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Speaker 1: Good and morning everybody. Welcome to the Daily OS. It

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Speaker 1: is Thursday, the fourteenth of April. You're with Sam and

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Speaker 1: Zari here for another morning of news. Nearing the end

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Speaker 1: of the first full week of the twenty twenty two

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Speaker 1: federal election. Today on the podcast, we're going to be

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Speaker 1: talking to you about what the White House describes as

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Speaker 1: the most oppressive abortion laws in the United States. They're

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Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. We're going to tell you more, But first, Zara,

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Speaker 1: what is making news this.

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Speaker 2: Morning from one side of the political spectrum to the other.

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Speaker 2: Yesterday we heard from Adam Bant. He is the leader

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Speaker 2: of the Greens Party, and at the National Press Club

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Speaker 2: yesterday he announced the Greens plan to get dental care

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Speaker 2: included in Medicare. When I asked how the policy would

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Speaker 2: be financed, Ban said, the Greens will make Clive Palmer

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Speaker 2: pay more tax so you can fix your teeth.

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Speaker 1: To Ukraine now, and the mayor of Merripol has said

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Speaker 1: twenty one thousand people have been killed in the city

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Speaker 1: since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began. Mayor Vadam Boychenko said,

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Speaker 1: we know, and there is evidence that bodies disappear from

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Speaker 1: the streets. We know that there are so called concentration

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Speaker 1: places where they hide bodies. We call it genocide. We

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Speaker 1: call it war crimes.

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Speaker 2: The Sri Lankan government has announced it is suspending repayments

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Speaker 2: on all its debt, and that is amid growing protests

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Speaker 2: across the country. This is the first time since its

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Speaker 2: independence that Sri Lanka has defaulted on its foreign debts.

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Speaker 1: And today's good news. We haven't had a COVID good

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Speaker 1: news in a while, so we thought we'd throw one

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Speaker 1: in there. COVID nineteen restrictions were relaxed in wa overnight,

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Speaker 1: so from today only household or intimate contacts of a

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Speaker 1: positive case will be considered close contacts and need to isolate.

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Speaker 2: The governor of the US state of Oklahoma has signed

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Speaker 2: a bill to introduce a near total ban on all abortions.

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Speaker 2: Sam talk me through the law. This isn't the first

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Speaker 2: of its type that we've seen in recent months. There

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Speaker 2: seems to be a trend, but talk to me about

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Speaker 2: this one in particular.

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Speaker 1: So this new law is due to take effect in August,

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Speaker 1: and it will make it illegal to perform an abortion

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Speaker 1: in the state of Oklahoma. Anyone found guilty of performing

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Speaker 1: an abortion could face up to ten years in prison

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Speaker 1: and a fine of up to one hundred thousand US dollars.

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Speaker 1: The only exception the law provides for is when an

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Speaker 1: abortion is performed to save the life of a pregnant

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Speaker 1: woman in a medical emergency. It's worth noting the pregnant

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Speaker 1: woman involved would not face criminal charges, but nonetheless, they

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Speaker 1: are being described as some of the most oppressive abortion

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Speaker 1: laws in the United States. Here's what Oklahoma Governor Kevin

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Speaker 1: Stitz said at the signing of the bill yesterday. We

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Speaker 1: want Oklahoma to be the most pro life state in

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Speaker 1: the country. We want to outlaw abortion all right.

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Speaker 2: So, Oklahoma shares a border with Texas, and Texas is

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Speaker 2: a state that introduced similar abortion laws.

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Speaker 1: Last year, right exactly. And this is where the laws

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Speaker 1: that are currently on the table in ok Oklahoma are

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Speaker 1: going to have a real compounding effect. Oklahoma's abortion centers

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Speaker 1: have seen quite a dramatic increase in patients traveling from Texas,

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Speaker 1: where abortions now after six weeks of pregnancy have been banned,

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Speaker 1: and that ban was introduced in September of last year.

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Speaker 1: So in many ways, Oklahoma is a critical access point

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Speaker 1: for Texans seeking an abortion and the stats don't lie.

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Speaker 1: The stats show that there's been a twenty five hundred

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Speaker 1: percent increase in the number of Texan patients traveling to

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Speaker 1: the state for treatment compared to the previous twelve months,

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Speaker 1: and that was from the planned parenthood centers in Oklahoma.

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Speaker 1: Governor Stitt addressed this in the press conference yesterday. He said,

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Speaker 1: we certainly don't want Texans coming up into Oklahoma for

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Speaker 1: the procedure and that this bill will take care of

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Speaker 1: that practice as expected.

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Speaker 2: Almost immediately after this bill was signed into law, a

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Speaker 2: number of groups came out and said that they challenged

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Speaker 2: the law in the courts. What else are we seeing

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Speaker 2: in US courts in this space, because there's a fair

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Speaker 2: bit going on.

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Speaker 1: It's an interesting time for abortion law in the States.

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Speaker 1: And if we kind of zoom out straight away, where

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Speaker 1: expecting a US Supreme Court decision on the right to

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Speaker 1: an abortion in about June. And this is after the

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Speaker 1: court heard arguments in the case of Dobbs verse. Jackson

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Speaker 1: Women's Health Organization. The Supreme Court, as a quick reminder,

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Speaker 1: is the highest court in the land and have the

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Speaker 1: most power to set the tone for every other state

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Speaker 1: in the US. So in this case, the state of

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Speaker 1: Mississippi is seeking to ban abortions after fifteen weeks, and

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Speaker 1: they've asked the Supreme Court to reconsider the precedent set

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three by a case that we all

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Speaker 1: have heard of, Roe versus Wade, and that case established

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Speaker 1: that termination until a fetus is viable outside the womb

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Speaker 1: is legal.

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Speaker 2: All right, So let's go through Roe v. Wade. It's

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Speaker 2: the thing that is always brought up. It comes up

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Speaker 2: at least in every abortion case. But it also remains

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Speaker 2: central to our understanding of the Supreme Court and what

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Speaker 2: is kind of within the realm of power there. So

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Speaker 2: take me through Roe v. Wade.

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Speaker 1: So we're going back to nineteen seventy three here, and

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Speaker 1: this is where the U. S. Supreme Court decided seven

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Speaker 1: to so seven judges voted four to two against that

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Speaker 1: the fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution provides a right

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Speaker 1: to privacy, and this right to privacy protects a pregnant

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Speaker 1: woman's right to have an abortion. This essentially meant that

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Speaker 1: access to safe and legal abortions is a right enshrined

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Speaker 1: by the Constitution and can't be outlawed like the law

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Speaker 1: that we're seeing in Oklahoma. In nineteen ninety two, a

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Speaker 1: separate case in the Supreme Court reinforced that this nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy three case was correct, and it said even more

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Speaker 1: explicitly that the government cannot impose a quote undue burden

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Speaker 1: on women seeking an abortion. So fifty years later after

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Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade, the country, though, is still split on

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Speaker 1: what should be done about abortion, and it's become a

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Speaker 1: very divisive political, state based issue. So currently, if we

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Speaker 1: take it into twenty twenty two, abortion is legal in

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Speaker 1: the US. Individual states in the US have an ability

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Speaker 1: to create laws to restrict abortion as long as those

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Speaker 1: laws don't impose an undue burden. That phrase that I

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Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, Now, the term drew burden isn't actually fully

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Speaker 1: defined anywhere, and that's why there's so much ambiguity in

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Speaker 1: state and Supreme Court law, and there's constant arguments about

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Speaker 1: what undrew burden is and what it isn't. It's these

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Speaker 1: different interpretations of that phrase undrew burden that have led

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Speaker 1: to recent tighter abortion restrictions in Texas.

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Speaker 2: After Rob Wade, conservative states started testing what abortion laws

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Speaker 2: they could create that would withstand legal challenges. One of

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Speaker 2: the ways that they tested the limits was with this

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Speaker 2: so called heartbeat bills? Can you go into what that is?

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Speaker 1: So heartbeat bills prohibit abortion once a fetal heartbeat can

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Speaker 1: be detected, so that's generally six weeks into pregnancy. Pro

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Speaker 1: choice advocates are you this is essentially a ban on

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Speaker 1: abortions because women might not even know they're carrying a

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Speaker 1: fetus six weeks into pregnancy. So heartbeat bills have been

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Speaker 1: around since twenty nineteen, but they're really coming into popularity

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Speaker 1: in the last twelve months. Several US states have recently

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Speaker 1: enacted anti abortion laws, including Arizona, Idaho, and Wyoming. Now

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Speaker 1: we're talking about Oklahoma and Texas, and according to a

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Speaker 1: US based research organization focused on reproductive health and rights,

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Speaker 1: there's about thirty US states that have introduced some sort

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Speaker 1: of anti abortion bill this year alone.

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Speaker 2: Last week there was another Supreme Court confirmation. How does

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Speaker 2: the makeup of the Supreme Court affect this type of law.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think this is why so many Americans think

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Speaker 1: that the judgment in June might be one that criminalizes abortion.

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Speaker 1: It could totally shift the interpretation of Roe v. Wade,

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Speaker 1: which has stood for fifty years, paving the way for

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Speaker 1: a law like the one we're talking about now in

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma to come into force without the fear that the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court of the United States will overturn it. So

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Speaker 1: there's nine judges on the Supreme Court at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Six are Republican and traditionally more conservative when it comes

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Speaker 1: to abortion rights, and three are Democrats and they're traditionally

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Speaker 1: more progressive. You've just mentioned there that we have a

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Speaker 1: new judge appointed to the Supreme Court. That's Judge Kintaji

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Speaker 1: Brown Jackson. She'll be replacing a retiring progressive judge, Justice Bryer.

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Speaker 2: All right, So to circle back to where we started

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Speaker 2: here with the Oklahoma laws. Obviously, our audience had some

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Speaker 2: strong views on it. I'm curious to know what the

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Speaker 2: reaction more generally across the world has been and certainly

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Speaker 2: in the US, to these new laws.

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Speaker 1: So we've seen massive protests outside the Oklahoma state legislature,

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Speaker 1: and obviously, as we saw on our posts, the volume

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Speaker 1: of noise on social media from those who feel passionately

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Speaker 1: one way or the other to these new laws is

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Speaker 1: quite high. Interestingly, we haven't seen material impacts of these laws,

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Speaker 1: as the law hasn't come into force yet. That's not

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Speaker 1: for a couple of months. We look to neighboring states.

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Speaker 1: We've actually seen quite an interesting private company response. Brands

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Speaker 1: like Apple, Bumble and Levi's have offered to cover travel

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Speaker 1: costs for employees who need abortions in neighboring states when

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Speaker 1: similar laws were passed in Texas. This is obviously more

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Speaker 1: difficult now as one of the neighboring states of Texas,

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma now has quite similar laws.

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Speaker 2: Well round out with what the White House is saying

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Speaker 2: about this. They're calling it the most restrictive legislation regulating

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Speaker 2: access to reproductive healthcare, and Jensaki, the White House Press Sex, said,

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Speaker 2: make no mistakes, the actions today in Oklahoma are a

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Speaker 2: part of a disturbing national trend attacking women's rights, and

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Speaker 2: she added that the Biden administration will continue to stand

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Speaker 2: with women in Oklahoma and across the country. That's all

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Speaker 2: we have time for for today's episode of The Daily Ohs.

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Speaker 2: If you're interested in learning more about this or any

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Speaker 2: other topic, follow us on Instagram at the Daly Ohs.

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Speaker 2: It's where nearly three hundred and fifty thousand people get

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Speaker 2: their news every day, and we'd love to have you

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Speaker 2: on there as well. Thanks for listening