Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / A Conversation on Abortion in the US with Melita Easters

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A Conversation on Abortion in the US with Melita Easters · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I welcome to Stephane
0:07
Speaker 1: never told your production of ihear Radio. Yes, and welcome
0:20
Speaker 1: to Oh my God, what's happening? We have to talk
0:23
Speaker 1: about things because things are happening kind of segment um.
0:26
Speaker 1: And if you've been paying attention to what is happening
0:28
Speaker 1: in the United States, you know there's a lot happening
0:31
Speaker 1: here and we are a bit stressed, to say the
0:34
Speaker 1: very least. So before we begin, we want to time
0:37
Speaker 1: stamp this because we know so many things are changing
0:40
Speaker 1: and as you know, as you know, oftentimes before our
0:42
Speaker 1: episodes even published, we are already out of date. But
0:47
Speaker 1: just to go ahead and let you know we're trying
0:48
Speaker 1: today is May five, twenty two, Andy, go ahead. We
0:56
Speaker 1: always have to have a Star Wars plan if we
0:58
Speaker 1: can have to. And recently political elated and a Supreme
1:02
Speaker 1: Court brief which would overturn Roe v. Wade, which, by
1:05
Speaker 1: the way, was the nineteen seventy three ruling that stated
1:08
Speaker 1: unduly restricted state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional, which Justice
1:13
Speaker 1: Harry A. Blackman wrote for a Texas hearing which against
1:18
Speaker 1: states statutes are criminalizing abortion in most instances violated privacy,
1:24
Speaker 1: which was guaranteed by the Fourteeth Amendment under the Due
1:26
Speaker 1: Process Clause. We're gonna get into that a little more. So,
1:30
Speaker 1: what exactly is this briefing that has so many people
1:34
Speaker 1: on high alert? Well, we had to bring someone in
1:37
Speaker 1: to talk to us about this, and today we have
1:40
Speaker 1: executive director of a Georgia win List, Molina Easters. Welcome,
1:45
Speaker 1: Thank you for pleasure to join you. Can you kind
1:49
Speaker 1: of let the people know who you are and why
1:53
Speaker 1: you're here to talk to us? Thanks well. I am
1:57
Speaker 1: the founding chair of Georgia Winless. WHI is a twenty
2:00
Speaker 1: two year old state based pact to elect pro choice
2:04
Speaker 1: democratic women in Georgia, and we have helped elect seventies
2:08
Speaker 1: six legislators, forty six of whom currently serve over our
2:13
Speaker 1: twenty two year history. And so, because reproductive freedom is
2:18
Speaker 1: the core of our mission and the lens we use
2:21
Speaker 1: for endorsing women, this case and this opinion puts what
2:26
Speaker 1: we do in the center of Georgia's political spotlight. Yeah,
2:31
Speaker 1: so we needed to do something when it comes to
2:33
Speaker 1: obviously reproductive rights. We are very loud about where we
2:37
Speaker 1: stand on sminty and one of those things that we've
2:41
Speaker 1: been talking about in the past what how long have
2:43
Speaker 1: we been here any three years? Is that women in
2:47
Speaker 1: UH political positions and leadership is important and impacts a
2:51
Speaker 1: lot of these issues that we have been talking about
2:53
Speaker 1: and now are very concerned about. UM. So yeah, before
2:57
Speaker 1: we start into all of that, can we talk a
2:59
Speaker 1: little bit about the briefing, UM, And can you kind
3:02
Speaker 1: of tell us what you read through as because you
3:06
Speaker 1: definitely have been talking about this out loud and I
3:08
Speaker 1: know has been a center point as you are in
3:11
Speaker 1: this UH political time because we are all in the
3:14
Speaker 1: middle of the primaries. UM. What this briefing has for us,
3:18
Speaker 1: well for for the Judge Alito to say Row was
3:24
Speaker 1: egregiously wrong from the start is pretty devastating to the
3:29
Speaker 1: entire pro choice movement. And it means that existing laws
3:35
Speaker 1: like the Georgia six week ban, which is currently under
3:39
Speaker 1: a stay by federal court order that law was passed
3:42
Speaker 1: in ten would then immediately go into effect. And I've
3:48
Speaker 1: read in one report today the fact that this leak
3:53
Speaker 1: allows women who are currently pregnant who are thinking about
3:57
Speaker 1: their options, it puts the time to able on them
4:00
Speaker 1: to hurry up because many court decisions give a window
4:07
Speaker 1: when the ruling will take effect. The draft by Justice
4:12
Speaker 1: Alito does not give a window to ease in. So
4:16
Speaker 1: this leaked decision does put all pregnant women on notice
4:21
Speaker 1: that if you are are considering an abortion, you need
4:26
Speaker 1: to go ahead and have it now because the state
4:28
Speaker 1: laws that are regressive that have been stayed by federal courts,
4:32
Speaker 1: that are awaiting court review, are that are awaiting a
4:35
Speaker 1: Supreme Court opinion from this Mississippi case. The minute it's overturned,
4:40
Speaker 1: you might not have the same options you had the
4:43
Speaker 1: day before the decision goes into place. And you know what,
4:49
Speaker 1: let me backtrack a little bit, because you actually have
4:52
Speaker 1: some personal connections to the original Roe v. Wade. Can
4:55
Speaker 1: you kind of talk about that decision and even talk
4:58
Speaker 1: about what happened in Georgia as Yes, it is because
5:02
Speaker 1: I've been at this work for so long and I'm
5:04
Speaker 1: old enough to be a grandmother. Um. I have had
5:07
Speaker 1: the pleasure of meeting both Sarah Weddington, who argued the
5:12
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade case in front of the Supreme Court
5:15
Speaker 1: on several occasions, and I've met Marjorie Pitts Haynes. Both
5:19
Speaker 1: of these ladies are now deceased, but Marjorie Pitts. Hams
5:23
Speaker 1: argued the Dove Bolton case on the same day as
5:27
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade, and Dovie Bolton was a Georgia case
5:32
Speaker 1: before the court on the same day, and and the
5:35
Speaker 1: judges decided to hand down their ruling from the Texas case.
5:40
Speaker 1: But not everybody in Georgia realizes that Georgia had a
5:45
Speaker 1: long history for progressive abortion policies at the time the
5:51
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade decision was handed down. In fact, women
5:55
Speaker 1: had greater access to reproductive services and abortion procedures back
6:00
Speaker 1: then than in many states, including the Northeast. That is
6:05
Speaker 1: something that is new to me, Like I learned it recently,
6:08
Speaker 1: and I was kind of like, well have I never
6:10
Speaker 1: heard about this? That the thing is Number one, both
6:15
Speaker 1: of you are relatively young, and so you have never
6:20
Speaker 1: lived in a time when contraceptive were not readily available
6:26
Speaker 1: and when abortion was not safe and legal. It may
6:30
Speaker 1: have been cumbersome to get an abortion, it may have
6:33
Speaker 1: required some travel or some weight periods, but at least
6:37
Speaker 1: it was safe and it was legal. And what we
6:41
Speaker 1: forget sometimes is that the wide availability of the birth
6:45
Speaker 1: control pill came at about the same time as the
6:50
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade decision. Both things happened at the same
6:54
Speaker 1: time and and women did not have the same options
6:59
Speaker 1: prior to the in And what people don't understand is
7:03
Speaker 1: that abortions have always taken place, and abortions when they
7:09
Speaker 1: are banned, then the wealthy men, the wives and girl
7:15
Speaker 1: friends and mistresses and daughters of the wealthy will always
7:20
Speaker 1: be able to travel somewhere where abortion is legal. But
7:24
Speaker 1: it closes down the options for the poor and the
7:29
Speaker 1: disenfranchised who don't have the money to travel and the
7:34
Speaker 1: ability to to jump through the hoops that certain states require.
7:40
Speaker 1: And so that means a lot more unwanted children. And
7:44
Speaker 1: you know, the right to life crowd talks about, oh well,
7:48
Speaker 1: adoptions and foster care. I don't know of a state
7:52
Speaker 1: where foster care is not overburdened and um and in fact,
7:58
Speaker 1: one of my daughters has adopted three children out of
8:01
Speaker 1: foster care. That is a broken system. It is not
8:04
Speaker 1: an option for all of the new unwanted pregnancies which
8:08
Speaker 1: will happen as a result of greater bands on abortion
8:13
Speaker 1: because of this decision. And there's so much to break
8:17
Speaker 1: down into what you just said, because it definitely is
8:20
Speaker 1: mentioned in the brief that we're going to get into
8:23
Speaker 1: in a second, but before we do start, I find
8:25
Speaker 1: it fascinating that, yes, as you just said, UH, this
8:29
Speaker 1: is not going to stop abortion, no matter how moral
8:32
Speaker 1: high ground that they think this is going to take,
8:34
Speaker 1: and they being whoever is supporting of this briefing, it's
8:38
Speaker 1: not going to stop it. It's just gonna stop safe abortions,
8:42
Speaker 1: safe access to abortions, as well as it's not gonna
8:44
Speaker 1: stop again those who are well off or in a
8:48
Speaker 1: higher level of socioeconomic status and being able to get
8:52
Speaker 1: as safe freely and quietly, because you know, everything's got
8:55
Speaker 1: to be so hush hush for it in order to
8:58
Speaker 1: get things done, to accomplish what they need to accomplish. Uh.
9:01
Speaker 1: In general, and we also know that this conversation of
9:05
Speaker 1: the late term abortion, which is often brought out a
9:08
Speaker 1: majority of the time, and I'm not saying all the time,
9:10
Speaker 1: so taking a majority of the time, these types of
9:12
Speaker 1: abortions are not necessarily because they didn't want the children,
9:15
Speaker 1: but because it's life and death. I've had so many
9:18
Speaker 1: friends who went through this process, such a traumatic process.
9:21
Speaker 1: Other people calling this anything but the word abortion, but
9:23
Speaker 1: in medical field, hand insurance, it is considered an abortion
9:28
Speaker 1: and oftentimes is not covered, and it's oftentimes costly and damaging.
9:33
Speaker 1: So there's so many layers, the wait time, the additional
9:38
Speaker 1: processes like an extra ultrasounder to all of those things
9:42
Speaker 1: happened to women. The doctor and the woman know what's
9:47
Speaker 1: necessary when there is this troubled, problematic, complicated pregnancy which
9:53
Speaker 1: for the health of the mother must end. But insurance
9:59
Speaker 1: companies off didn't require extra tests. Hospitals may require an
10:04
Speaker 1: extra test so that everybody has covered there rear ends,
10:11
Speaker 1: and that makes the patient's blood pressure increase. It puts
10:17
Speaker 1: a woman at greater danger. And a wealthy woman might
10:23
Speaker 1: be able to have leverage with her doctors or her
10:27
Speaker 1: insurance company that the poor woman, the under insured woman,
10:32
Speaker 1: the less sophisticated woman, will not have. And so when
10:37
Speaker 1: we add these extra barriers for necessary medical procedures, because
10:43
Speaker 1: abortion is a form of health care, then we will
10:49
Speaker 1: lose lives. And the lives we lose our women of
10:52
Speaker 1: color and women of lesser income where community are deeply
10:56
Speaker 1: affected by these types of laws as well. And I
10:59
Speaker 1: think this is a whole other conversation in what is
11:03
Speaker 1: happening and what who are they really trying to come
11:05
Speaker 1: after not a whole other conversation, It is a conversation. Well,
11:07
Speaker 1: and this is the first step. Banning abortion is the
11:11
Speaker 1: first step. Then there will be a push to ban
11:15
Speaker 1: on contraception. Then there will be a push to ban
11:19
Speaker 1: in vitro fertilization. Then there will be a push to
11:23
Speaker 1: go back to the days when gay marriage was not legal.
11:28
Speaker 1: We've already seen the attacks on young transgender athletes. It's
11:35
Speaker 1: it's it's all out war on any group. The other
11:44
Speaker 1: side can call other right right, absolutely, and that's kind
11:48
Speaker 1: of what's infuriating in this language that we're going to
11:52
Speaker 1: jump into. UM. Which was based out of Mississippi. So
11:55
Speaker 1: this case brought was brought in the Supreme Court based
11:58
Speaker 1: out of Mississippi, which is called Dobbs v. Jackson Women's
12:01
Speaker 1: Health Organization, UM. And we're not gonna necessarily to dig
12:04
Speaker 1: too deep into that, but it should be noted in
12:06
Speaker 1: Mississippi is one of the trigger states, UM. And we're
12:09
Speaker 1: talking trigger states that are ready to go with an
12:11
Speaker 1: overall band abortion the minute this has turned over. So
12:16
Speaker 1: Mississippi has brought it into play. They've been waiting for
12:19
Speaker 1: this day we've had this conversation at least about what
12:23
Speaker 1: was going to happen, and we're not going to go
12:25
Speaker 1: into twenties sixteen because I might cry, but we did
12:28
Speaker 1: want to talk specifics in the actual briefing, and y'all,
12:32
Speaker 1: it's ninety eight pages, not including the appendix that goes
12:35
Speaker 1: with it, and trying to read through it. I went
12:37
Speaker 1: through most of it. I had to take breaks because
12:41
Speaker 1: of the anger. Like I was sitting here yelling at
12:45
Speaker 1: my computer screen as if I was arguing with an
12:48
Speaker 1: actual person while reading this, because I was so infuriated.
12:54
Speaker 1: So merely, if you don't mind, we're gonna kind of
12:57
Speaker 1: read through it and just kind of discuss those little
12:59
Speaker 1: parts and honestly, obviously they all connect and pretty much
13:02
Speaker 1: say the same things repeatedly, but I still just want
13:05
Speaker 1: to talk about what they are saying. Justice Alito begins
13:08
Speaker 1: the statement with talking about how divisive this issue is
13:11
Speaker 1: correct and is a quote profound moral issue, which I
13:15
Speaker 1: know is always surrounded in talking about abortion laws. In
13:19
Speaker 1: any of those laws, and honestly, any loss implicating marginalized communities,
13:23
Speaker 1: people of color, queer people always a profound moral issue, right,
13:28
Speaker 1: which again leads to the fact, perhaps politics shouldn't play
13:32
Speaker 1: into it at all, because if it is this moral grounds,
13:35
Speaker 1: how is this political? And yes, I would say that
13:38
Speaker 1: it is conjecture for it to be on moral grounds.
13:41
Speaker 1: And I am I making that up in my head
13:43
Speaker 1: because morality is not defined as specific things other than
13:47
Speaker 1: what people judge to be moral. True, and you know,
13:51
Speaker 1: morals should be more governed by the Church and and
13:58
Speaker 1: those whom people call on for moral authority. Frankly, abortion
14:04
Speaker 1: and the autonomy of a woman to make her medical
14:07
Speaker 1: decisions are really not a matter of morality. It's a
14:11
Speaker 1: matter of a woman's right to the autonomy over her
14:16
Speaker 1: own medical decisions. But by couching it in quote moral terms,
14:21
Speaker 1: justice Alito wants to put down the idea that women
14:27
Speaker 1: should have rights for bodily autonomy and the freedom to
14:31
Speaker 1: choose their own medical decisions. So that just having it
14:34
Speaker 1: based in that, everyone already knows where it's going. And
14:37
Speaker 1: it's kind of like for me, it was high alert.
14:40
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, oh, here we go. He continues on,
14:43
Speaker 1: we hold that row in Casey, which they do talk
14:45
Speaker 1: about the case which was planning parenthood versus Casey. I
14:49
Speaker 1: don't know too much about that case, but it defines similarly,
14:52
Speaker 1: at least at ninety nineties, that this came about. Yes,
14:57
Speaker 1: it was a subsequent case that, after it was decided,
15:02
Speaker 1: was was sort of the other defining case law about abortion.
15:22
Speaker 1: The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such
15:26
Speaker 1: right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the
15:30
Speaker 1: one on which the defenders are Broke and Casey now
15:33
Speaker 1: chiefly rely the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
15:37
Speaker 1: That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that
15:40
Speaker 1: are not mentioned in the Constitution, and this is part
15:43
Speaker 1: I highlighted. But any such must be quote deeply rooted
15:47
Speaker 1: in this nation's history and tradition, and implicit in the
15:51
Speaker 1: concept of ordered liberty. The things that come to mind
15:55
Speaker 1: when I hear you read that section. Our first abortion
16:00
Speaker 1: is also never mentioned in the Bible, which he as
16:04
Speaker 1: a practicing Catholic whole sacred. The other thing is, we
16:09
Speaker 1: have to remember who the founding fathers were. They were
16:14
Speaker 1: rich white men, some of whom held slaves on their plantations.
16:22
Speaker 1: They did not mention women in the Constitution. Women did
16:27
Speaker 1: not have a right to vote, and they did not
16:32
Speaker 1: believe in the sanctity of all life, they believed only
16:36
Speaker 1: in the sanctity of their own and so to be
16:41
Speaker 1: a strict constructionist in this day and age as he
16:45
Speaker 1: is trying to be in his opinion is a rather
16:49
Speaker 1: outdated notion. The the other thing to remember as we
16:55
Speaker 1: hear this opinion is the fact that three of the
16:59
Speaker 1: justices who are signing this opinion if the case goes
17:03
Speaker 1: forward as the draft, are justices who were appointed by
17:09
Speaker 1: presidents who were not elected by a popular vote, and
17:14
Speaker 1: some of those justices were approved only by deeply disruptive
17:21
Speaker 1: political maneuvering by the other side. And it's all part
17:27
Speaker 1: of a federalist society plan. And further, the justices who
17:32
Speaker 1: are now signing off on an opinion which repudiates roe v.
17:38
Speaker 1: Wade said Roe v. Wade was the law of the
17:42
Speaker 1: land at the time of their confirmation hearings. So there
17:47
Speaker 1: are lots of layers of of fact and history to
17:54
Speaker 1: contemplate when we read this opinion, And there are plenty
17:58
Speaker 1: of reasons for you to want to throw things at
18:01
Speaker 1: your computer screen or or cuss out loud as you
18:06
Speaker 1: read it, because it makes all of us are angry.
18:09
Speaker 1: The thing that we have to think about and remember
18:12
Speaker 1: as we move forward is how to most efficiently and
18:17
Speaker 1: effectively channel our anger in the direction that makes the
18:23
Speaker 1: most good in the end. I love that. Yeah, I
18:28
Speaker 1: have such a hard time in reading things like this,
18:32
Speaker 1: and I know the Supreme Court hasn't really taken on
18:35
Speaker 1: anything about critical race theory or the bands that are
18:39
Speaker 1: happening in our schools right now, including just recently happened
18:42
Speaker 1: in Georgia, um about not teaching some histories because they
18:47
Speaker 1: don't want to have a bias quote unquote uh teachings
18:50
Speaker 1: about race, which is hilarious in itself, how that's not
18:54
Speaker 1: biased in itself, but the fact that they have the
18:57
Speaker 1: audacity to talk about nation's history and tradition and talk
19:00
Speaker 1: about history as if it's something to actually link up on,
19:03
Speaker 1: but still want to ignore history as well. It's just
19:08
Speaker 1: I know, I shouldn't be shocked. I'm not shocked. I'm
19:11
Speaker 1: just irritated that this is a continued conversation that is
19:15
Speaker 1: kind of that level of well once again, and I
19:19
Speaker 1: know every side does it. I'm sure whatever whatnot picking
19:22
Speaker 1: and choosing for their own purposes and this theme of
19:27
Speaker 1: this ordered liberty, which, by the way, I'm very confused
19:31
Speaker 1: on who gets to say what's ordered and orderly. That
19:35
Speaker 1: is the that is the crux of the issue. That
19:39
Speaker 1: is the the sword um they're raising. But they're raising
19:45
Speaker 1: it from a position of power, and many people think
19:50
Speaker 1: we're headed towards a fascism system of government. And it's
19:56
Speaker 1: scary to think that it people like Aledo get to
20:02
Speaker 1: decide what is orderly and what is not. He hardly
20:07
Speaker 1: represents the majority of the will of the people. More
20:12
Speaker 1: than seventy percent of the nation did not believe Rov
20:18
Speaker 1: Wade should be overturned, and the figure for Georgia was
20:21
Speaker 1: sixty eight percent. This will be a galvanizing and very
20:27
Speaker 1: unpopular decision by the Court, and it heads our country
20:31
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction. Some of the Court's previous unpopular
20:36
Speaker 1: decisions during the Civil rights era headed our country in
20:41
Speaker 1: a positive forward direction. This decision takes our country back.
20:48
Speaker 1: It does, and I'm not gonna get too into it,
20:50
Speaker 1: but it's very reminiscent of what's happening in Poland, including
20:53
Speaker 1: the thing that this was leaked earlier than when it
20:55
Speaker 1: was supposed to be so. But that's a whole different
20:57
Speaker 1: conversation that we've been having. UM here's another quote we
21:00
Speaker 1: wanted to include Rose. Defenders characterized the abortion as similar
21:03
Speaker 1: to the rights recognized and past decisions involving matters such
21:07
Speaker 1: as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage. But abortion is
21:10
Speaker 1: fundamentally different, as both Row and Casey acknowledge, because it
21:15
Speaker 1: destroys what those decisions called fetal life and what the
21:18
Speaker 1: law now before us describes as an unborn human being. Well,
21:22
Speaker 1: this language in some ways is even inconsistent with the
21:30
Speaker 1: biblical types of precedent for what begins life, because the
21:38
Speaker 1: ability to breathe, the ability to maintain life outside the womb,
21:44
Speaker 1: is what makes the fetus a person, and philosophers and
21:51
Speaker 1: religious scholars can argue that frankly, they're opening the ability
21:57
Speaker 1: for them to go back on all of those other
22:00
Speaker 1: areas where the Court has ruled and turned the clock
22:05
Speaker 1: back on other issues as well. We can no more
22:09
Speaker 1: believe the assertions in this part of the opinion than
22:14
Speaker 1: we believed the most recently confirmed justices when they said
22:21
Speaker 1: Rovi Wade was the law of the land right. And
22:25
Speaker 1: we're not gonna talk about Sennator Collins at this point,
22:27
Speaker 1: But anger thoughts of anger in that one, Yeah, I
22:32
Speaker 1: find a lot of of course, we knew coming in.
22:35
Speaker 1: We know the rhetoric, and we know these type of
22:37
Speaker 1: languages that come up in order to make sure that
22:40
Speaker 1: those who truly see this as a life and death
22:43
Speaker 1: case can can cling to that as a moral higher
22:47
Speaker 1: stands and being able to say that you're talking about
22:49
Speaker 1: murdering babies, okay, my family, um in which we have
22:52
Speaker 1: to have this conversation of like, no, you're not You're
22:56
Speaker 1: no longer talking about a pro life, especially right now
23:00
Speaker 1: when we're talking about the fact that you're not helping
23:02
Speaker 1: those who are actually born. When I was a social worker,
23:06
Speaker 1: I watched many of kids die at a young age
23:09
Speaker 1: because no one cared enough to help and blame the
23:11
Speaker 1: death onto themselves, onto these children, and they didn't care.
23:15
Speaker 1: So one of the big reasons I went from my
23:18
Speaker 1: opinion of being pro life quote unquote. And I'm saying
23:21
Speaker 1: this as in the old terms of what I saw
23:23
Speaker 1: myself saying. And of course this has everything to do
23:26
Speaker 1: with me being adopted and being told I should be
23:28
Speaker 1: grateful that I'm alive and not aborted all through my
23:31
Speaker 1: life up until recently. But all of those conversations leading
23:36
Speaker 1: to the fact, like, yeah, but I see what's happening here.
23:39
Speaker 1: I've seen the bigger picture and the narrative that that
23:43
Speaker 1: narrative is a heart string pull type of thing that
23:46
Speaker 1: you want to do. But it's misleading because what you're
23:49
Speaker 1: talking about is just being pro birth and no longer
23:52
Speaker 1: pro life, because what I have been told that I
23:54
Speaker 1: should be grateful. So therefore that's what I'm doing, trying
23:56
Speaker 1: to save lives that are out there. But I don't
23:59
Speaker 1: have any help, any assistance, or any backing because people
24:02
Speaker 1: really don't care. And it's typically those who are the
24:06
Speaker 1: loudest about having birth children that don't care about those
24:11
Speaker 1: children that have been birthed. As we would say, this
24:15
Speaker 1: is very very true. The same forces who are so
24:20
Speaker 1: ready to ban a worship are also equally and more
24:26
Speaker 1: forcefully ready to cut social services to make sure that
24:30
Speaker 1: there's no mental health provisions and funding. And and also
24:36
Speaker 1: those people who my body, my choice about masks are
24:42
Speaker 1: unwilling to um give women the same autonomy over a
24:50
Speaker 1: far more serious, long term medical decision. And what's ironic
24:57
Speaker 1: about all of that that conversation is how they will
24:59
Speaker 1: weaponize these words so quickly to get their point. And
25:03
Speaker 1: this is exactly what's happening in this brief that says
25:06
Speaker 1: things like unborn humans, um and and life after a conception.
25:11
Speaker 1: All of these things are very weapons, are weapons of
25:15
Speaker 1: language in order to make someone be like, oh, yeah,
25:18
Speaker 1: I'm definitely in the right if I believe the statute. Right, yeah, absolutely,
25:21
Speaker 1: this is correct. A fetus which cannot sustain life is
25:26
Speaker 1: not an unborn human. Even the premise of these quote
25:32
Speaker 1: heartbeat bills are based on a false assumption that the
25:37
Speaker 1: electrical synapses heard in an ultrasound are actually a heartbeat
25:43
Speaker 1: when the heart has not yet formed at that time
25:49
Speaker 1: point in the development of the fetal tissue. Oh, now
25:53
Speaker 1: you're talking about science, so we we don't, we don't.
25:56
Speaker 1: Just well, mean, science is tough to hear for certain
26:00
Speaker 1: parts of the political spectrum, they selectively hear it, Yes
26:05
Speaker 1: they do. Going on into the briefing, it says, talking
26:08
Speaker 1: about the equal Protection Clause, they actually state quote which
26:12
Speaker 1: established that a state's regulation of abortion is not sex
26:15
Speaker 1: based classification, and it's thus not subject to the heightened
26:19
Speaker 1: scrutiny that applies to such classifications. The regulation of a
26:24
Speaker 1: medical procedure that only one sex can undergo does not
26:27
Speaker 1: trigger heightened constitutional scrutiny unless the regulation is mere pretext
26:32
Speaker 1: designed to affect an invidious discrimination against members of one
26:37
Speaker 1: sex or the other and then list the cases and
26:40
Speaker 1: as the Court has stated, the goal of preventing abortion
26:43
Speaker 1: does not constitute and vidiously discriminatory animals against women, which
26:48
Speaker 1: I'm like, really, well, I wish Ruth bader Ginsburg were
26:55
Speaker 1: alive to cut him down to size on some of
26:58
Speaker 1: that language. And I certainly hope that our other justice
27:04
Speaker 1: is Sodomyer and Kagan will take the inspiration of Ruth
27:09
Speaker 1: bader Ginsburg and channel her in their descent, which we
27:13
Speaker 1: have yet to see, right, Yeah, we haven't seen that.
27:17
Speaker 1: I really do wish uh Judge Jackson was a part
27:20
Speaker 1: of this, which she was already on board right now, Well,
27:25
Speaker 1: maybe maybe she can give them some hints from the sidelines.
27:29
Speaker 1: Have a feeling it'd be a doozy um. But yeah,
27:32
Speaker 1: that language in itself says a lot to automatically try
27:35
Speaker 1: to take that away when obviously this is a healthcare issue,
27:40
Speaker 1: especially when we talk about again what we were talking
27:42
Speaker 1: about when it's hybridus pregnancies. Uh, being pregnant is traumatic
27:47
Speaker 1: in itself. The level of I have a daughter expected
27:51
Speaker 1: to deliver in July, and there are lots of ups
27:55
Speaker 1: and downs on the roller coaster of pregnancy, and it's
27:59
Speaker 1: daily to ship body. I mean, your body is also
28:02
Speaker 1: hopefully if you have a healthy pregnancy, as in like
28:04
Speaker 1: everything goes as you would hope, then maybe you can
28:08
Speaker 1: bout that very quickly, but it's not always the case.
28:11
Speaker 1: I remember having a friend who uh broke bones during
28:16
Speaker 1: her pregny, during her labor as well as after the fact,
28:19
Speaker 1: having a lot of problems due to her complicated pregnancy.
28:22
Speaker 1: There's so many things that we don't even consider talk
28:25
Speaker 1: about in the aftermath and the beginning, like how it
28:29
Speaker 1: really changes a person's body to go through the process
28:32
Speaker 1: of being pregnant. And other countries are so much more
28:41
Speaker 1: aware of the needs of pregnant women and working mothers
28:49
Speaker 1: and the state support needed for getting a baby a
28:54
Speaker 1: new citizen off to a good start. Then we have
28:58
Speaker 1: traditionally been in this country. Our postpartum healthcare, our work
29:06
Speaker 1: leaf policies. So many of our policies are so far
29:11
Speaker 1: behind other developed countries, and that disdain for women shows
29:20
Speaker 1: through in the wording of this opinion. Yeah, I think
29:24
Speaker 1: that's definitely been one of the things, all the conversations
29:27
Speaker 1: I've heard, and those numbers you quoted earlier about you know,
29:30
Speaker 1: seventies of Americans don't want revew weight overturns. I think
29:35
Speaker 1: that shows how effective UM conservatives who are really backing
29:40
Speaker 1: this have been, because I was kind of surprised. I'm like, oh,
29:43
Speaker 1: I thought it was much more controversial than that, But
29:45
Speaker 1: they've been so effective and making this sound like it's
29:50
Speaker 1: much more popular than it is. And I think the
29:52
Speaker 1: fact that it got leads and they were going to
29:54
Speaker 1: do it on the last day of their session, like
29:56
Speaker 1: it's really telling that that this is about controlling women's
30:00
Speaker 1: bodies and and they're just trying to paint all this
30:05
Speaker 1: moral stuff on it. But they know it's not popular,
30:08
Speaker 1: but they've been very effective in their messaging that it is. Well,
30:13
Speaker 1: the messaging around choice and reproductive freedom has been more
30:20
Speaker 1: effectively wielded by those who oppose abortion and oppose contraception
30:28
Speaker 1: and oppose a woman's right to her own medical decisions.
30:33
Speaker 1: They have more effectively wielded the language throughout the last
30:37
Speaker 1: five decades. And that is a sad thing to say,
30:42
Speaker 1: because we have a lot of smart, effective communicators on
30:46
Speaker 1: our side so we're going to continue with some quotes
31:03
Speaker 1: from this this briefing. On occasion when the Court has
31:06
Speaker 1: ignored the appropriate limits imposed by respect for the teachings
31:10
Speaker 1: of history, it has fallen into the free willing judicial
31:13
Speaker 1: policy making that characterized discredited decisions such as Lochner v.
31:17
Speaker 1: New York. The Court must not fall prey to such
31:20
Speaker 1: an unprincipled approach. Instead, guided by the history and tradition
31:25
Speaker 1: that matt the essential components of our nation's concept of
31:28
Speaker 1: ordered liberty, we must ask what the Fourteenth Amendment means
31:32
Speaker 1: by the term liberty when we engage in that inquiry.
31:35
Speaker 1: In the present case, the clear answer is that the
31:38
Speaker 1: Fourteenth Amendment does not protect the right to an abortion. Honestly,
31:42
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to figure out what it means by say, uh,
31:46
Speaker 1: the clear answer right. It may will be the job
31:51
Speaker 1: of our dissenting justices to provide the clear answer and
31:56
Speaker 1: the opposite view, and I have no doubt they will
31:59
Speaker 1: be l point and forceful in their descent and perhaps
32:07
Speaker 1: sharpen the descent based on the outcry which has arisen
32:13
Speaker 1: from the League draft. And there's a couple of things
32:17
Speaker 1: We're gonna go ahead and put in there just because
32:19
Speaker 1: I think it's important. It says Roe either ignored or
32:22
Speaker 1: misstated this history, and Casey declined to reconsider rose faulty
32:27
Speaker 1: historical analysis. It is therefore important to set the record straight.
32:31
Speaker 1: It continues with talking about some of the historical contacts
32:33
Speaker 1: that he wants to talk about, which it's so problematic
32:37
Speaker 1: that I don't understand why he thought it wouldn't be
32:40
Speaker 1: looked into. But he puts two treatises by Sir Matthew
32:44
Speaker 1: Hall likewise described abortion of a quick child who died
32:48
Speaker 1: in the womb as a quote great crime and great misprison. C. Mhill,
32:53
Speaker 1: please of the relating which is the book that he's
32:56
Speaker 1: talking about, and the histories are the pleas of the
32:58
Speaker 1: crown and writing near time of the adoption for a constitution. Blackstone,
33:02
Speaker 1: another historian, explained that abortion of a quick child was
33:07
Speaker 1: by the ancient law homicide or manslaughter. By the way,
33:11
Speaker 1: this was in seventy six UM and at least a
33:14
Speaker 1: very heinous misdemeter. So I wanted to talk about these
33:19
Speaker 1: two historical references for a second because they seem article.
33:24
Speaker 1: By the way, again, this was in the early sixteen hundreds,
33:28
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds that this was done. These are things written
33:32
Speaker 1: through the lens of white men which probably had never
33:40
Speaker 1: been in a birthing room and certainly had never carried
33:44
Speaker 1: a child to term in In in that era, women
33:49
Speaker 1: often were sheltered away from society while they were pregnant.
33:56
Speaker 1: They went away to a vacation home or a second home,
34:00
Speaker 1: or they certainly weren't seen in public. And so to
34:04
Speaker 1: go back to that history for a modern day court
34:08
Speaker 1: opinion shows how out of touch justice Alito truly is. Right.
34:14
Speaker 1: I mean, let's talk about the history of Sir Matthew
34:17
Speaker 1: Hale of himself during this whole brief he writes, Alito
34:22
Speaker 1: actually rights that Matthew Hall calls specific medicine medicines that
34:28
Speaker 1: may have caused or had brought about an abortion potions,
34:31
Speaker 1: so that in its term made me laugh. I was like, really,
34:34
Speaker 1: so you're gonna put the word potions in there, as
34:36
Speaker 1: if it was a magic trike or But we have
34:40
Speaker 1: to look at the fact that access to ending a
34:44
Speaker 1: pregnancy has often relied upon herbal medicine or various chemical
34:52
Speaker 1: substances known to some and provided. But many of those
35:00
Speaker 1: really potions, if you want to call them that had
35:04
Speaker 1: long term, lasting detrimental effects on the women who took them,
35:11
Speaker 1: and so having a safe legal process for ending a
35:19
Speaker 1: pregnancy preserves the help of the women and keeps them alive. Right,
35:27
Speaker 1: And then you're right on that they were calling these
35:30
Speaker 1: potions because they didn't know what else to call it,
35:32
Speaker 1: and they are they didn't want to justify it as Hey,
35:35
Speaker 1: this actually is something beyond that which, yes, can be dangerous,
35:39
Speaker 1: and we should have that conversation about why this is dangerous.
35:42
Speaker 1: Maybe we should look into safe precautions and protecting people.
35:45
Speaker 1: But no, Um, Matthew Hell was actually known as actually
35:50
Speaker 1: executing at least my record two women for witchcraft. Uh.
35:55
Speaker 1: He's also known as to saying that marital rape, really
35:59
Speaker 1: that's not a big deal. So you defended marital rape.
36:02
Speaker 1: And it's believed that capital punishment should extend to those
36:05
Speaker 1: as young as fourteen years old. So the fact that
36:09
Speaker 1: he Alito decided to take his name and use it
36:12
Speaker 1: makes it be like, did you really know anything about this, dude? Well,
36:16
Speaker 1: he might have known and not cared, right, right, which
36:21
Speaker 1: seems to be a fair standing of the entire process
36:25
Speaker 1: and perhaps the fair statement of his mind set. Stale
36:30
Speaker 1: pale yes. Here's some other quotes who want to include
36:38
Speaker 1: the inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is
36:40
Speaker 1: not deeply rooted in the nation's history and traditions. On
36:43
Speaker 1: the contrary and unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain
36:46
Speaker 1: of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of common
36:49
Speaker 1: law until nineteen seventy three. And here's another one. Respondents
36:54
Speaker 1: have no persuasive answers to the historical evidence. Neither Respondence
36:58
Speaker 1: nor the Solicitor Daniel disputes the fact that by eighteen
37:01
Speaker 1: sixty eight, the vast majority of states criminalized abortion at
37:04
Speaker 1: all stages of pregnancy. So I think it was important
37:06
Speaker 1: that we remember he's taking this context to eighteen sixty eight,
37:11
Speaker 1: and it is not a time we want to go
37:14
Speaker 1: back to. The treatment of women in that time period
37:19
Speaker 1: is not something we want to go back to. Women
37:22
Speaker 1: did not have the right to vote, my goodness, women
37:26
Speaker 1: could get credit cards only in the seventies. The treatment
37:30
Speaker 1: of women in in the times Justice Alito refers to
37:36
Speaker 1: is not a place the majority of the nation's population
37:40
Speaker 1: wishes to revisit. When they truly look at the full
37:45
Speaker 1: consequences of such backwards steps, yeah, and I just keep
37:49
Speaker 1: thinking like, it's a medical procedure and that's really not
37:55
Speaker 1: in your business. Like I don't know what is the
37:58
Speaker 1: crux of the matter. It is a medical procedure, it
38:03
Speaker 1: is none of your business. I can't think of a
38:06
Speaker 1: single male member of the Georgia General Assembly I would
38:10
Speaker 1: want in the examining room between me and my doctor.
38:14
Speaker 1: M right, And I just I know, it's like an
38:17
Speaker 1: awful picture, right exactly, it is a very picture, but
38:21
Speaker 1: that is where they are placing themselves. That where Alito
38:25
Speaker 1: would put all women with the state looking over their
38:30
Speaker 1: shoulder about their medical decisions and making them feel guilty
38:35
Speaker 1: about it. And I just can't. I know it's it's
38:39
Speaker 1: been said before, but I if there was something like
38:42
Speaker 1: this that impacted men, if we were like, no, you
38:45
Speaker 1: can't do that. What if every time a man wanted
38:50
Speaker 1: a viagra prescription, they had to go to the doctor
38:53
Speaker 1: in person, they had to subject themselves to something similar
38:58
Speaker 1: to an ultrasound, and then they could only build a
39:03
Speaker 1: prescription in person at the pharmacy, and then such prescriptions
39:09
Speaker 1: were not available on college campuses, or let's put it
39:13
Speaker 1: in the proper context, you couldn't get a prescription for
39:17
Speaker 1: viagrah dispensed at your old age home. How quickly would
39:21
Speaker 1: they change their minds? M h. You know, we can
39:25
Speaker 1: also saw that was saying people with penises that should
39:27
Speaker 1: have vasectomies, and that would help prevent it would help
39:32
Speaker 1: prevent unwanted pregnancies, particularly those that occur as a result
39:37
Speaker 1: of rape. And I've even seen a mean today that said,
39:42
Speaker 1: have every eighteen year old man receive a vasectomy, and
39:46
Speaker 1: when he has proven he is financially and emotionally secure
39:50
Speaker 1: enough to father a child, he can have it reversed.
39:53
Speaker 1: Some men who have seen the children would never have
39:56
Speaker 1: had it reversed, in my humble opinion, agreed. Um. And yeah,
40:02
Speaker 1: there's so many things to this because when we're talking
40:05
Speaker 1: about and I don't think I explained it correctly, even
40:06
Speaker 1: though I did talk about it, the fourteenth Amendment and
40:09
Speaker 1: the due process clause, we're talking about the right to privacy.
40:12
Speaker 1: We are talking about that on the level of that
40:15
Speaker 1: this should be between the person who is going in
40:17
Speaker 1: for whatever procedure and the doctor, point blank. Um. And
40:22
Speaker 1: this could also go into the lines of in vitual fertilization,
40:25
Speaker 1: like being able to be to have a child in
40:28
Speaker 1: this process that they want to This also goes into
40:31
Speaker 1: the process of not being sterilized. If they don't want
40:33
Speaker 1: to be sterilized, if they don't want that process, can't
40:36
Speaker 1: be forced to do that. That that's along those levels
40:39
Speaker 1: that were it's not about again they're trying to put
40:42
Speaker 1: this as they just want to kill off babies, which
40:44
Speaker 1: is again a weaponized terms. Well they're talking about is
40:48
Speaker 1: a freedom for a woman to choose, or freedom for
40:51
Speaker 1: people to choose in general, not just women, but just
40:55
Speaker 1: to have a choice, to be able to have that
40:57
Speaker 1: choice when it comes to their own buddies point blank. Um.
41:02
Speaker 1: And it's that overarching conversation that everybody's like, this is
41:05
Speaker 1: dangerous for so many reasons, especially what he's talking about
41:09
Speaker 1: national history and ordered uh liberties, that in itself is
41:15
Speaker 1: dangerous language to become a fascist type of government. Yes,
41:19
Speaker 1: that's not a place where we want to move right,
41:22
Speaker 1: which is dangerous. Um. And within the we've only got
41:26
Speaker 1: a couple of more because I was like, I can't
41:28
Speaker 1: keep we can't keep doing this or it's never gonna end.
41:31
Speaker 1: But it does say the court did not claim that
41:33
Speaker 1: this broadly framed right is absolute and no such claim
41:35
Speaker 1: would be plausible. While individuals are certainly free to think,
41:39
Speaker 1: if free to say what they wish about quote existence
41:41
Speaker 1: quote meaning the universe and the mystery of the human life, uh,
41:46
Speaker 1: they are not always free to act in accordance with
41:49
Speaker 1: those thoughts. UH. License to act on the basis of
41:52
Speaker 1: such beliefs may correspond to one of the many understandings
41:56
Speaker 1: of quote liberty, but it's certainly not again ordered liberty.
42:01
Speaker 1: Who makes the order, who describes the liberty? That's what
42:06
Speaker 1: it comes down to. The Court is hoping to describe
42:12
Speaker 1: a liberty that is not in accordance with the will
42:17
Speaker 1: of the majority of the people of the United States.
42:19
Speaker 1: The Court is trying to impose the liberty described by
42:24
Speaker 1: the minority of the population and not the majority based
42:28
Speaker 1: on polling about Roe v. Wade and reproductive freedom. What
42:34
Speaker 1: you want to that's perfect, all right, So here's your
42:37
Speaker 1: last one for now. I'm sure we'll re visit this
42:39
Speaker 1: in future. Arguments made that women have more freedom now
42:43
Speaker 1: and are protected by law from discrimination, and that with
42:47
Speaker 1: safe haven laws and adoption, that children are safe and
42:49
Speaker 1: quote has a little reason to fear that the baby
42:52
Speaker 1: will not find a suitable home, and that the abortion
42:54
Speaker 1: supporters are fearful of losing autonomy and unable to compete
42:58
Speaker 1: with been in the workplace and an other in depths,
43:00
Speaker 1: and because each has good arguments, decisions should be left
43:03
Speaker 1: to the states. The problem with leaving decisions to the
43:09
Speaker 1: states is that the states will not have uniform laws.
43:16
Speaker 1: There should be a national standard on this issue. And
43:23
Speaker 1: we didn't leave civil rights to the states, we didn't
43:26
Speaker 1: leave voting rights to the states. Sometimes an overarching national
43:33
Speaker 1: priority is needed and necessary, and on the matter of
43:39
Speaker 1: reproductive freedom and medical autonomy for women, that national overarching
43:45
Speaker 1: standard was set by Roe v. Wade, And if the
43:49
Speaker 1: court overturns Roe v. Wade, then national action is necessary
43:54
Speaker 1: because the states have demonstrated time and again that some
43:59
Speaker 1: of them will discriminate, and they're ready. They're ready, and
44:03
Speaker 1: we've already seen what's happened in Alabama in which they
44:06
Speaker 1: tried to charge a woman who did want her pregnancy,
44:10
Speaker 1: got into an argument, got shot, laws a fetus, and
44:14
Speaker 1: she got charged with murder we know, and it took
44:16
Speaker 1: it to go to national headlines for her to be released.
44:19
Speaker 1: There are so many sad ways to see this play
44:28
Speaker 1: out with the kinds of reversive laws states are willing
44:34
Speaker 1: to pass, and it's the Court is opening the nation
44:40
Speaker 1: up to great tragedy if if they overturn Rovy Way.
44:45
Speaker 1: And again, what's happened with Missouri stating that their laws
44:49
Speaker 1: are ready to ban abortion and that anyone who leaves
44:52
Speaker 1: the state to get it will be prosecuted as well.
44:56
Speaker 1: There's so many things how this is not just about states. No,
45:01
Speaker 1: this is about controlling women and turning back the clock.
45:04
Speaker 1: And women have to be prepared to help each other.
45:11
Speaker 1: We need to look at how many women serve in
45:17
Speaker 1: elected office, how many women will be making the new
45:24
Speaker 1: laws required by in some instances this new decision. In Georgia,
45:32
Speaker 1: thirty three point nine percent of the legislators are women.
45:37
Speaker 1: In state legislatures nationwide, the average is thirty one point
45:43
Speaker 1: one percent, and in Congress there are twenty six point
45:48
Speaker 1: nine percent women. Women have to band together and elect
45:54
Speaker 1: other pro choice women if we are to have a
45:58
Speaker 1: voice in the room where it happens and these laws
46:02
Speaker 1: are crafted. And we've been very effective in Georgia by
46:08
Speaker 1: electing women to the extent that our women Democratic women
46:14
Speaker 1: legislators out number the Republican legislators three point two to one.
46:20
Speaker 1: So when we say that Georgia abortion laws are crafted
46:23
Speaker 1: by stale pale GOP majorities, we're talking about mostly men
46:31
Speaker 1: who truly have no idea about how Most of them
46:38
Speaker 1: have no idea about carrying a child term or the
46:42
Speaker 1: complications of pregnancies unless their own wives have had complicated pregnancies,
46:48
Speaker 1: and even then they still have no clue. They think
46:51
Speaker 1: they have a little bit of an understanding, but they
46:54
Speaker 1: still do not understand those overall trauma. We don't even
46:57
Speaker 1: talk about postpartum stuff, which even more traumatics of the
47:01
Speaker 1: mental health level is even less considered. On top of
47:04
Speaker 1: that fact, absolutely in the state level, we have to
47:07
Speaker 1: look about what is what they're trying to do and
47:10
Speaker 1: how they're trying to do it. And even though US
47:13
Speaker 1: two elections had the highest number of women running for
47:17
Speaker 1: the first time and so long, it's still ridiculously the
47:20
Speaker 1: low low number. Well that is true, But in Georgia
47:24
Speaker 1: we have a record setting number of women candidates yet again,
47:28
Speaker 1: and we also have the highest percentage of contested races
47:35
Speaker 1: on the ballot in November yet again. And so at
47:40
Speaker 1: least in Georgia and hopefully in other states, voters have
47:44
Speaker 1: the option, and the way we have the opportunity to
47:49
Speaker 1: flip legislative bodies is by turning out progressive voters in
47:56
Speaker 1: numbers the Republicans can't ignore, and turning out progressive voters
48:03
Speaker 1: in numbers that defeat the other side. So when our
48:07
Speaker 1: turnout is several percentage points higher everywhere, it lifts the
48:16
Speaker 1: entire statewide ticket, and it gives Democrats an opportunity two
48:25
Speaker 1: flip seats that Republicans thought could not be flipped. So yes,
48:30
Speaker 1: they've gerrymandered maps and they've made them as favorable as
48:34
Speaker 1: they can. But Georgia is fast becoming a majority minority
48:39
Speaker 1: state and those demographics favor pro choice Democrats. We have
48:45
Speaker 1: to make our voter turnout efforts match the opportunity. I
48:52
Speaker 1: love this, So we've been talking about the elections ever since.
48:55
Speaker 1: I've been on everything ever since, and and I have
48:57
Speaker 1: been hosting this because it's it's been record breaking and
49:01
Speaker 1: changing so much, obviously for us in the state of Georgia. Uh,
49:04
Speaker 1: it has been quite different and moving to the point
49:07
Speaker 1: that people were so shocked that it did turn blue
49:10
Speaker 1: when it came to the Senate, racist and very excited
49:12
Speaker 1: about it um and having to kind of have people
49:16
Speaker 1: recognize that Georgia is a battleground state and we need
49:19
Speaker 1: to talk about this. But other states are slowly coming
49:22
Speaker 1: to that forward too, and it's been because of the women.
49:25
Speaker 1: It's been because of the marginalized communities really pushing this well.
49:29
Speaker 1: And what I like to say, and I even have
49:31
Speaker 1: a map at the state of Georgia that we use
49:33
Speaker 1: on some of our materials that shows even in places
49:38
Speaker 1: that vote Republican, the tide is turning, the percentage of
49:44
Speaker 1: Democratic performance is increasing. So what I say is a
49:49
Speaker 1: rising blue tide lifts all votes. And so to the
49:54
Speaker 1: extent that we had women candidates who kept their ground
50:00
Speaker 1: owned game in operation during December and early January to
50:06
Speaker 1: be sure that their voters turned out for Senators us
50:11
Speaker 1: off in Warnock. And doesn't that just sound wonderful rolling
50:15
Speaker 1: off the tongue, to have two Democratic senators in the
50:21
Speaker 1: US Senate representing the state of Georgia after so many
50:25
Speaker 1: years of Republican control. But yes, it was the women
50:30
Speaker 1: voters who gave them those margins. And it was the
50:33
Speaker 1: places like North Georgia and certain parts of South Georgia
50:38
Speaker 1: where women candidates had turned out the vote and energized
50:43
Speaker 1: the base that turned out again to give them their
50:47
Speaker 1: margins and victory. I'm gonna end this on a high note.
51:04
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about the good things that can come
51:06
Speaker 1: through through this, because the one thing we know, when
51:08
Speaker 1: women get angry, when marginalized communities get angry, things happen.
51:12
Speaker 1: And we're gonna make things happen no matter what happens
51:15
Speaker 1: in the Supreme Court that we can't see that they
51:18
Speaker 1: don't want us to see, which is a question of
51:20
Speaker 1: huh in itself, But whatever traditions right, what are some
51:24
Speaker 1: of the things that we can do as uh, pro
51:28
Speaker 1: choice seeking to just have autonomy, just understanding that this
51:32
Speaker 1: is gonna greatly affect the rights of the marginalized community,
51:36
Speaker 1: what can we do? The silver lining of this dark
51:40
Speaker 1: cloud is the fact that we have a record setting
51:42
Speaker 1: number of women candidates. These women, many of them, are
51:47
Speaker 1: some of the highest quality candidates, the most energetic, the
51:53
Speaker 1: best educated we've ever seen. So we have these wonderful
51:57
Speaker 1: women candidates on the ballot. We have more women running
52:02
Speaker 1: against Republicans in November than we've ever had before. Win
52:07
Speaker 1: List has already endorsed the four statewide women and thirty
52:11
Speaker 1: eight women in legislative seats. We have more than forty
52:17
Speaker 1: racests to still look at for general election or runoff endorsements.
52:23
Speaker 1: So the silver lining of this dark cloud is that
52:26
Speaker 1: because we've been recruiting, because we've been training, because we've
52:31
Speaker 1: been encouraging women to run for twenty two years, we
52:34
Speaker 1: have a bumper crop of pro choice democratic women to
52:37
Speaker 1: choose from in November. And this opinion, if it doesn't
52:43
Speaker 1: make people mad enough to get out and vote and
52:46
Speaker 1: bring a few friends with them to the polls in November,
52:49
Speaker 1: nothing ever will. This is a time of opportunity and
52:53
Speaker 1: we must seize the moment. Our friend Melity Brave shout
52:56
Speaker 1: out to her who is running here in the state,
52:57
Speaker 1: uh in in Georgia who are nectedt us with the
53:00
Speaker 1: Melita to the friend of the show I think we
53:02
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. We got to watch her progress from I'm tired,
53:06
Speaker 1: I gotta do something to from grassroots to you know what,
53:09
Speaker 1: let me just go ahead and run because I'm done
53:12
Speaker 1: and I'm about to make my voice heard. What can
53:14
Speaker 1: we tell people and women out there, especially in those
53:17
Speaker 1: in the marginalized communities, if they want to run what
53:20
Speaker 1: should we tell them, Well, what we should tell them
53:23
Speaker 1: is the best way to prepare yourself to run in
53:26
Speaker 1: the future is to help a woman a woman run
53:29
Speaker 1: this cycle. Learn about campaigning by helping a woman candidate,
53:35
Speaker 1: learn about what it takes to be on the campaign
53:38
Speaker 1: trail yourself by shadowing a woman candidate and helping her
53:43
Speaker 1: get elected, and then you'll be prepared to be a
53:46
Speaker 1: candidate in the future. And we need good, strong women candidates.
53:53
Speaker 1: And this is an even year in Georgia, so it's
53:56
Speaker 1: the state legislative seats, and we're going to need municipal
54:02
Speaker 1: candidates in the odd year. School Board races are becoming
54:07
Speaker 1: all the more important now because of book bands and
54:12
Speaker 1: proposed changes to how history gets whitewashed to match the
54:17
Speaker 1: whims of those who don't want to have children actually
54:21
Speaker 1: learn the truth. And so there's gonna be plenty of
54:25
Speaker 1: opportunities in the coming years for women to run for
54:30
Speaker 1: office and even more large numbers. And the best way
54:34
Speaker 1: to prepare yourself to be a candidate is to help
54:38
Speaker 1: a current candidate and get involved in helping them get elected.
54:42
Speaker 1: Because as women climb the ladder higher and higher, we
54:46
Speaker 1: always need to have one arm down helping the next
54:49
Speaker 1: person up that same ladder. Right, And you provided us
54:54
Speaker 1: before we did this a lot of um fantastic resources. Uh.
54:59
Speaker 1: And one is that a couple of years ago, some
55:03
Speaker 1: interns working with you, right, found this actual statistical relationship
55:09
Speaker 1: between women in government and pro choice. Yes, my, my
55:16
Speaker 1: wonderful collagen turns back in twenty nineteen, when so many
55:21
Speaker 1: of the states were passing um abortion bands, when the
55:25
Speaker 1: Georgia six week ban passed, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama,
55:31
Speaker 1: and Mississippi all also passed bans. Georgia, of all of
55:37
Speaker 1: those states, had the closest abortion ban vote in the
55:41
Speaker 1: one and eighty member House. The ban, the six week ban,
55:46
Speaker 1: passed with only ninety two votes, one more than would
55:49
Speaker 1: have been required, and that was because at the time
55:52
Speaker 1: Georgia had a thirty point five women legislators. In the
55:58
Speaker 1: other states where there were fewer women legislators, for example,
56:03
Speaker 1: in Louisiana, there six week ban where only sixteen percent
56:09
Speaker 1: of the legislators were women, passed by a seventy three
56:13
Speaker 1: to twenty nine margin. In Alabama, where fifteen point seven
56:18
Speaker 1: percent of the legislators were women, their total ban on
56:21
Speaker 1: abortion passed with a vote of seventy four to three.
56:26
Speaker 1: In Mississippi, the six week ban now an issue in
56:31
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, where thirteen point eight percent of the
56:35
Speaker 1: women of the legislators are women. The vote was seventy
56:39
Speaker 1: six to thirty seven in favor of the band. So
56:44
Speaker 1: having more women in a legislative body matters, by contrast
56:50
Speaker 1: to those Southern states. In Nevada, where fifty two point
56:55
Speaker 1: four percent of the legislators are women, they're laws to
57:01
Speaker 1: ease and make abortion access more available um passed by
57:09
Speaker 1: overwhelming majorities. So your vote matters, and we have to
57:14
Speaker 1: vote in numbers. Republicans can't ignore. And I used the
57:20
Speaker 1: term Republicans and Democrats because in Georgia there are no
57:25
Speaker 1: pro choice Republican women legislators. The last pro choice Republican
57:34
Speaker 1: legislator was Kathy Ashe and she switched to the Democratic
57:39
Speaker 1: Party many many years ago. She's no longer serving, but
57:44
Speaker 1: she was the last pro choice Republican female legislator. Thank
57:49
Speaker 1: you for clarifying that. I think that's something that needs
57:51
Speaker 1: to be said because I know there's a whole conversation
57:53
Speaker 1: of the left and right and what does that look like,
57:55
Speaker 1: but Georgia, it is pretty clear. Well, in Georgia, it
57:58
Speaker 1: is very clear. Well, thank you so much for coming
58:03
Speaker 1: on and illuminating a lot of this, Melita. I know
58:04
Speaker 1: a lot of our listeners and us are kind of
58:08
Speaker 1: feeling a little panick and overwhelmed, and this is such
58:10
Speaker 1: a helpful conversation. So thank you so much for coming on.
58:14
Speaker 1: Where can the good listeners find you? They can follow
58:18
Speaker 1: us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at g a w
58:24
Speaker 1: I n l I s T. And our website is
58:30
Speaker 1: w w W g A w I n l I
58:35
Speaker 1: s T dot com. You can also find me on
58:39
Speaker 1: Facebook with my name Melita Easters. And I am on
58:44
Speaker 1: a public affairs television program Sunday mornings in Atlanta on
58:49
Speaker 1: Channel five. It's a thirty minute show called The Georgia Gang,
58:53
Speaker 1: and I'm one of the two Democrats who face off
58:57
Speaker 1: against two Republicans every week on Sunday Mornings at night
59:01
Speaker 1: thirty and a moderated discussion. Yes, that sounds intense. It's
59:07
Speaker 1: very interesting. Well, listeners, if you have any thoughts about
59:13
Speaker 1: what we talked about today, you can always email us.
59:16
Speaker 1: You know, we love to hear from you. Our email
59:17
Speaker 1: stuff Media Mom Stuff at ihart media dot com. You
59:20
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
59:22
Speaker 1: on Instagram as stuff I Never Told You. Thanks as
59:24
Speaker 1: always to a super producer, Christina. Thank you, Christina, and
59:27
Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You.
59:29
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