SCOTUS vs. Abortion (sponsored by Rewire News Group)
10/5/21 - In a special episode brought to you by Rewire News Group, we go deep on the conservative push to regulate and ban abortion in Texas and Mississippi with Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of the Boom! Lawyered podcast.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Executive Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Producer: Jordan Bailey
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan
Design Assistant: Brijae Morris
Ad sales: Midroll
TRANSCRIPT: SCOTUS vs. Abortion
[Ads]
Ann: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend, a podcast for long distance besties everywhere. And I'm Ann Friedman. On today's agenda, a special episode brought to you by Rewire News Group. We go deep on what's happening with abortion rights in Texas and Mississippi with the hosts of the Boom Lawyered podcast Imanii Gandy, and Jessica Mason Pieklo.
[theme song]
Ann: It's been a really concerning and scary time for abortion rights, access and justice. And even though we follow this issue pretty closely, and we have definitely been paying attention to the fact that conservative state legislatures have been mobilizing to curtail abortion rights. This is all really coming to a head right now. And as you know, we love to hear it from a smart board rights loving lawyer. And, um, I don't know. I mean, I got to say that like not a lot brings me comfort when it comes to this issue, but, um, hearing from the experts about what is going down in the Supreme court and in the lower courts has always brought me a little bit of peace. Like knowing that people who are experts are on the literal case. Um, that's why I can't wait to hear this conversation between one Aminatou Sow, our very own, Aminatou Sow and Jessica and Imani and because we're always straight up with you and with the FTC, this is a sponsored episode. We love to be in cahoots with other people who love abortion rights. So here we go. Let's listen as Jessica Mason Pieklo and Imani Gandy break down what's happening with abortion rights and a really accessible way. This is important stuff.
[interview begins]
Imani: I'm Imani Gandy. I am senior editor of law and policy at Rewire News Group and co-host of the Boom Lawyered podcasts.
Jessica: I'm Jessica and Mason Pieklo I am the senior vice president and executive editor at Rewire News Group. And co-host of the Boom Lawyered podcast.
Aminatou: We are big fans of your podcast over here, and we are big fans of your big brains as well. So thank you for joining us today.
Imani: Thank you.
Jessica: Thank you. This is just a mutual admiration.
Aminatou: You know, that's always the best, isn't it?
Imani: 100%. We're all working in the same space to really fight for the same things in our different lanes. So yeah, I'd like these opportunities to sort of get together and chat.
Aminatou: Oh, I mean, same, same here. We're going to be chatting about some, some heavy stuff, but before we get started, I, um, we love to ask everyone this question, what are your favorite snacks right now?
Jessica: My favorite snacks now? Okay. So, um, I've got a couple of kids, so we have lots of snack options in the house.
Aminatou: Love those, love the kid options.
Jessica: So, um, I am kind of basic and that I will always go, go for a cheddar goldfish because they are delicious in a pinch, but also I've started making my own ice cream from scratch. And let me tell you that this is both self care and just delicious. And then I get to share it with Imani, which is even more fun.
Imani: Yeah. Yeah. I had some of her vanilla ice cream. She made a delightful mint raspberry sorbet that knocked my socks off. So yeah, moving to Boulder and getting to eat Jess's food is really, it's been a highlight of this year. Um, in terms of snacks for me, I've been really into these dove mini bars. Oh, those are good. They're really tasty. They're like, you know, they're like 60 calories, you know, if you eat a big one, it's like, you know, half your calories for the day. But if you have just a little tiny snack and then if you had six or seven of them, it's fantastic.
Aminatou: That’s right. And for those of us who do not track our care about our calories, all we care about is how delicious they are. So win, win, win. Man, Ann if you're listening to this, please start making me ice cream. We can ship from across the country. I, uh, yeah. Another, another thing that I, um, really need. Can you tell me also how, um, you two got linked up to do this podcast? Was it through work or your friends already? Like, what's the deal?
Jessica: Oh, Imani. You want to start? This is a great story.
Imani: Yeah. Um, Jess and I actually met on Twitter when we were both toiling away, miserable in our law jobs. I think she was a professor at the time I was working in private practice at a law firm. Uh, and we sort of just, I don't know, we just sort of became friends by complaining and, and raging about the state of abortion rights in this country. And then we just happened to start working at Rewire. It was then called RH reality check right around the same time. In fact, one of our first staff retreats, it was the first time I met Jess and I remember she was very pregnant with her daughter Olive. And I remember looking at her going, wow, she's just genius in this space. And you know, I hope someday that I know as much as she does. And then 10 years later, I know probably about 75% of what she does. So I feel like I've made, I've made good progress, but yeah, we were, our friendship was forged in the fire of abortion rights. And um, we started doing the podcast five years ago. And since then, it's just been a really great way to work in this space to feel like I'm helping people. And to also do it with a really great friend who is really, really smart and just a great person, it makes the work, which can be very difficult and trying a lot easier.
Jessica: Okay. So the thing to know about Imani is that she is very, very humble and does not give herself nearly credit because to say that she has 70% of the knowledge or 75% of the knowledge that I do, it's just, it's the teamwork that makes the dream work Imani, we are here. But truly what I love about working with Imani is that, um, you know, it is a friendship that developed online. Like she was my Twitter friend. We had these completely disparate backgrounds
Aminatou: Wow. Back when Twitter wasn't a cesspool.
Jessica: Like, they was like the place to go like connect. Right. And, and we did. And like Imani said, like we were each in these very different spaces, but we came together over at the time. What felt like, and it's kind of like darling to think about a flood of abortion restrictions that were happening in the states. And this was around the time of the tea party election. So like lifetimes ago in political movements, right? So there's this wave of laws and everybody online is going, oh my God, what's happening. And Imani and I were part of that and then just kind of felt compelled to act. And so she started this amazing database, like collecting that. And from there, we just decided that this was going to be what we did. And like Imani said, you know, the work is hard and it is a true blessing to be able to have somebody who you just respect as, you know, a full equal and can have fun and, you know, blast through the difficult times with, because that's how the work sustains.
Imani: Yeah. I mean, I moved to Boulder for this woman, essentially, like I've heard in my life and was like, I'm going to Boulder. Cause I gotta be closer to Jess, especially in this, what we thought was going to be the last year of abortion rights, little did we know the court was just going to up and end abortion rights it's on a Wednesday, but you know, I figured it would be really great for us to be in the same place in order to sort of, I thought it would be fun to do stuff like, you know, go to the mountains and talk about our reproductive rights and post videos on Twitter. Just little things that you can't do when you're living in different states. I thought what a great time to do that. And then last week happened and I'm like, well, it's still a great time to do that, but that we can sort of commiserate and go on walks and, you know, enjoy the enjoy nature while commiserating about the state of abortion in this country.
Aminatou: I mean, that's a great segue. Can you start with kind of explaining to us what the recent abortion news coming from Texas is? Can you walk us through SB 8? What does the law say and what sets this law apart from other restrictive abortion laws that we've seen before?
Jessica: Sure. So SB 8 is a mess of a lot. Um, let's talk about what's going on in Texas here. Back in May, Texas lawmakers passed SB 8 and it contains a bunch of provisions among them. It bans abortion as soon as any, um, cardiac activity is detected and the media has been running with this as a quote unquote heartbeat ban, but they're not heartbeat bands and they're not heartbeat bands for a couple of reasons. One, cardiac activity happens early on and there's no heart. So you don't have a heart. You don't have a heartbeat. You literally have electrical impulses. And this happens at about six weeks in a developing pregnancy. So that's really sort of two weeks into a pregnancy from the time that you realize that you're pregnant. You know, we're talking about an embryo, something that is effectively, you know, just a developing clump of cells. So there's a lot of, already out of the gates, misinformation that on the upfront, I just want to knock out. So Texas passes the slot at six weeks effectively, banning abortion. That alone is awful, but they make it worse. They effectively deputize private citizens to enforce that law. What do I mean by that? Normally when the state passes something like an abortion ban, it's the state that enforces it, right? The attorney general, you know, government actors, but here in Texas law, the state actually doesn't have the power to enforce it because lawmakers took that power away from them, which is bizarre. Why did they do that? It's a way to try and insulate the law from a successful legal challenge, but somebody has to enforce it. So they shipped that out to third parties. What Imani has called abortion enforcers. And that's absolutely an accurate phrase. They are anybody who wants to try and enforce this ban. That's really bad, but it's not even all of how bad it is. There's another provision because this law creates a new category of violations for aiding and abetting and abortion. And so that is a way to sweep up third party folks who help others access care. That's where you may have heard about Uber and Lyft drivers facing liability under this law or abortion bans, or even potentially rape counselors. We don't know how far the reaches on this. So that's what Texas did back in May. And then abortion advocates filed the lawsuit to challenge it as is the normal course of things. And that lawsuit was scheduled for a hearing and as is the normal course of things. And right before that hearing was supposed to happen. The fifth circuit court of appeals, the conservative appellate court, that hears cases out of Texas stepped in and said, you know what? We're going to pump the brakes on this lawsuit for a minute. There are a couple of procedural issues and we're just gonna, we're gonna slow things down folks. So what that did was set off a series of events that kicked this case very rapidly up to the Supreme court and the Supreme court basically let the law take effect by saying that provision enforcement, those abortion enforcers, that seems complicated. We're not sure what to do with it. We better let the courts let it take effect and hear the challenges. And we'll just see what happens.
Aminatou: Oh boy, we'll just see what happens. Always a great idea when lawmakers get that in their minds.
Imani: And what's really ludicrous about it is that this idea that, you know, this new kind of enforcement mechanism that Texas Republicans have concocted is so it's so bizarre and it's so odd and we, the highest court of the land, aren't quite sure what to do about it. If you're not sure what to do about it, who do we call? There's nothing above you. That's supposed to tell us. So really the proper course of things would have been to pause the law, say, Hey, wait a minute, this looks weird. Maybe we should take a beat, let the lower courts that the district court and perhaps the fifth circuit court of appeals, figure out what's going on here. And in the meantime, we're going to maintain the status quo because there's nothing about this law that if it is not blocked is going to harm Texas. On the flip side, the fact that the law was not blocked has already immediately had a chaotic and terrible effect on the rights of pregnant people in Texas. So it was not only a truly odd thing that the court did, but it was, it was, I think it was rank cowardice. And I think it was an absolute highlighting of the ways in which this court has become Federalist society captured, right? They're not even beholden to the rule of law anymore. It's just a circus. It's just a circus of people who all think the same way, who were all, you know, installed on the bench to think the same way. And now it's playing out exactly how those of us who are SCOTUS nerds thought it would play out when all of this started to happen back when Anthony Kennedy decided to up and retire in 2018. So it's following a course that we all thought it would, doesn't make it any less depressing and it doesn't make it any less alarming, but it's very, very unsurprising.
Aminatou: Right? And also there, you know, for those of us who are not law nerds, I feel like I'm on any day that there's this Supreme court decision, half of my Twitter feed, it turns out our legal analyst. [laughter] It’s like wow. You're like, I went to Law & Order university. We only, so this is not my, um, this is not my, I don't know anything about this, but you know, it's, so there's this five, four vote. And we don't, we don't even know who the five and the four are because the opinion isn't signed and we only start to figure it out when people are like dropping descents. And so, you know, it's, and that's like, my understanding of that is that it's because the Supreme court makes this unprecedented radical move on the shadow docket, which means that they avoid like hearings and scrutiny of any kind, like you've kind of explained, but can you go a little bit more in depth with that? Like, what is that, why are we it's like even the like term shadow docket? Just to me, it's like, my skin is crawling. I was like, what are the shenanigans at like play here.
Jessica: It's wild because the shadow docket is maybe the most undemocratic thing we have going on in this country right now. Um, and this case is a perfect example of it. So the docket as a general term is, is just what, what lawyers talk about when that's like, you know, the table of contents for a court to hear oral arguments. That's how, you know, when the cases are being argued and who's doing the arguing and the docket is important because there aren't a lot of ways for the public to see what's going on in the federal courts. There's not a lot of avenues for transparency with, with the federal judiciary. The docket is one of them.
Aminatou: That’s kind of nuts though.
Jessica: Yeah. I mean, you look, you could mic me up and I could go for an entire hour about how bad that is.
Aminatou: But it's like, I knew it. But hearing you say that is making me angry all over again. I don’t understand.
Jessica: Yeah. And with lifetime appointments, right? So like the docket tells the public, here's what's on the courts, you know, business for today. Well, the shadow docket is exactly what it sounds like. It is a docket, so a list of business that the court does, but that the court does in the shadows. So further outside of the public view, no real briefing, no real oral argument, nothing on the merits, the meat and potatoes of a law that all happens behind closed doors. And honestly, that's not good for democracy at all. So what the court did was run. So this case got run up on an emergency motion and the court allowed it to take effect on its shadow docket. So that means that the lawyers never showed up to argue about whether or not SB8 is unconstitutional, right. There was no argument made by the attorneys that said, you cannot let this law take effect because of bans abortion at six weeks. And Roe vs. Wade says, that's unconstitutional, that didn't happen.
Aminatou: Can I ask a dumb question here also? So does this mean if there are no lawyers, does it also mean that like there's no Amicus briefs like there, they're just like literally making a decision between themselves based on like very minimal.
Jessica: They are. That is just the judges, the justices in the clerks, making these decisions. And it's really troubling because there's an actual direct challenge to Roe vs. Wade on the court’s legitimate docket, this term case out of Mississippi, Dobbs vs Jackson women's health, where the court could do what it just did in Texas. But apparently, I don't know, Justice Alito was too eager to like just too excited. The conservatives were like, we could wait to actually hear a case that functionally overturned Roe vs. Wade or we could do it now.
Imani: And what's truly remarkable about what the court did is that under its precedent, this six week ban is unconstitutional now after oral arguments and hearings and briefing and Amicus briefs, you know, in this Mississippi case that Jess just mentioned, perhaps they could go and take another look at Roe and undo all of the precedent that they did, but as it stands right now, this law is blatantly unconstitutional. So the notion that the court just let it take effect, even though it is obviously unconstitutional under its own precedent, signals how much they care about this particular precedent, which is not at all. And that's what's really concerning. So you get people who are, you know, and usually men who have just woken up and decided that they care about abortion today. You know, getting on TV and talking to cable news and whatnot say, well, you know, liberals and democrats are all saying that this overturned Roe, but it didn't really, it was just a procedural issue. Yes. A procedural issue that has grave effects on the way Roe works in Texas right now on the way that Roe will work in states that decide to pass laws that have this same enforcement mechanism as Texas. And also it's a signal about what the court is going to do when it addresses this Mississippi case. So this idea that like, oh, they didn't really touch Roe. Everyone is panicking. It's that same sort of patronizing condescending behavior that frankly got us here, right? Because I spent a decade being pat on the head and told pretty lady, don't worry, your little head about it. Roe is going to be fine for a decade this happened and we're here now. And those very same people are still trying to downplay the severity of what's going on. And it just drives me bonkers quite frankly.
Aminatou: Well, you know, you've both mentioned the Dobbs case, which has been called the most important abortion rights case in half a century. Um, so I guess that's very crucial. Uh, and I'm just like, uh, you know, I'm curious if one of us, one of you could walk us through what this case is about. Like what are the basics of it? And what's at the heart of this case specifically.
Imani: Okay. So Jackson women's health organization is a case about Mississippi's 15 week ban. It's a previability as still unconstitutional abortion ban, right? Because Roe vs. Wade says that states don't have an interest in potential, uh, fetal life until the point of fetal viability after which they can start banning abortion and they can start criminalizing. It must, they must have an exception for the health of the pregnant person, but generally they can just, they can do whatever they want. One of the things that Mississippi is trying to do is trying to argue that Roe vs Wade and planned parenthood versus Casey, didn't give a blanket right to previability abortion. Those cases absolutely did do that. But Mississippi is arguing. Did they really? And we really need the Supreme court to take another look at this. So there's two things to really, that really, I need to drive home. One, there are abortion regulations that states are allowed to, to impose regulations that just regulate abortion around the edges that don't actually ban it outright. And then you have these gestational bans, which ban abortion outright after a particular gestational marker. When it comes to these previability bans, the court has already said that these are unconstitutional. And by the virtue of the fact that the court has said that they are unconstitutional, it is inherently an undue burden, right? Like if you say, to say to someone who is 16 weeks pregnant, you can't get an abortion in Mississippi because we have a 15 week ban. That's an undue burden, especially in the path of the person that six, that person who's at 16 weeks, who's trying to get an abortion in a state that saying that they can't to the extent that they want to regulate abortion, they can impose bias counseling requirements or waiting period requirements, or they can impose these trap laws that say, you know, doctors have to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, blah, blah, blah. Those are all regulations. And those are all regulations that are subject to the so-called undue burden test that the court set forth in Planned Parenthood versus Casey in the alternative. And this is what I think that the court is going to end up doing, and Jessica can correct me if I'm wrong, is that they want to make the undue burden standard, which is really only applicable to regulations right now. They want to make that standard applicable to gestational bans. You know, assuming that Jackson goes the way that I think it's going to be, that that is going to go. Whereas before these gestational bans would be flat out unconstitutional because they're previability abortion bans under this new standard that I think Mississippi wants the court to adopt and that I think the court could adopt easily. Um, and that would blow most people's minds because it wouldn't be overturning Roe outright. It would just be making it impossible for people to access abortion. It would be to say these gestational bans aren't automatically unconstitutional. We're throwing out this viability marker. We're just going to make this substantial obstacle, undue burden standard apply across the board. And so what that does is it gives these Republican appointed judges, these Trump judges, an opportunity to use their subjective judgment about bans that were previously patently unconstitutional, full stop. It allows them to interject their own subjective biases into whether or not a 15 week ban or a six week ban or whatever gestational marker ban is unconstitutional. So that's sort of my take on the Jackson, um, women's health case, but Jess may have another take. And if she does, I would love to hear it. I'm sure your listeners know
Jessica: I'm going to “yes, and” everything that Imani just said, because her analysis of the Dobbs case is absolutely correct. But also what I think the court is going to do is effectively show its work. So we were just talking about the shadow docket and the Texas case and how they let this unconstitutional take effect without showing any work well, what they are going to have to do with Dobbs actually on the docket is show that work. And so I think we'll get an opinion that gives conservative lawmakers and conservative judges, the cover that they want and that they need to let any matter of abortion restriction take effect like Imani set. So a six week ban absolutely taking effect who knows a five week ban, guarantee you, they'd try that. Whatever folks can think up and cook up these lawmakers will try it. And the concern is that the Dobbs decision will allow them to do it, but then it will also give conservatives the ability to still politically fundraise to say, look, Roe vs. Wade is still on the books. Therefore abortion is still big and bad and we've got to go after it. So there's a cynical play here.
Aminatou: I mean, cynical is like a kind way to put it out. This is sinister.
Imani: It is, it's really sinister. Um, and particularly with the Texas law, we haven't one thing that I do want to mention is the way in which the Texas legislature has essentially appended the way that litigation is conducted in the state in order to stack the decks against these against the providers and the abortion funds and rape counselors and lawyers, and whomever might be giving advice about abortion to clients or to people in need of such advice. The way that the legislature has stacked these decks is truly remarkable. So for one thing, you know, Texas is a huge state, right? It's got, I mean, 254 counties, the law specifies that one provider can be food in any of the 254 counties in the state. And once they are sued in a particular inconvenient court, like if a provider from West Texas is sued in Eastern Texas, that provider is not allowed to ask the court for a change of venue. It is very unusual to foreclose a person from changing venue to a court that's more convenient for them so that they don't have to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles to defend a frivolous lawsuit, brought by an abortion snitch pursuant to this law. So that's one of the ways that it stacks the deck. Another way that it does. So is that it makes attorneys who defend these providers and funds and whomever. If they raise in defense of these providers, if they raise the unconstitutionality of this law as a defense and they don't win all of their claims, then the lawyer is automatically jointly and severally liable with their client for the other side of attorney's fees.
Aminatou: Woah.
Aminatou: Yeah. Yeah. So, let me just explain how unusual that is, right? Normally when you Sue someone, someone sues you, everyone pays their own way. You pay your attorney's fees. I pay my attorney's fees. Sometimes there may be some agreement. The two of us that whoever wins the lawsuit has to pay the other side's fees, but that's usually not a statutory prescription here. What we have is Texas basically saying, we know that this law is unconstitutional. And we know that the way litigation works is such that lawyers bring claims and they bring myriad claims and the hopes that some of them will stick and you can still win a lawsuit, even if you don't win all of your claims. So what we, the Texas legislature are going to do is make it so that if you dare to challenge the unconstitutionality of this patently unconstitutional law, we're going to force you to own, to bring a very, very limited lawsuit and to make limited claims. Because if you do what you, what lawyers normally do, which is just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks and you don't win every single piece of spaghetti that stuck to that wall, then you're automatically liable for the other side's fees and not just your client, because it's usually the client that has to pay the other side's fees. And if they can't pay because they're judgment proof, then the other side is just out of luck. No, the attorney now would have to step in, in their broke client's stead and pay the other side's attorney's fees, which could be upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it is already out of the gate sort of daring attorneys to challenge this law and saying, if you dare challenge this law and you don't win you risk bankruptcy, you risk your entire practice. And that's just a really cynical way to close off the courts to people who need them pursuant to a law that is specifically trying to insulate the courts from these sort of challenges. It's truly sinister, as you said,
Aminatou: Oh man. So the jobs versus Jackson women's health case that we talked about earlier, the one in Mississippi, can you tell me how, like, how that would impact this new Texas law and how also would it impact the rest of the country?
Jessica: Sure. Yeah, sure. So, um, so if Dobbs goes the way that we think that it will, what it does is allow Texas' law to take effect on the merits effectively. So, you know, we were talking about the earlier decision from the court being a procedural one, a Dobbs decision, allowing the Mississippi law to take effect would pave the way for the court later, letting the Texas law take effect. For example, it would also Greenlight other laws that are similar. So for example, Louisiana has a 15 week abortion ban on its book right now, that's just waiting around for a court to say that that can take effect that would immediately happen. So there would be a domino effect where other states that have similar laws would be allowed to sort of resuscitate those. And so we would see a wave of abortion access restrictions be allowed to take effect. The result would be that in large swaths of the country, abortion is legal in name only. It would be functionally very difficult if not impossible to access services in Mississippi, in, you know, Arkansas, in Missouri. I mean, to give a sense of just how quickly these laws replicate, lawmakers in Florida, for example, have already said that they want to enact a Texas style SB8 ban with the enforcement provision as have lawmakers in Missouri. So it's not if this would happen, but when and how quickly.
Aminatou: This is truly making me sick to my stomach. Um, but that said like, what would a win in the Dobbs case look like for abortion rights advocates and what would it look like for, for everyone else?
Imani: It's hard to, it's hard to envision, honestly. So just pessimistic about any of what it would look like. It would look like the court saying Roe vs. Wade is still, it's still good law, right? Previability abortion bans are still unconstitutional. Your 15 week ban is a previability abortion ban. It's therefore unconstitutional. All the rest of you states out here, stop trying to pass by previability abortion ban because they're unconstitutional, but we're not going to get that ruling. We're going to get something like Jessica said that provides cover for conservatives to continue to chip away at access while at the same time, continuing to complain that Roe vs. Wade is still out there and it's coming for your family. And oh my God, you've got to fundraise off of this big, giant scary case that we've basically gutted and taken all of the teeth out of, but we've left just the bones around so that we can continue to, to fear monger and to raise money off of it.
Jessica: And the other thing I would just add to once again, yes. And Imani, is that a win in Jackson women's health effectively means a maintaining of the status quo of abortion access. And the status quo for abortion access is already garbage in this country. So a win is no win at all. A win is literally just, you know, surviving to fight the next wave because we know there's the next wave. The next wave already hit in the form of Texas before the court heard this case.
Aminatou: So we know that the cards are stacked, but the fight isn't over and it's going to require a bunch of new strategies and tactics on our side. But what do you see as the path forward and where should we be focusing our energy right now?
Imani: I think honestly the path forward is sort of a reckoning with the ways in which the reproductive rights, the mainstream dominant reproductive rights movement has failed. Like, I mean, and that's, and I don't mean to shade. The many people who have been working on this fight for, you know, decades, but the bottom line is, is the myopia of that movement has made it so that it took another 30, 30 years or so for Black women to stand up and say, Hey, maybe we should broaden the framework. Maybe we should stop focusing solely abortion rights and start focusing on other rights that have that impact people's ability to have children or not, and to raise the children that they have. So I am heartened that reproductive justice is sort of stepping into the spotlight and reproductive, you know, these sort of old school reproductive rights folks are sort of having to reckon with this new Black woman, you know, Indigenous woman, you know, brown people movement and to sit back and say, you know, what are the things that we've done wrong over the last decade, particularly since the tea party explosion, the abortion bills, explosion, what have we done wrong? What could we do differently? What other issues do we need to sort of coalesce together so that we can fight this so that we can go and fight this fight on a broad scale, right? Because there's a reason that abortion rights and trans rights and voting rights are all under siege at the same time. That's not a coincidence. And so I think that the reproductive justice framework recognizes that that's not a coincidence and has tools and tactics to address all of those things, as opposed to this laser focus on whether or not we can get, uh, you know, a court to sanction or not the legal right to abortion. I think we just have to broaden our outlook. And I think that's the only way forward. And I think that is the way forward. And I think it's time for a lot of folks to sort of take a step back and let the people on the ground, the grassroots organizers, particularly Black women in the South to lead the way because they know what's going on. They know what they're doing. They have that breadth of thought to really carry the movement forward.
Jessica: Again, here I am to “Yes and” Imani, I think too, we really, you know, folks are looking for structural responses and you know, this is a, you know, moment for big structural change because anything that happens in terms of efforts to pass legislation, to proactively protect abortion rights and access, for example, or to proactively support all of the rights that Imani has been talking about, they run up against two big issues in Congress. It's the filibuster and the federal courts. So Progressive's in particular really need to start embracing full throated court reform. Filibuster reform is civic reform because attacks on reproductive autonomy are attacks on people's ability to live full and complete civic lives. They are completely and entirely interwoven to it to one another. So we just need to talk about that better too.
Aminatou: For our listeners who care about reproductive rights and me and Ann obviously, uh, and want to get involved in this fight or want to really deepen their involvement in the fight, where is a good place to start?
Imani: Our podcast Boom Lawyered, of course, but truly there are very few people who have been on this beat the way that Jessica and I have for the last decade and the way that Rewire News Group has over the last decade. So in terms, and, and we sort of pride ourselves on explaining these sorts of difficult concepts in a way that people who had the common sense not to go to law school can understand. So if there are things about the law, you don't understand things about the Supreme court, you don't understand hitting us up is honestly the best way to do it. Following Boom Lawyered. Following Rewire News Group on Twitter is the best way to do it. There are a lot of people who are becoming activated on abortion now, and there, I think there are helpful ways to do that. And there are unhelpful ways to do that. The helpful way to do that is to look around what's going on in your community and to try to pitch in and help the people that have been doing this stuff forever. Because one of the things that people tend to do is they get really upset about something and it's like, we have to act. And then they start to act in ways that that maybe contradict the ways that people who have already been doing this are acting, or they tend to act in ways that are just decidedly unhelpful, like for example, calling for a sex strike. So I think that there needs to be a really, um, just for people who are wanting to get involved, you just need to interrogate the best way for you to do that. And usually the best way to start is to find someone who's been doing it and to ask how you can help.
Jessica: And just to add on that also we're making it super easy for folks because, uh, I am sympathetic to the flood of information, uh, that can happen in the reproductive rights, justice and health landscape. And so we actually have a new newsletter out. I'm writing it weekly, it's called The Fallout and it really connects all of the dots to the things that we've been talking about, um, today, between the attacks on access in states and the attacks on rights at large. So for folks who want to know more about what's going on and feel like this is a really crucial moment in history, they're correct. It is. And we're serving it up in a really digestible, easy way so that when folks, you know, if your uncle says, what are you freaking out about the court didn't really overturn Roe vs. Wade, the fallout actually has the argument that you can counter that with in a fun and effective way.
Aminatou: We love fun and effective ways in this family. Um, and also, uh, you know, I have a, I have a, like a, a not abortion question, but I'm wondering, I feel like a lot of lawyers that we have on the show always make the crack about like, ha ha, why did I go to law school? And so I am wondering for what your advice would be for someone who went to law school, who feels that way, or for the baby lawyers who are listening and don't really want to practice law, they wants to get involved in, you know, like the activism that's close to their heart and, you know, and at the end of the day, you're both like very good writers. And, um, and so I'm just like wondering what you would say to those people. How do you bring them over to the side?
Imani: Oh boy, it's hard. I mean, it's hard for me because I did spend 13 years practicing law and, you know, racking up money and doing all of the things that God, I wish I had never done, but had I not done that I wouldn't be here now. So I am very, very impressed and heartened by all the young folks who are in law school who go to law school, knowing I want to do Repro, or I want to do some sort of social justice law. I think that is incredibly admirable. I went to law school thinking, yeah, I kind of want to help people, but without a real grounding in what I wanted to do, I just happened to go to law school at a time where they were just handing out jobs for free. And that's just not the case anymore. So, you know, my advice to people who are thinking about going to law school is to go to the best law school you can get into. If you don't think you can get into one of those top tier law schools, find whatever area of law you're interested in, try and find professors who are specializing in that area and go to that law school, if you can. And generally, you know, it's never too late. If you're stuck in a, you know, a law job that you can't stand, you're working in a firm, you can't stand. You know, Jess got out, I got out Ellie Mystal, who writes for the nation and appears on MSNBC, brilliant guy, he got out. It is possible to get out and to do work that makes you feel good. You just have to, it also can be hard. You know, I know not everyone is financially able to do that. So my advice would be to do what you can do. What's financially feasible for you, but know that if you want to get out, you can get out. If you're not stuck, you're not stuck where you are. No one has ever stuck where they are.
Jessica: As somebody who used to teach law students. Occasionally, I also love to remind them that the legal education skills are transferable to multiple industries. Law schools won't tell you that because they are in the business of capturing law students. But the reality is a legal education can transfer across industries. So if you are thinking about going to law school, or if you are in law school, going what the hell am I going to do with it? With any of this? What I would say is hone your critical thinking, writing and reasoning skills, like the ability to think and write and communicate transfers broadly. And honestly we need good thinkers and writers in the public sphere. So being a public intellectual is kind of a cool thing to aspire to.
Aminatou: I love that. Jessica, Imani, thank you so much for coming on today and we're wishing you well, we'll be listening to the podcast and please one of you send Ann, a way to make homemade ice so that life, thank you.
Imani: Thank you so much.
Jessica: Thank you. This is a blast.
[Interview ends]
Ann: Thanks to Rewire News Group for this special episode, we'll see you on the internet and in the courts.
[outro music]
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.