. That's flashback at o Z e y dot com.
Speaker 1: Not one of the nine men sitting on the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court thought that Connecticut's ban was a sensible law.
Speaker 1: John Johnson. This was considered sort of archaic and demeaning,
Speaker 1: and it was crudely drawn, and it was ninety years old.
Speaker 1: So it was a question of what grounds with the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court find to rule the law and constitutional. Chief
Speaker 1: Justice Earl Warren assigned the opinion in the case to
Speaker 1: Justice William O. Douglas. The sixty six year old Douglass
Speaker 1: was from Washington State and had been on the Court
Speaker 1: for over a quarter century. He was a world traveler
Speaker 1: and an outdoorsman. He was not your average Supreme Court justice. No.
Speaker 1: For everybody's abridge guessing game, What My Mine? This was
Speaker 1: a popular fifties game show. The contestants were blindfolded and
Speaker 1: asked to guess the identity of a mystery celebrity guest.
Speaker 1: One of those guests was Justice Douglas. This is a gentleman. Yes,
Speaker 1: do you work? Do you work for profit making organization? No?
Speaker 1: Justice Douglas was also something of a ladies man, sometimes
Speaker 1: known as wild Bill. He was the first Supreme Court
Speaker 1: justice to have been divorced, and not just once three times.
Speaker 1: The year after the Griswold decision, he would marry his
Speaker 1: fourth wife. She was twenty three years old. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: many of the clerks on the Court felt it to
Speaker 1: be deeply ironic that the justice with numerous extra marital
Speaker 1: affairs was to be the one in Griswold given the
Speaker 1: task of upholding the right to privacy in the sanctity
Speaker 1: of the marital bedroom. Douglas wrote the first draft of
Speaker 1: the Court's opinion in less than a week. It was
Speaker 1: six pages, handwritten, double spaced on a yellow legal pad.
Speaker 1: When his draft was circulated to the other chambers of
Speaker 1: the Court, the clerks and other justices were shocked at
Speaker 1: how thin it was. The legal argument left a little
Speaker 1: to be desired as well. What Justice Douglas would ultimately
Speaker 1: right is that the Connecticut law violated the right of
Speaker 1: privacy of Stale Griswold. The Court had never explicitly found
Speaker 1: a right to privacy in the Constitution. What Douglas did
Speaker 1: was in some ways very creative, in other ways that
Speaker 1: his critics said he was very sloppy, Douglas argued in
Speaker 1: his opinion that the Connecticut law quote violates the right
Speaker 1: of marital privacy, which is within the p number of
Speaker 1: specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights, and these pannumbra
Speaker 1: are these emanations sort of cast a privacy shadow. So
Speaker 1: it is a really important case for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: April Dawson is a constitutional law professor at North Carolina
Speaker 1: Central University School of Law. One uh the court specifically
Speaker 1: found a right to privacy and the marital relations and
Speaker 1: concluded that the state could not restrict a married couple's
Speaker 1: ability to be counseled on and use contraceptives. But more broadly,
Speaker 1: it's important because the court for the first time really
Speaker 1: explicitly found a right to privacy in the Constitution, even
Speaker 1: though the right to privacy is not explicitly stated within
Speaker 1: the text of the Constitution. The court delivered its opinion
Speaker 1: to the public on June seven, the day before Estelle
Speaker 1: Griswold's sixty five birthday. Near the end of the majority opinion,
Speaker 1: the thrice divorced Douglas opined about the sanctity of marriage.
Speaker 1: Marriage is a coming together for better or worse, hopefully
Speaker 1: enduring an intimate to the degree of being sacred. It
Speaker 1: is an association that promotes a way of life, not
Speaker 1: causes a harmony in living, not political faiths. It is
Speaker 1: an association for as noble a purpose as any involved
Speaker 1: in our prior decisions. It was a beautiful sentiment, and
Speaker 1: in the years after Griswold he would often hear that
Speaker 1: passage read aloud at wedding ceremonies across the country, and
Speaker 1: so for the first time in nearly a century, Connecticut
Speaker 1: spouses engaged in legal protected sex, and the right to
Speaker 1: privacy was born in America. Meanwhile, the Stelle Griswold did
Speaker 1: what so many older Northerners did at the time. She
Speaker 1: retired to an air conditioned home in Fort Myers, Florida,
Speaker 1: where she lived until her death in But the controversy
Speaker 1: surrounding the Griswold case began before the ink on the
Speaker 1: opinion was even dry. The critics would say, well, it
Speaker 1: may be very important, but it's not grounded in the U. S. Constitution,
Speaker 1: And it was an easy decision to criticize if you
Speaker 1: didn't like the analysis of Justice Douglas. For many, the
Speaker 1: ends of eliminating an uncommonly silly law did not justify
Speaker 1: the Warren Court's judicial means for doing so. If you
Speaker 1: agreed with the Warren courts leanings, you were willing to
Speaker 1: accept the decision. If you were critical of the Warrant
Speaker 1: Court for going too far, you saw this as a
Speaker 1: sloppy decision that created a right that it wasn't clearly there.
Speaker 1: This is Daniel Ermine, a constitutional law scholar at the
Speaker 1: Northeastern School of Law. Griswald is the beginning, but certainly
Speaker 1: not the end, of a huge debate over whether unspoken
Speaker 1: or what lawyers call unenumerated rights get protection in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: No one knew right after Griswold quite what the consequences
Speaker 1: of this broad legal right would be. Mary Ziggler again,
Speaker 1: one of the questions coming out of Griswold was how
Speaker 1: broad the s right to privacy reached? Pretty far, as
Speaker 1: it turned out. Eight years after Griswold, the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: announced another big decision, good evening and a landmark ruling.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court today legalized abortions. The majority and cases
Speaker 1: from Texas and Georgia said that a decision to end
Speaker 1: up pregnancy during the first three months belongs to the
Speaker 1: woman and her doctor, not the government. Well, Roe versus
Speaker 1: Wade is just a bomb that went off in terms
Speaker 1: of constitutional law. This is Mark Kindy, the law professor
Speaker 1: at Drake Law School and the director of the Drake
Speaker 1: Constitutional Law Center. In the famous case of Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 1: the U. S. Supreme Court found the right to privacy
Speaker 1: identified in Griswold applied in other family planning circumstances, and
Speaker 1: when it got to abortion, they found that although there
Speaker 1: were certainly an interest the state had in the feat
Speaker 1: is at the end of the day, that right to
Speaker 1: privacy that an individual woman has with regard to what
Speaker 1: happens to her body is something that exists. It's a
Speaker 1: fundamental constitutional right. The decision in Row was immediately polarizing.
Speaker 1: CBS News captured the opposing viewpoints on the day the
Speaker 1: ruling was handed down. This is Dr Alan Gutmacher of
Speaker 1: Planned Parenthood on that broadcast. I think that to raid
Speaker 1: the dignity dear woman and give her freedom of choice
Speaker 1: in this area his extraordinary event. And I think that
Speaker 1: January nineteen seventy there would be an historic day. And
Speaker 1: on the other side, James McK a priest with the U. S.
Speaker 1: Catholic Conference. In this instance, the Supreme Court has withdrawn
Speaker 1: protection for the human rights of unborn children, and it
Speaker 1: is teaching people that abortion is a rather innocuous procedure,
Speaker 1: provided that there are proper legal safeguards. These strongly held
Speaker 1: opposing views on abortion have now defined American political culture
Speaker 1: for nearly half a century, and the right to privacy
Speaker 1: found in Griswold has been extended to areas beyond just abortion.
Speaker 1: Mark Kendy, you know what happened after Rowe was basically
Speaker 1: the Court actually continued to find this right to privacy
Speaker 1: to be even broader. Some of these extensions to privacy
Speaker 1: are favored by liberals, such as the Court's recent protection
Speaker 1: of gay marriage, and some push in a more conservative direction. Certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, parents claim rights to be able to do
Speaker 1: things like homeschooling of their children. They claim rights to
Speaker 1: be able to sometimes pull their children from public schools
Speaker 1: when it comes to the point where public schools engage
Speaker 1: in sex education. So it encompasses parental rights, it encompasses
Speaker 1: medical care, and it even you know, touches on religious issues.
Speaker 1: The century long reaction to the Comstock Laws of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century illustrates how legislative overreach can backfire to create
Speaker 1: rights that would have shocked the original proponents of a law.
Speaker 1: Just think, how would the Chase crusader Anthony Comstock have
Speaker 1: felt if he knew his labors would have ultimately resulted
Speaker 1: in legalized abortion? But can the same be said of
Speaker 1: the Griswold case. Up next, a look at some of
Speaker 1: the crazy, unexpected consequences unleashed by Griswald's privacy revolution. Enjoying
Speaker 1: this episode, check out the Great Courses Plus streaming service.
Speaker 1: It's an excellent resource to expand our knowledge on a
Speaker 1: variety of subjects, like the establishment by the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: of the right to privacy. In researching this episode of Flashback,
Speaker 1: I dove deep into the lectures, history of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court and law school for everyone constitutional law. With the
Speaker 1: Great Courses Plus app, we can keep our minds active,
Speaker 1: escape into this vast world of information. Watch or listen
Speaker 1: at any time anywhere. Right now, they're giving our listeners
Speaker 1: a special, limited time offer, a free month of unlimited
Speaker 1: access to their entire library. Sign up now through our
Speaker 1: special U r L go to the Great Courses Plus
Speaker 1: dot com slash AUSI that's the Great Courses plus dot
Speaker 1: Com slash o z y, the Great Courses plus dot
Speaker 1: Com slash AUSI. These days, Griswold v. Connecticut is not
Speaker 1: all that controversial, Mary Ziggler. But Griswold itself has become
Speaker 1: what lawyers called part of the legal canon, in the
Speaker 1: sense that you can't really say Griswold was wrong anymore.
Speaker 1: But there's one place that Griswold and the still controversial
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade decision continue to get raised. Daniel Rman Again.
Speaker 1: The debates that occurred in grizz Wald and Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade set the stage for an entire generation of Supreme
Speaker 1: Court confirmation hearings, and few hearings went by without a
Speaker 1: senator questioning the Supreme Court nominee about his or her
Speaker 1: views on the right to privacy established in Griswold. It
Speaker 1: really was the centerpiece of Robert Bork's confirmation hearing during
Speaker 1: the summer of Robert Bork was an outspoken conservative jurist.
Speaker 1: During the hearing, you can hear the subtle disdain he
Speaker 1: had for Justice Douglas's opinion in gris Wald and Justice
Speaker 1: Douglas entered ended that opinion with a rather uh eloquent
Speaker 1: statement of how awful it would be to have the
Speaker 1: police pounding into the marital bedroom. And it would be awful,
Speaker 1: and it would never happen because there is a Fourth
Speaker 1: Amendment and the police simply could not get into the
Speaker 1: bedroom without a warrant. What magistrate is going to give
Speaker 1: the police a warrant to go into search for signs
Speaker 1: of use of contraceptives. I mean, it's a holy it's
Speaker 1: a holy, bizarre and imaginary case. Now let me say this,
Speaker 1: yeld at that point, just for classification, do you recognize
Speaker 1: that second voice? Hint, it's a balding senator from the
Speaker 1: state of Delaware who is currently the Democratic nominee for president.
Speaker 1: And there's a famous exchange between the young chairman of
Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee, Joe Biden, and Robert Burke about the
Speaker 1: implicate patitions of Burke's view that there is not a
Speaker 1: fundamental right to marital privacy or the right to contraception.
Speaker 1: That was that issue in Griswold. If they had evidence
Speaker 1: of the crime was being committed, how are they going
Speaker 1: to get evidence that a couple of tap, wire tap,
Speaker 1: wire tap, you mean to say that is going to
Speaker 1: authorize a wire tap to find out of a couple
Speaker 1: of using contraceptives. They unbelievable, unbelievable. Things changed a bit
Speaker 1: after the Senate refused to confirm Bork. After Bork was
Speaker 1: voted down, You've just had a series of nominees by
Speaker 1: both parties who have said Row v. Wade is precedent,
Speaker 1: and they have given platitudes that would make most first
Speaker 1: year law students blush. And that continues to this day.
Speaker 1: I said that it's settled as a precedent of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, entitled to respect under principles of starry decisives.
Speaker 1: That's Brett Kavanagh, the last Supreme Court justice to be
Speaker 1: confirmed in his Senate hearing. One of the important things
Speaker 1: to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that
Speaker 1: it has been reaffirmed many times over the past forty
Speaker 1: five years. As you know, even if Supreme Court nominees
Speaker 1: won't go near abortion or the right to privacy, it
Speaker 1: has become a hot button political issue, especially on the right.
Speaker 1: Mark Kindy, It's just extraordinary how influential it's been in
Speaker 1: terms of energizing the Republican Party, for example, especially evangelicals
Speaker 1: within the Republican Party. Daniel Irmin again Roe v. Wade
Speaker 1: generated a politically powerful right to life movement that has
Speaker 1: been with us since the nineteen seventies and has profoundly
Speaker 1: affected national politics ever since. And it has impact did
Speaker 1: the political sphere more than you would think. We know
Speaker 1: that in two thousand eight, Roe v. Wade determined John
Speaker 1: McCain's choice of a vice presidential nominee. He wanted to
Speaker 1: choose Joe Lieberman as a unity ticket, and he got
Speaker 1: the news that every state Republican party chair would boycott
Speaker 1: the convention and not endorse him. He ended up picking
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin, who was known for being against Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 1: and we all know how that turned out. But it
Speaker 1: was the steen US presidential election where the abortion and
Speaker 1: right to privacy issue really had the biggest political impact.
Speaker 1: In exit polls told us that about twent of voters
Speaker 1: thought the Supreme Court was a very important factor in
Speaker 1: their vote, and of those voters, it was about six
Speaker 1: to four Trump versus Clinton. So if you do the
Speaker 1: math and you remember that Trump won the electoral College
Speaker 1: because of narrow victories in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, I
Speaker 1: think you can make a straightforward case that concern about
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court and whether it would eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.
Speaker 1: And the Trump presidency may have delivered his electoral college
Speaker 1: victory and the Supreme Court will soon have an opportunity
Speaker 1: to overturn or limit Roe v. Wade. April Dawson's So,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court is currently deciding a case right now
Speaker 1: June Medical Services, the RUSSO, and this is a case
Speaker 1: that's challenging a Louisiana law that requires physicians who perform
Speaker 1: abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. Mark Kindy,
Speaker 1: there's a really good chance this court, which is considered
Speaker 1: rather conservative, might say the Louisiana law that requires these
Speaker 1: clinics to be like many hospital, well that's not a
Speaker 1: big burden. But the problem is that law will probably
Speaker 1: drive a bunch of these clinics out of business. And
Speaker 1: so what's going to happen is it's going to be
Speaker 1: much harder for women to be able to get abortions.
Speaker 1: But if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, there
Speaker 1: is much more at stake than just abortion rights. In
Speaker 1: order for Road to be overturned, the Court would pretty
Speaker 1: much have to reach a conclusion that there is not
Speaker 1: a right to privacy expressed within the Constitution, and that
Speaker 1: would undermine all of the other decisions by the Court
Speaker 1: that that are based on the right to privacy. This
Speaker 1: could have huge legal implications for both sides of the
Speaker 1: political aisle. Obviously, the pro choice side, which tends to
Speaker 1: be liberal, would be upset. But one of the unintended
Speaker 1: consequences is that it could infect rights that conservatives think
Speaker 1: are very important. And so if you get rid of
Speaker 1: this right to privacy as part of getting rid of
Speaker 1: the right to abortion, ironically, you don't just burden potentially
Speaker 1: people who support abortion, but you may burden people who
Speaker 1: oppose abortion. But you may burden what you might call
Speaker 1: conservative rights. So what are we to make of this
Speaker 1: whole crazy legal back and forth from Comstock to Griswold
Speaker 1: to the election and beyond Daniel Rman again, So big picture,
Speaker 1: I actually like to quote Ruth Bader Ginsburg and she
Speaker 1: says a lot of people think that the American symbol
Speaker 1: is the eagle, but she actually prefers the pendulum, the
Speaker 1: ideas that American law and politics tend to swing back
Speaker 1: and forth. Sometimes that is in the form of a
Speaker 1: backlash against a law passed by a legislature like the
Speaker 1: Comstock laws. There is an incredible irony in that sometimes
Speaker 1: laws with purpose a end up with outcome b and
Speaker 1: a lot of the moral aims behind these Comstock laws
Speaker 1: lead to women's liberation, especially in terms of sexual liberation.
Speaker 1: And sometimes the pendulum swings back against the court system itself,
Speaker 1: as it did in the years after Griswolden Rowe. Basically,
Speaker 1: when courts step beyond their role, the political system tends
Speaker 1: to react and respond, and there is a correction in
Speaker 1: the long arc of history. And if the current Supreme
Speaker 1: Court overturned rov Wade, we may see that pendulum swing
Speaker 1: yet again. Down the Dube down, the doube down, down
Speaker 1: the Dubi Downdubi downdu wa. Comstock Kane to build a
Speaker 1: wall like the walls of Jericho, reaching two women across
Speaker 1: the land is manifesto chy and to control what's going
Speaker 1: on below the little did he know that the walls
Speaker 1: will come tumbling down? Belou me down, but dude be
Speaker 1: down by do wah Downadubi down, Badubi down bde wa.
Speaker 1: When he laid his laws upon that bed a patchwork
Speaker 1: they did. So it's so quilt those Golden Threads, The
Speaker 1: Empress Sarreo her Trumpets, She did blow to com Socks,
Speaker 1: Jerich Cole Fell Like Dominos and the Walls, King Tomblin Down,
Speaker 1: Madubi Down, Bedue Be Down. Flashback is written and hosted
Speaker 1: by me Sean Braswell, senior writer and executive producer at Ozzie.
Speaker 1: He was produced by Robert Coulos, Tracy Moran, he Orio
Speaker 1: to Gives You On, and Shannon Williams and Chris Hoff
Speaker 1: engineered our show. Special thanks to the crew at I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio Podcast Networks, especially Sophie Lichtman and Jack O'Brien.
Speaker 1: Make sure to subscribe to Flashback on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This
Speaker 1: episode features the song Laws Come Tumbling Down, written and
Speaker 1: performed by teacup Gin. You can check them out on
Speaker 1: their website teacup gin dot com. Flashback is the latest
Speaker 1: podcast from Ozzy, a modern media company producing original TV series, festivals,
Speaker 1: news and podcasts for curious people. Ozzie's unique storytelling focuses
Speaker 1: on the new and the next, whether that's forward looking
Speaker 1: news and features bold new perspectives on TV or brand
Speaker 1: new ways of looking at history in an earlier episode
Speaker 1: of Flashback. This season, we learned how billions of cigarettes
Speaker 1: were made available to American soldiers during World War One
Speaker 1: and some of the unintended consequences of that. But there's
Speaker 1: another item that, unlike cigarettes, soldiers were not allowed to
Speaker 1: have condoms, and that decision had its own disastrous impact
Speaker 1: on the war effort. It's estimated that eighteen thousand U
Speaker 1: S soldiers per day were unable to serve because of
Speaker 1: venereal diseases. In other words, at any given time, about
Speaker 1: fIF of U S. Soldiers were basically off the front
Speaker 1: lines and on medical furlough, not because of injury, but
Speaker 1: because of the clap to dive deeper. Hand to AUSI
Speaker 1: dot com slash flashback, that's o z y dot com
Speaker 1: slash Flashback. There you can find more of my lecture
Speaker 1: notes from today's episode, featuring extended interviews, links to further reading,
Speaker 1: and more information on the unintended consequences of legal cases
Speaker 1: like Chris Wald, as well as links to other hidden
Speaker 1: stories from history uncovered by me and other reporters at Aussie.
Speaker 1: We all need a break from the constant cycle to
Speaker 1: learn something new, to gay new perspectives. The Great Courses
Speaker 1: Plus streaming service is an excellent resource to expand our
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Speaker 1: researching this season of flashback lectures like Playball, the Rise
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