April 29, 2020 • 43 mins
Katy, Robert and Cody speak with Jenny Ma, Senior Staff Attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights about Coronavirus and Abortion Rights.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Worst
(00:22):
Year Ever. My name is Katie Stool. I've got a name.
It's Cody John Hello. Hi, Hi Robert. Today we decided
to sit down with Jenny Mall from the Center for
Reproductive Rights to discuss some of the ways that governments
(00:42):
are well trying to take away our abortion rights in
different states. I don't know if very many of you
have seen these stories. It's really easy to get lost
in the shuffle with all the other news that's going on,
but this is a very real and scary thing that
happened almost immediately after shelter and place orders were announced.
(01:05):
So we were really lucky to sit down with Jenny
and and hear about the different cases they have going
on and the steps that they're doing to fight this. Well.
Hargold argo boog boog. Let's have us a conversation. Let's
play the audio of that. Okay, that's our new catchphrase. Yeah,
I'm sure we can take it away, Daniel. All right, Well,
today we are joined by Jenny ma who was a
(01:27):
senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights. Hi, Jenny, Hi,
how are you well? I'm doing okay. How are you.
We're hanging in there. Thanks so much for having Well,
we're really grateful to you for taking the time to
speak with this. Uh. We know you're very, very busy,
but we're very excited to hear what you are working
on over there. I'm sure most of our listeners are
(01:49):
familiar with your organization, but can we start by telling
us a little bit about the center and what it does? Sure,
the Center for Reproductive Rights is a global organization, so
we work on domestic as well as global matters, and
we use the power of the law to advance reproductive
rights as fundamental human rights around the world. And my
(02:09):
role UM as a litigator is to litigate and state
and federal courts, um to ensure that on constitutional laws
do not go into effect across the United States. That's
a greally concise answer. It seems like you've done that before,
um mission. Uh. Well, with everything going on right now, UM,
(02:34):
we're seeing that it's really easy to lose track of
all the different ways that you know, governments are kind
of using coronavirus as a cover to chip away at rights. Uh.
For example, we've seen a lot of states trying to
shut down or shutting down abortion clinics, you know, saying
that it's an interest of public safety? Does that bite?
That being very counterintuitive? UM? And I know that that
(02:57):
is something that you're currently really a mention and we
would love to have you walk us through what's happening,
you know, from for the virus up until now and
all the stuff that we should be aware of. Yeah. Absolutely, UM.
Hopefully some of your listeners have heard what's been going around, um,
across the United States with regards to abortion and what's
(03:19):
been going on with COVID nineteen. But UM, if I
can backtrack just a little bit, the Center did have
this case argued before the Supreme Court. UM. It was
called June Medical Services versus Russo way back when, which
seems like a lifetime ago. Um, back in March fourth, Yeah,
five years ago, in March, a hundred years ago, a
(03:40):
century ago. UM. And you know, coming off of that,
we really thought that we were going to enter into
a time where we would just watch the state legislatures
and see if they would pass bands or other restrictions.
That's what we do in a normal year. Every year,
state legislatures meet so times they'll be proactive bills to
(04:01):
protect reproductive rights. But oftentimes, as you guys have probably
seen in the media, there's bands being UM promulgated to
like twenty week bands, UM, six week bans, fifteen week
bans like and and most recently last year you saw
Alabama try like basically a total ban on Yes. So
that's what we track normally. And if it gets to
a point where UM those bills become law, we go
(04:25):
ahead and UM bring our lawsuits in court. UM. So
our state team very much tracks those laws. Our litigation
team goes to court and and tries to block those laws.
And that's kind of the the bread and butter of
what I do now. When coronavirus and COVID nineteen the
crisis began, UM, as many of your listeners are out there, UM,
(04:47):
you know, we began to work from home and we
started to see basically that first week, UM, several states
passed UM either through their governors executive orders or through
the Health Department these notices UM, and basically they were
very differently worded, you know, across the different states, but
(05:08):
it said something like, no, you're non essential your elective
or minor procedures would have to be postponed. Now, I
want to emphasize that makes total sense, right, Like, if
you have your nose jobs scheduled, you should probably hold
off at the time. No PO talks right now, please,
(05:30):
right exactly, So hold off on that, y'all, like, get
it later. Um. But then we saw, you know, none
of these orders had the word abortion in it. Um.
You know, we saw some that had actually proactive measures
um that. You know, we saw it from Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Michigan,
(05:51):
the kind of states roll on saying, but definitely not
for pregnancy related care, definitely not for reproductive okay, including abortion.
So we saw some depth of measures. Now, of course,
you know, your spiky sense kind of tingles when kind
of words like this, right and um and and this
is not us being paranoid, because clearly time has shown
(06:12):
that that's exactly what certain states did. But we started
tracking um kind of the actions of different governmental actors
in certain states that are the what I like to
call market leaders in abortion risch a right, um. So
it's the typical group of folks um um in these states.
And we saw the first one out. You know, we
(06:34):
were tracking several states, um in the south and the Midwest,
and we saw Ohio's governor on that Saturday after their
executive order issued kind of publicly go out there and say, well,
of course abortion is non essential, non time sensitive, and
everything has to stop because you know, you can stop
(06:54):
a pregnancy, right, Yeah, that's non time sensitive. We only
have a banned for you know, time sensitive bands. But
it's not time sensitive, isn't that Yeah exactly, It's like
you can put pregnancy on a shelf. Right. So no,
that's not what happened. So of course to let your
due date right exactly just hit the pause. So obviously
(07:17):
this alarmed a lot of lawyers. So we got together
with a lot of our litigating friends out there, and
so we work a lot with Planned Parenthood, a c
l U and the Warring Project, along with my organization,
the Center for Reproductive Rights. We decided, okay, we're gonna
start tracking what's going on here. Since Ohio like clearly
put us on higher alert, there were certain states that
(07:38):
we were pretty sure, um, you know, would act similarly
and follow suits. So you can imagine Texas was high
up there and you know, and go into what went
on there. But um so that's kind of what we
started to see. And then we started seeing kind of
more and more public displays by attorney generals, by governors, um,
(08:00):
by different health department officials saying, yeah, you know what,
abortion is going to be banned for this time period,
and we're going to say that it's not essential. We're
gonna say it's not time sensitive, and you're gonna have
to halt um during this time. Now, I want to
just say that, you know, there's some intuitive appeal to this,
(08:20):
so I want to kind of make it clear to
you all and your listeners. Right, Um, pregnancy is not static.
I think that's a basic principle. And these states are
saying you can save all sorts of the equipment that
you need during this pandemic, you know, and you you
should just put it on hold because it's not essential.
(08:40):
And I want to just make clear two things. One,
the states that are saying this are the same offenders
that have tried to right. I want to just be
clear that it's it's not like it's very transparent, right,
it's it's what's been clear. And um, you know, they
are putting press releases out there saying they're a shutdown
clinics UM, and they're making their goal as explicit as possible,
(09:04):
Like the purpose is so clear when they're out there
just kind of putting it UM out there in the public,
it's it's pretty wild. And then I just want to
also emphasize the science. Right forget the lawyers, Like, my
job is to make arguments um UM for our clients.
But science has weighed in here and immediately, And I
wonder why I write. You know, the American Medical Association,
(09:27):
who truthfully had not weighed in an abortion for the
longest time UM put out there that this is not
a time for politicians to be UM deciding what is
time essential and what is not, Like those are for
the doctors and provided health care professionals to decide, right,
And that's a basic concept. And the American College of
(09:47):
Obstitiians and Gynecologists, which is the leading UM medical group
for UM oh B Juan explicitly said and they came
out almost immediately when they started seeing this initial trend
in Ohio and Texas, and they said, look, this is
not abortion. Is absolutely time sensitive care. It is necessary
(10:08):
if you are pregnant to go either get O B
care if it's a wanted pregnancy and absolutely get your
abortion if it's an unwanted pregnancy, because abortion is essential help.
Do you remember the date that that happened, when when
people first started to notice this was happening. Yeah, it
was a little bit over a month ago, and I
think if you kind of google our friendly, yeah, we
(10:33):
can see that. But it's around I would say we
started March March sixteenth, that lunch sixteenth, and really kind
of picking up that week. And so it's been a
little bit over a month. And of course I mentioned
two states, Texas and Ohio, but not just them, right,
not just them. So now we have eight states that
(10:55):
have been explicit and I just want to emphasize here
before we if you want to go into detail of
at those eight states, but those eight are the ones
that there are lawsuits on. Right, my colleagues and um
the litigating groups I mentioned, we're also monitoring and preparing
legal papers. And several states that have like had these
(11:15):
stop goes, like there were these public statements and then
there's a withdrawal and and and so they're way more
than eight states that kind of thought about this and
using this opportunity and pandemic to ban abortion care. But
these eight states, um, like I said, are the worst
offenders before we move forward, I just wanted to clarify
when we talk about these states announcing these these bands, um,
(11:39):
you know stops. Are they're saying that it's temporary? Are
they putting out are they saying that I'm assuming they
are for now? But as the same as our stay
at home orders just keep getting extended. I'm wondering if
they're saying it's just for a few weeks or what
have you, and you can wait a few weeks. Is
that kind of what we're seeing. So in some states, yes, right,
(12:00):
So they're not you know, copy copy and paste all
of these states. So in certain states there are Okay,
it's gonna last till the end of the month. In
certain states they'll be like, oh if, but it will
get extended if necessary. Some states actually don't have anything.
Some states actually say until further notice, which is actually
even more offensive because it's so clearly right. Um, But
(12:23):
I just want to be clear that, um, abortion care
is incredibly safe, but it is more safe if you
get it earlier. Right, There's no reason to delay healthcare
in any capacity. And for a state legislator and state
officials to be saying, you know what, even though like
this is considered essential healthcare by the a m A
(12:46):
and all of the leading health and public health officials
that are out there, yeah, we still want you to stop.
We still want you to wait a month or wait
even longer than that, because no one knows how long
this is going to go, right, And so on the surface,
this is infuriating, but it's even more so when you
start to think about who specifically this is affecting. Um,
you know, the majority of people that require abortions. I
(13:09):
don't have those statistics, but I know I know that there.
You know, maybe they're people that are single mothers, or
you already have children and they are low income and
now they are without work, or they are now in
charge of the daycare for their existing children, or god,
even there's people that are sheltering in place in environments
(13:32):
where they aren't safe to communicate with their partner. Maybe
they're sheltering with their abuser and they don't have anybody
they can reach out and talk to about this stuff. Um.
And and this guy's of saying that this is for
public health and public safety is so backwards because the
opposite happens. Yes, people might take matters into their own hands,
(13:53):
or they're going to try to go out of state
to find treatment. And a lot of these people are
in states, in states that are surrounded by other states
that also have abortion bands or what have you. Yes,
so this is absolutely true. You've hit upon so many
burdens that we see from our clients patients all the
time in normal circument. So exactly what you said. Most
(14:18):
of the folks who do get abortion care from our
clients are low income. Most actually the majority of abortion
clients are already mothers. Um. They are in certain states,
primarily African American black women, and so there are always
burdens in order to even access care and states that
(14:40):
are trying to chip away that right. Um. Ever since
Roe versus Way and now in this pandemic, when we're
all under heightened anxiety, when we're all under additional stresses mentally,
financially and so on, those are completely exacerbated. Um. When
you have maybe your job has been cut, maybe someone
(15:02):
in your family's job has been cut, or your child
care person can't come. Right for those of you who
have kids, this is very acute, right, Um, And if
you many people who are already mothers are trying to
access that care. And then you get to places like Texas,
which now we've had almost six times of stop and
go right, we've had patients sitting in the waiting room
(15:26):
ready that day after having gone through. By the way,
I want to emphasize all of the other restrictions that
you already have to go through, like your waiting periods
and listening to bias counseling and having unnecessary medical test
performed on you prior to em and getting into that room.
And then you sit there and all of a sudden,
the appellate court you know, over in New Orleans decides that, um,
(15:48):
you can't get your medication abortion today. And we've actually
our clients have turned away people at that point. And
the human story of this is that it is incredibly difficult.
It not like those patients live a block away right
to get there in the place, to have be able
to have paid enough to go there, to have traveled there,
(16:10):
to be able to get back potentially to um an
abusive partner who might not you know, know what's going on,
or to your kids, and that was your only opportunity
or um you know, most recently, there have been roadblocks
placed in the road between Texas and Louisiana. Yeah, just
checks to see um because Louisiana had been a hot spot.
(16:35):
And if you're undocumented or UM, you know, you don't
want to explain a medical procedure to random highway patrolman.
It's just adding so much on top of what you
already have to deal with. And if you get turned away,
many people will not be able to find their way back.
And like you said, because pregnancy is not static, your
(16:57):
options are if it's an unwanted pregnant see to get
an abortion. Hopefully um there's reproductive healthcare in your state.
But if not, you're going to travel. And that goes
absolutely to the emphasis of what you're supposed to be
doing right now, right like you're supposed to within your community,
and instead you're leaving your community, taking the drive, going
into another community, coming back, dropping at a gas station.
(17:20):
At gas stations, you know, you get your snack and
it's just and then coming back to your community, which
is the opposite of what you want to do, So
it goes contrary to the goals. And then if you
cannot obtain your abortion, your options are to stay pregnant
and you know, seek obstetrics care. There's a you know,
we have obies who say this is the schedule you
(17:43):
should be on if you're pregnant, and um, I hope
that people are getting that care. But even if they're not,
the end result of a pregnancy is to carry to term,
and it really is forced pregnancy at that point. And
it's it's like disturbing to me. And I mean, it's
all very Stopian feelings. It feels like we're living in
the Handmaids. It does, it does well together everything when
(18:16):
you say stop and go order six times in Texas, Um,
you just mean since the start of this the pandemic
the here. Um, can you tell us a little bit
what let's talk about Texas specifically, because I know that
that's been confusing a lot of for people that live
in Texas, uh, of course, but for all of us. Um.
(18:36):
I I've seen that you know, they were going to
have this band and then there was a stop on
that and then oh no, never mind, it is in place. Um,
So can you tell us a little bit about where
we stand right now? And then also in the other
states that you've been seeing stuff happen yeah, sure, I'll
start with Texas because that was one of the first
lawsuits out we saw around that time period. I mentioned
(18:57):
around March twenty two, UM their executive order issued. So
Texas issued an executive order. It limited certain types of
non essential care UM. But of course, again like I
said in the beginning, there's there was no mention of
the word abortions, UM, nothing about regrets of health care.
The next day the attorney general there um issued a
(19:19):
press release singling out abortion providers and suggesting that any
abortion would be prohibited under the executive order. So then,
of course, what do we do. We file our lawsuit
again it was one of the first states out. UM.
We filed in federal court in the Western District of Texas,
and UM immediately after we got a wide what's called
(19:43):
a temporary restraining order restraining order parts night seem UM.
You know, regular to to your listeners who are not lawyers,
but this is basically something where we go into court
almost on like an emergency basis. It's saying, look, judge,
we need an answer from you right away to keep
the status quo. We need to stop whatever is happening, UM,
(20:05):
and we can do the whole evidence part, and we
can do the hearing later, but for now, based on
what we said here and based on these various UM
statements that we've put together, please stop the state from
doing what they're doing. So we got a very broad
crro um that's temporary restrainting work done um and that
was granted to us on March thirty. UM that allowed
(20:27):
all abortion care to continue. So between when the a
g said no abortions and before we got that order,
there was no abortion care provided in the state. So
now back we're back, um, you know, an abortion care
is allowed. And of course what does the state do.
The very next day they seek an emergency um what's
(20:47):
called a man Dams petition to the appellate court. So
the court the next court up, which is in the
fifth Circuit um, and they say the district court judge
made such a big mistake here, we really need to
take it back. And not only that during while you
think about it, we want you to take it away immediately.
That's how cruel like it was. It wasn't even like please,
(21:11):
you know, wait till the complete you get there first
from the lawyers. So lo and behold, that's what they did.
So now no abortions can happen in Texas. Anyway, to
go back and forth on this, we we went through
UM and we then got medication abortions yes, and then
procedural abortions closer to the gestational limit in Texas. Yes.
(21:34):
Then that wasn't even satisfactory to Texas, so they went
back to the appellate court and said no to medication abortions.
So it went back. We describe it as almost whiplash,
and we describe it as like a roller coaster, and
you can choose your own kind of yeah here. But
it really was UM wild for our clients and just
(21:54):
an incredible journey that they've been through over this time
period when we've all been processing what's been going on
with COVID nineteen right, and when you're trying to give
healthcare to your clients and UM, you know, uh, a
couple of judges far away get to decide what happens
to your patients. It's really quite heartbreaking. And the latest
(22:14):
I mean, we almost went to the Supreme Court with
it actually because of the ban on medication abortions. We
did withdraw when the state finally UM decided that most recently,
UM as of yesterday, a new executive order has been
in place, and UM, we have decided to pull our
(22:36):
application for any relief in terms of immediate relief because
the state has said now all abortions can continue. Okay
to report that as of you know your listeners who
live into Access and surrounding states, UM, abortion care is
moving forward in all aspects in Texas. What strikes me
about this story is just how what a ghastly waste
(23:01):
of their time and energy during this crisis to be
saying I'm going to spend so much time going back
and forth about haggling about this thing that that the
these rights that women deserve to have access to health
care for and during the height of this pandemic, and yes,
like you said, when we're dealing with so many other things,
(23:21):
and how else can they be using that time to
serve their state? You know, absolutely, And I think personally
I find that one of the most offensive things here.
We we ended up right now, let me say, as
of today, we ended up with these cases these eight states.
But we tried for the longest time and we're continuing
to try for the longest time not to bring these lawsuits. Right, Yeah,
(23:44):
of course, it's not what I would like to be
doing right now. I hope that these health departments spend
time and money on their citizens of their states and
trying to flatten the curve in their respective states. We
should not be having litigation against the medical advice of
all of these organizations, against trying to prevent people from
(24:06):
accessing care, like basically pushing people away from the state
and creating like a situation where it's just just impossible.
And so I am so glad that people in Texas
can now access care. And I'm so glad that every
single district court judge, and I want to really emphasize
that the law at least in the lower courts held strong.
(24:30):
Every single district court judge said, amazing, but this is
too far, including many who were actually appointed by President Trump.
So it wasn't being along political ideologies. Um. Are there
any states that still um, it's still the threat that
they might take away? Yes, okay, so UM the states
(24:51):
that I'll just do them so and in case people
live in them, Um, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee,
in Indiana, in Texas are the states that are currently
having some form of litigation. Are had UM. In Oklahoma,
(25:16):
as of today, only medication abortions are allowed. UM. This
was after we won broad relief at a preliminary injunction
hearing and then immediately, similar to what Texas did, the
state went to ask to stay that decision. So UM,
that has all been going on. There is a new
(25:38):
order in Oklahoma that makes it incredibly difficult because they
require COVID nineteen testing of the patients and as you
guys know, I don't know if you all have been tested,
but I can't seem to figure out exactly, so that
(25:59):
that's really been UM a substantive roadblock. So right now
medication abortions are being provided there UM. And then in Arkansas, UM,
that's another UM state where only medication abortions are being
provided as of today. But these lawsuits are moving so quickly,
so honestly, tomorrow it could be in a a difference. Yeah,
(26:21):
whenever you guys, when you guys hear this, be sure
to double check and see where where things stand currently
in the in these states together, everything down down. I
wanna go back and talk a little bit about June
(26:44):
medical services versus Rousso I believe you mentioned that up top, UM,
but that was the case that you were trying, and
like I was going to the Supreme Court before all
of this hit. Am I correct? Here? That is correct
again and it was like so long ago. But yeah,
from what I understand it's involves. It involves a Louisiana
(27:05):
law Act six twenty UM that would leave the state
with just one doctor to provide abortions for approximately one
million women. Can you tell us a little bit more
about that? Yeah, absolutely, so that was heard by the
Supreme Court on March fourth. And again, with all of
these cases, there's a long back story, so I'll try
to give a short succomplice. Um. This admitting privileges law
(27:30):
again was similar to what the states are saying now
during COVID nineteen. Right, it's for public health and safety, um,
Except that all of the medical organizations disagreed and said,
actually doesn't make sense for a physician to have admitting
privileges within thirty miles of where they provide admitting privileges
are when uh So a doctor can only provide an
(27:51):
abortion if they have admitting privileges uh to main hospital
in a district. But in a lot of these states,
doctors that provide abortions are not given admitting privileges. That's
a correct crazy catch twenty two, right. So that's it's
something that like a big hospital um would provide to
(28:13):
a doctor who doesn't have an affiliation necessarily with the
hospital and you say, okay, you you, and it's it's
basically a contract that says, you know, you're gonna admit
X amount of people and you're gonna have these you know,
whatever kind of relationships that you have with the physician.
And the problem with that is, you know, abortion care
is exceedingly safe and oftentimes even if the hospital is
(28:35):
willing to give a provider of abortion care admitting privileges,
they're not going to meet the minimum requirement. Right. You know,
hospitals are business and they're gonna want X amount of
people admitted and you just don't have that. So actually,
in the Louisiana case, UM, in our Supreme Court case,
the only physician who was who would be able to
get admitting privileges would be able to do so because
(28:57):
they had their own O. B. G. White On practice
so efort and apart from the abortion care practice right. So,
just to backtrack and how Louisiana decided that this law
was going to go all the way up years ago
when we first started seeing these laws in two thousand
tens and on, we saw the law appear in several states,
(29:18):
including in Louisiana and Texas. Again several market leaders UM
and what we saw was UM Texas had UM admitting
privileges law as well as a requirement that all abortion
carapy provided in a surgical center. UM. That case went
all the way up to the Supreme Court and that
(29:39):
case was called Home and Sell versus Hellerstead. The Center
represented the Texas providers in that case, and we won
in a five four decision. UM that explicitly said that
when you think about these abortion restrictions, you need to
weigh the real benefits. So evidence based real benefits, not
just what a legislature says or seems to say about
(30:02):
health and safety, but what real evidence shows against the burdens,
all the things that you and I talked about UM
with what people, real people go through to access their
abortion care. So it really was thinking about it almost
like a cost benefit analysis. You weigh the scale and
if it tips where the burdens are greater than the
(30:24):
law is unconstitutional. So the Supreme Court already weighed in
on admitting privileges in two thousands six very very recently,
very recently, and the Supreme Court is not in the
business of looking at cases, you know, three years down
the line. But in two thousands sixteen they said Texas
is admitting privileges. Law is unconstitutional bar none, and all
(30:48):
of the states thereafter that had admitting privileges just started saying, look,
we we see the writing on the wall. We're going
to either withdraw those laws or enter into settlements. So
right after Home and Tealth, you saw a flurry of
states say, okay, we got it. We got the mandate
from the Supreme Court. It's the law of the land
right and it's weighed in period. One state held out
(31:14):
is Louisiana. They took it all the way and they said, no, no,
we think ours is different, um, even though it was
modeled on the Texas law itself. Um. And they we
had a trial, the trial judge had extensive fact finding,
and we won at the trial level. Then the state
(31:37):
appealed to that Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and they
won um there, and the court the Good Circuit there
actually reweighed a lot of the evidence, which is not
something that UM an appellate court is supposed to do.
So that's really the job of the first court, the
district court. It's not supposed to be something that the
(31:57):
next court does, which is supposed to just look at
the saws application. Like because when you're at a trial,
you can look at that witnesses face and know how
credible or you know, or make a determination of how
credible that person is. Right, as a district court judge,
you don't get that on the appellate level. You just
get a cold transcript and you just read it. And
that's something. But that's why you the pellet court applies laws,
(32:20):
not um you know, read does the facts. But in
our case, the fifth Circuit panel did do that. They
sided with Louisiana, and we asked the Supreme Court. UM,
the center of representing our clients to medical services asked
the Supreme Court to just what's called summarily reverse. So
(32:41):
just don't even think about it, right, obvious, No, it's
just like why you know, the Supreme Court is busy,
there's so many other huge topics to consider. You don't
go back on the decision that you made three like
it is so simple. Obviously, the Pellet Court messed up here.
All you to say is reverse, they decided not to
(33:02):
do that, and um, the next thing that we asked
them to do was to take the case. And I
want to just for those folks who have followed this extensively,
and and and I've heard this question a lot asked,
which is like, oh, should we be you know, worried
when the Supreme Court takes up an abortion case? Right?
Like should we should that? Soam the alarms? And and
(33:23):
I want to say, um, you know, obviously we're looking
at a different composition and I don't know the outcome
of the case will be. But in this case, in
June Medical, we did ask Scotus to take it because
we the the other alternative if if the Supreme Court
didn't weigh in, was that the law would go into effect, right,
(33:43):
and then we would have that landscape that we were
talking about. So frustrating. It's so frustrating that you have
such a recent precedent set and here we are needing
to bring it back to the Supreme Court already and
I mean if ever, but yeah, already, And yes, now
we have a completely new makeup of the Supreme Court.
(34:03):
It's terrifying. So I believe that this is the first
real challenge to Roe v. Wade that we're seeing on
this under this new makeup. Correct, this is the first
reproductive rights case, abortion case that's before this new set
of justices. I want to say that if the rule
of law holds, and it's really important right law is
(34:25):
built on the one before it, Um and there can
be different interpretations, but when the law is exactly the same,
and I really emphasized, you know it was modeled after
the Texas law, we should not have been in this position.
But when we find ourselves there, no matter what President Um,
you know, appointed that justice, the law should be in
(34:47):
the same if our role of law holds. So I
want folks to know that whither you know, you think
about abortion at all, no matter which side of the
spectrum you might fall on on the abortion debate, that
it is really integral that the Court holds this decision
because if this falls right in this area, it can
(35:08):
be used to chip away a precedent in a lot
of other types of scenarios, and I think that's really
quite dangerous for me as a lawyer who you know,
believes that the Supreme Court will uphold the role of
law right as they should. Yeah. And if it wasn't
about abortion, I really believe this would have been like nothing,
nothing case. So where does that stand now? I mean
(35:30):
we're all sheltering in place. I mean, how does your
work even continue right now? I know that you're very busy,
are you guys skyping in with people in in the
chambers or at their homes and their home offices. Yeah,
so it's been interesting, right, So the courts have adjusted. Um.
So for example, not that we are before the Supreme
(35:52):
Court again, but there was a little bit of a
hiatus that the court took and then now they are
resuming telephonically. Um. So very similarly. Um, you know a
lot of our work is done on our computers drafting papers.
But when we are in quote unquote in court, um,
we will do it through telephonic conferences or you know,
(36:13):
some judges have asked for zoom Okay, so they are
technologically advanced, which is very cool. Um. And so you
know you wear your suit. I was gonna say, do
you get dressed up? Do you wear a nice shirt
in your pajama bottom? Right? Exactly? Got your stretchy yoga
pants going on exactly right. That's how we're kind of
(36:33):
making do UM. And you know it's been interesting, UM
I am. I have to say kudos to the state governments, UM,
and and judges out there who are making it work
and adjusting to these hard times. UM. You know, obviously
there are pressures not only with all of the COVID
nineteen abortion cases, but a lot of criminal cases from
(36:57):
justice is coming up a lot of very press saying
issues in this time. So UM, they are really UM
adjusting and making UM. It's so that there's no interruption
in justice. That's something. UM. Are there any other things
that you are working on that are on your radar
(37:17):
that we should be aware of? Yeah, you know, so
I don't want the picture to be bleak, right. Like
I mentioned, even in the COVID crisis, we had some
states actively protect healthcare and actively protect abortion care. So UM,
there's another side of our practice that involves proactive work.
(37:37):
So this is actually where we are protecting access or
increasing access. And UM, I just want to give a
shout out to UM the Commonwealth of Virginia. The legislature
passed a bill and the governor just signed into law
a reproductive health UM Act that would take away, um,
(37:58):
several abortion restrictions, including an unnecessary waiting period. So now um,
you know, starting as as soon as July one, you
can just get your abortion care the day of instead
of these unnecessary barriers, taking away the need for patients
to read unnecessary literature that the state has has produced,
UM that was largely medically inaccurate. UM allowing advanced practice
(38:22):
clinicians to provide care, and also UM lifting up um
what's called a TRAP law, targeted regulation of abortion providers,
so making it really much more accessible for people to
access care. And I just want to say that because
that's just one example of the work that advocates as
well as the Center have been doing too. UM looking
(38:46):
at the big picture of the United States, right, Like
Virginia is one state where it kind of is is
the northern most southern state and the southernmost northern state, right,
and so it holds a place where when you look
around the picture, sure, it's it's great to shore up
access in that state. So UM the pictures now bleak.
We're still working on many states and UM working with
(39:07):
legislators and UM, you know, fighting battles in court to
preserve access and also protect acts us. I love that.
I'm very grateful to hear in positive news like that,
especially in this bleak land otherwise bleak landscape across the board. Um,
that's really incredible to hear. And yeah, I mean it. Uh,
(39:28):
it's great for that state, but also it sets a
benchmark for other states. It starts to change the temperature
in general in the South. UM. And yeah, I love that.
Are there things that our listeners can be doing to
support you guys, to support these efforts if they live
in states where it is really tricky to have access
to abortions? Are the things that we can do for
(39:48):
our fellow citizens to take action into our own hands? Yeah? Absolutely.
I would just you know, one thing is to just
be knowledgeable, right, to focus on facts. I think all
across the board, you know, we your listeners, myself, we
should all focus on facts and legitimate authorities. UM. And
I also would say, really provide if you have any
(40:11):
financial capabilities to abortion funds right now, especially in the
states that I've mentioned, um, and especially in places where
there are lower access, because right now they are taking
up so much work in you know, providing um, you know,
the ability for people to be able to either leave
the state or even access within the state. UM. So
(40:32):
I just want to give a shout out to UM.
If you don't know UH an abortion fund and one
of those, do look it up on the National Network
of Abortion Funds and they have a great website called
Abortion Funds dot org and hop in your state and
you can figure out a whole list of places to
give to. And you don't really even have to have
that much, right like, honestly, a small donation makes a
(40:53):
huge difference, and they have really cool swag. Okay, say,
you know, I would be remiss if I don't give
a shout out to my own organization, and we are,
you know, keeping up the fight both UM what you've
heard today, but globally across the entire country and the world,
So UM Center for Reproductive Rights. You can find us
(41:14):
online as well. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jenny. This
has been incredibly informative. I know you're incredibly busy, so
we really really appreciate your time, and I know our
listeners do as well. Thank you so much for having
me UM, and we will be following all of these
things closely absolutely, And I just want to say your
podcast probably is so prescient, and it has the best title.
(41:37):
Everyone is feeling right now. Well, now it's my turn
to say thank you phrase I so desperately desire. That
was Robert's genius. Stroke of genius. Although sometimes I wonder
if we created this, we like this pandemic is our fault. Sorry,
I take full responsibility. We all blame you, Robert Well,
(42:00):
Hargel dargel boog boog. That was a conversation, wasn't It
was like the new catchphrase. Yeah, yeah, catchy, perfect, make
a T shirt. I just want to say one more
and I'll just say one more time. Thanks to Jenny
for joining us for that interesting conversation. I felt the
(42:23):
gambit of emotions anger, frustration, relief, gratitude, and inspired. And
I hope you guys feel those emotions. You were going
to end on frustration. I felt anger, frustration. That's those
are the ones. Those are the only two emotions this year. Yeah. Well,
(42:44):
all I have to say is thank you to our guests,
and of course a classic worst your ever hageld Blue
Blue to all of you back at home. You can
follow us at Where's your Pod on Twitter and Instagram.
You can follow Katie at Katie Stoole. You can follow
Cody at doctor Mr Cody. You can follow Robert at
I Right okay, Oh. You can follow the Center for
(43:07):
Reproductive Rights on Twitter at repro writes in perfect everybody,
have a great rest of your quarantine day was everything
everything so again. I tried Dan. Worst Year Ever is
(43:28):
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Worst
(00:22):
Year Ever. My name is Katie Stool. I've got a name.
It's Cody John Hello. Hi, Hi Robert. Today we decided
to sit down with Jenny Mall from the Center for
Reproductive Rights to discuss some of the ways that governments
(00:42):
are well trying to take away our abortion rights in
different states. I don't know if very many of you
have seen these stories. It's really easy to get lost
in the shuffle with all the other news that's going on,
but this is a very real and scary thing that
happened almost immediately after shelter and place orders were announced.
(01:05):
So we were really lucky to sit down with Jenny
and and hear about the different cases they have going
on and the steps that they're doing to fight this. Well.
Hargold argo boog boog. Let's have us a conversation. Let's
play the audio of that. Okay, that's our new catchphrase. Yeah,
I'm sure we can take it away, Daniel. All right, Well,
today we are joined by Jenny ma who was a
(01:27):
senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights. Hi, Jenny, Hi,
how are you well? I'm doing okay. How are you.
We're hanging in there. Thanks so much for having Well,
we're really grateful to you for taking the time to
speak with this. Uh. We know you're very, very busy,
but we're very excited to hear what you are working
on over there. I'm sure most of our listeners are
(01:49):
familiar with your organization, but can we start by telling
us a little bit about the center and what it does? Sure,
the Center for Reproductive Rights is a global organization, so
we work on domestic as well as global matters, and
we use the power of the law to advance reproductive
rights as fundamental human rights around the world. And my
(02:09):
role UM as a litigator is to litigate and state
and federal courts, um to ensure that on constitutional laws
do not go into effect across the United States. That's
a greally concise answer. It seems like you've done that before,
um mission. Uh. Well, with everything going on right now, UM,
(02:34):
we're seeing that it's really easy to lose track of
all the different ways that you know, governments are kind
of using coronavirus as a cover to chip away at rights. Uh.
For example, we've seen a lot of states trying to
shut down or shutting down abortion clinics, you know, saying
that it's an interest of public safety? Does that bite?
That being very counterintuitive? UM? And I know that that
(02:57):
is something that you're currently really a mention and we
would love to have you walk us through what's happening,
you know, from for the virus up until now and
all the stuff that we should be aware of. Yeah. Absolutely, UM.
Hopefully some of your listeners have heard what's been going around, um,
across the United States with regards to abortion and what's
(03:19):
been going on with COVID nineteen. But UM, if I
can backtrack just a little bit, the Center did have
this case argued before the Supreme Court. UM. It was
called June Medical Services versus Russo way back when, which
seems like a lifetime ago. Um, back in March fourth, Yeah,
five years ago, in March, a hundred years ago, a
(03:40):
century ago. UM. And you know, coming off of that,
we really thought that we were going to enter into
a time where we would just watch the state legislatures
and see if they would pass bands or other restrictions.
That's what we do in a normal year. Every year,
state legislatures meet so times they'll be proactive bills to
(04:01):
protect reproductive rights. But oftentimes, as you guys have probably
seen in the media, there's bands being UM promulgated to
like twenty week bands, UM, six week bans, fifteen week
bans like and and most recently last year you saw
Alabama try like basically a total ban on Yes. So
that's what we track normally. And if it gets to
a point where UM those bills become law, we go
(04:25):
ahead and UM bring our lawsuits in court. UM. So
our state team very much tracks those laws. Our litigation
team goes to court and and tries to block those laws.
And that's kind of the the bread and butter of
what I do now. When coronavirus and COVID nineteen the
crisis began, UM, as many of your listeners are out there, UM,
(04:47):
you know, we began to work from home and we
started to see basically that first week, UM, several states
passed UM either through their governors executive orders or through
the Health Department these notices UM, and basically they were
very differently worded, you know, across the different states, but
(05:08):
it said something like, no, you're non essential your elective
or minor procedures would have to be postponed. Now, I
want to emphasize that makes total sense, right, Like, if
you have your nose jobs scheduled, you should probably hold
off at the time. No PO talks right now, please,
(05:30):
right exactly, So hold off on that, y'all, like, get
it later. Um. But then we saw, you know, none
of these orders had the word abortion in it. Um.
You know, we saw some that had actually proactive measures
um that. You know, we saw it from Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Michigan,
(05:51):
the kind of states roll on saying, but definitely not
for pregnancy related care, definitely not for reproductive okay, including abortion.
So we saw some depth of measures. Now, of course,
you know, your spiky sense kind of tingles when kind
of words like this, right and um and and this
is not us being paranoid, because clearly time has shown
(06:12):
that that's exactly what certain states did. But we started
tracking um kind of the actions of different governmental actors
in certain states that are the what I like to
call market leaders in abortion risch a right, um. So
it's the typical group of folks um um in these states.
And we saw the first one out. You know, we
(06:34):
were tracking several states, um in the south and the Midwest,
and we saw Ohio's governor on that Saturday after their
executive order issued kind of publicly go out there and say, well,
of course abortion is non essential, non time sensitive, and
everything has to stop because you know, you can stop
(06:54):
a pregnancy, right, Yeah, that's non time sensitive. We only
have a banned for you know, time sensitive bands. But
it's not time sensitive, isn't that Yeah exactly, It's like
you can put pregnancy on a shelf. Right. So no,
that's not what happened. So of course to let your
due date right exactly just hit the pause. So obviously
(07:17):
this alarmed a lot of lawyers. So we got together
with a lot of our litigating friends out there, and
so we work a lot with Planned Parenthood, a c
l U and the Warring Project, along with my organization,
the Center for Reproductive Rights. We decided, okay, we're gonna
start tracking what's going on here. Since Ohio like clearly
put us on higher alert, there were certain states that
(07:38):
we were pretty sure, um, you know, would act similarly
and follow suits. So you can imagine Texas was high
up there and you know, and go into what went
on there. But um so that's kind of what we
started to see. And then we started seeing kind of
more and more public displays by attorney generals, by governors, um,
(08:00):
by different health department officials saying, yeah, you know what,
abortion is going to be banned for this time period,
and we're going to say that it's not essential. We're
gonna say it's not time sensitive, and you're gonna have
to halt um during this time. Now, I want to
just say that, you know, there's some intuitive appeal to this,
(08:20):
so I want to kind of make it clear to
you all and your listeners. Right, Um, pregnancy is not static.
I think that's a basic principle. And these states are
saying you can save all sorts of the equipment that
you need during this pandemic, you know, and you you
should just put it on hold because it's not essential.
(08:40):
And I want to just make clear two things. One,
the states that are saying this are the same offenders
that have tried to right. I want to just be
clear that it's it's not like it's very transparent, right,
it's it's what's been clear. And um, you know, they
are putting press releases out there saying they're a shutdown
clinics UM, and they're making their goal as explicit as possible,
(09:04):
Like the purpose is so clear when they're out there
just kind of putting it UM out there in the public,
it's it's pretty wild. And then I just want to
also emphasize the science. Right forget the lawyers, Like, my
job is to make arguments um UM for our clients.
But science has weighed in here and immediately, And I
wonder why I write. You know, the American Medical Association,
(09:27):
who truthfully had not weighed in an abortion for the
longest time UM put out there that this is not
a time for politicians to be UM deciding what is
time essential and what is not, Like those are for
the doctors and provided health care professionals to decide, right,
And that's a basic concept. And the American College of
(09:47):
Obstitiians and Gynecologists, which is the leading UM medical group
for UM oh B Juan explicitly said and they came
out almost immediately when they started seeing this initial trend
in Ohio and Texas, and they said, look, this is
not abortion. Is absolutely time sensitive care. It is necessary
(10:08):
if you are pregnant to go either get O B
care if it's a wanted pregnancy and absolutely get your
abortion if it's an unwanted pregnancy, because abortion is essential help.
Do you remember the date that that happened, when when
people first started to notice this was happening. Yeah, it
was a little bit over a month ago, and I
think if you kind of google our friendly, yeah, we
(10:33):
can see that. But it's around I would say we
started March March sixteenth, that lunch sixteenth, and really kind
of picking up that week. And so it's been a
little bit over a month. And of course I mentioned
two states, Texas and Ohio, but not just them, right,
not just them. So now we have eight states that
(10:55):
have been explicit and I just want to emphasize here
before we if you want to go into detail of
at those eight states, but those eight are the ones
that there are lawsuits on. Right, my colleagues and um
the litigating groups I mentioned, we're also monitoring and preparing
legal papers. And several states that have like had these
(11:15):
stop goes, like there were these public statements and then
there's a withdrawal and and and so they're way more
than eight states that kind of thought about this and
using this opportunity and pandemic to ban abortion care. But
these eight states, um, like I said, are the worst
offenders before we move forward, I just wanted to clarify
when we talk about these states announcing these these bands, um,
(11:39):
you know stops. Are they're saying that it's temporary? Are
they putting out are they saying that I'm assuming they
are for now? But as the same as our stay
at home orders just keep getting extended. I'm wondering if
they're saying it's just for a few weeks or what
have you, and you can wait a few weeks. Is
that kind of what we're seeing. So in some states, yes, right,
(12:00):
So they're not you know, copy copy and paste all
of these states. So in certain states there are Okay,
it's gonna last till the end of the month. In
certain states they'll be like, oh if, but it will
get extended if necessary. Some states actually don't have anything.
Some states actually say until further notice, which is actually
even more offensive because it's so clearly right. Um, But
(12:23):
I just want to be clear that, um, abortion care
is incredibly safe, but it is more safe if you
get it earlier. Right, There's no reason to delay healthcare
in any capacity. And for a state legislator and state
officials to be saying, you know what, even though like
this is considered essential healthcare by the a m A
(12:46):
and all of the leading health and public health officials
that are out there, yeah, we still want you to stop.
We still want you to wait a month or wait
even longer than that, because no one knows how long
this is going to go, right, And so on the surface,
this is infuriating, but it's even more so when you
start to think about who specifically this is affecting. Um,
you know, the majority of people that require abortions. I
(13:09):
don't have those statistics, but I know I know that there.
You know, maybe they're people that are single mothers, or
you already have children and they are low income and
now they are without work, or they are now in
charge of the daycare for their existing children, or god,
even there's people that are sheltering in place in environments
(13:32):
where they aren't safe to communicate with their partner. Maybe
they're sheltering with their abuser and they don't have anybody
they can reach out and talk to about this stuff. Um.
And and this guy's of saying that this is for
public health and public safety is so backwards because the
opposite happens. Yes, people might take matters into their own hands,
(13:53):
or they're going to try to go out of state
to find treatment. And a lot of these people are
in states, in states that are surrounded by other states
that also have abortion bands or what have you. Yes,
so this is absolutely true. You've hit upon so many
burdens that we see from our clients patients all the
time in normal circument. So exactly what you said. Most
(14:18):
of the folks who do get abortion care from our
clients are low income. Most actually the majority of abortion
clients are already mothers. Um. They are in certain states,
primarily African American black women, and so there are always
burdens in order to even access care and states that
(14:40):
are trying to chip away that right. Um. Ever since
Roe versus Way and now in this pandemic, when we're
all under heightened anxiety, when we're all under additional stresses mentally,
financially and so on, those are completely exacerbated. Um. When
you have maybe your job has been cut, maybe someone
(15:02):
in your family's job has been cut, or your child
care person can't come. Right for those of you who
have kids, this is very acute, right, Um, And if
you many people who are already mothers are trying to
access that care. And then you get to places like Texas,
which now we've had almost six times of stop and
go right, we've had patients sitting in the waiting room
(15:26):
ready that day after having gone through. By the way,
I want to emphasize all of the other restrictions that
you already have to go through, like your waiting periods
and listening to bias counseling and having unnecessary medical test
performed on you prior to em and getting into that room.
And then you sit there and all of a sudden,
the appellate court you know, over in New Orleans decides that, um,
(15:48):
you can't get your medication abortion today. And we've actually
our clients have turned away people at that point. And
the human story of this is that it is incredibly difficult.
It not like those patients live a block away right
to get there in the place, to have be able
to have paid enough to go there, to have traveled there,
(16:10):
to be able to get back potentially to um an
abusive partner who might not you know, know what's going on,
or to your kids, and that was your only opportunity
or um you know, most recently, there have been roadblocks
placed in the road between Texas and Louisiana. Yeah, just
checks to see um because Louisiana had been a hot spot.
(16:35):
And if you're undocumented or UM, you know, you don't
want to explain a medical procedure to random highway patrolman.
It's just adding so much on top of what you
already have to deal with. And if you get turned away,
many people will not be able to find their way back.
And like you said, because pregnancy is not static, your
(16:57):
options are if it's an unwanted pregnant see to get
an abortion. Hopefully um there's reproductive healthcare in your state.
But if not, you're going to travel. And that goes
absolutely to the emphasis of what you're supposed to be
doing right now, right like you're supposed to within your community,
and instead you're leaving your community, taking the drive, going
into another community, coming back, dropping at a gas station.
(17:20):
At gas stations, you know, you get your snack and
it's just and then coming back to your community, which
is the opposite of what you want to do, So
it goes contrary to the goals. And then if you
cannot obtain your abortion, your options are to stay pregnant
and you know, seek obstetrics care. There's a you know,
we have obies who say this is the schedule you
(17:43):
should be on if you're pregnant, and um, I hope
that people are getting that care. But even if they're not,
the end result of a pregnancy is to carry to term,
and it really is forced pregnancy at that point. And
it's it's like disturbing to me. And I mean, it's
all very Stopian feelings. It feels like we're living in
the Handmaids. It does, it does well together everything when
(18:16):
you say stop and go order six times in Texas, Um,
you just mean since the start of this the pandemic
the here. Um, can you tell us a little bit
what let's talk about Texas specifically, because I know that
that's been confusing a lot of for people that live
in Texas, uh, of course, but for all of us. Um.
(18:36):
I I've seen that you know, they were going to
have this band and then there was a stop on
that and then oh no, never mind, it is in place. Um,
So can you tell us a little bit about where
we stand right now? And then also in the other
states that you've been seeing stuff happen yeah, sure, I'll
start with Texas because that was one of the first
lawsuits out we saw around that time period. I mentioned
(18:57):
around March twenty two, UM their executive order issued. So
Texas issued an executive order. It limited certain types of
non essential care UM. But of course, again like I
said in the beginning, there's there was no mention of
the word abortions, UM, nothing about regrets of health care.
The next day the attorney general there um issued a
(19:19):
press release singling out abortion providers and suggesting that any
abortion would be prohibited under the executive order. So then,
of course, what do we do. We file our lawsuit
again it was one of the first states out. UM.
We filed in federal court in the Western District of Texas,
and UM immediately after we got a wide what's called
(19:43):
a temporary restraining order restraining order parts night seem UM.
You know, regular to to your listeners who are not lawyers,
but this is basically something where we go into court
almost on like an emergency basis. It's saying, look, judge,
we need an answer from you right away to keep
the status quo. We need to stop whatever is happening, UM,
(20:05):
and we can do the whole evidence part, and we
can do the hearing later, but for now, based on
what we said here and based on these various UM
statements that we've put together, please stop the state from
doing what they're doing. So we got a very broad
crro um that's temporary restrainting work done um and that
was granted to us on March thirty. UM that allowed
(20:27):
all abortion care to continue. So between when the a
g said no abortions and before we got that order,
there was no abortion care provided in the state. So
now back we're back, um, you know, an abortion care
is allowed. And of course what does the state do.
The very next day they seek an emergency um what's
(20:47):
called a man Dams petition to the appellate court. So
the court the next court up, which is in the
fifth Circuit um, and they say the district court judge
made such a big mistake here, we really need to
take it back. And not only that during while you
think about it, we want you to take it away immediately.
That's how cruel like it was. It wasn't even like please,
(21:11):
you know, wait till the complete you get there first
from the lawyers. So lo and behold, that's what they did.
So now no abortions can happen in Texas. Anyway, to
go back and forth on this, we we went through
UM and we then got medication abortions yes, and then
procedural abortions closer to the gestational limit in Texas. Yes.
(21:34):
Then that wasn't even satisfactory to Texas, so they went
back to the appellate court and said no to medication abortions.
So it went back. We describe it as almost whiplash,
and we describe it as like a roller coaster, and
you can choose your own kind of yeah here. But
it really was UM wild for our clients and just
(21:54):
an incredible journey that they've been through over this time
period when we've all been processing what's been going on
with COVID nineteen right, and when you're trying to give
healthcare to your clients and UM, you know, uh, a
couple of judges far away get to decide what happens
to your patients. It's really quite heartbreaking. And the latest
(22:14):
I mean, we almost went to the Supreme Court with
it actually because of the ban on medication abortions. We
did withdraw when the state finally UM decided that most recently,
UM as of yesterday, a new executive order has been
in place, and UM, we have decided to pull our
(22:36):
application for any relief in terms of immediate relief because
the state has said now all abortions can continue. Okay
to report that as of you know your listeners who
live into Access and surrounding states, UM, abortion care is
moving forward in all aspects in Texas. What strikes me
about this story is just how what a ghastly waste
(23:01):
of their time and energy during this crisis to be
saying I'm going to spend so much time going back
and forth about haggling about this thing that that the
these rights that women deserve to have access to health
care for and during the height of this pandemic, and yes,
like you said, when we're dealing with so many other things,
(23:21):
and how else can they be using that time to
serve their state? You know, absolutely, And I think personally
I find that one of the most offensive things here.
We we ended up right now, let me say, as
of today, we ended up with these cases these eight states.
But we tried for the longest time and we're continuing
to try for the longest time not to bring these lawsuits. Right, Yeah,
(23:44):
of course, it's not what I would like to be
doing right now. I hope that these health departments spend
time and money on their citizens of their states and
trying to flatten the curve in their respective states. We
should not be having litigation against the medical advice of
all of these organizations, against trying to prevent people from
(24:06):
accessing care, like basically pushing people away from the state
and creating like a situation where it's just just impossible.
And so I am so glad that people in Texas
can now access care. And I'm so glad that every
single district court judge, and I want to really emphasize
that the law at least in the lower courts held strong.
(24:30):
Every single district court judge said, amazing, but this is
too far, including many who were actually appointed by President Trump.
So it wasn't being along political ideologies. Um. Are there
any states that still um, it's still the threat that
they might take away? Yes, okay, so UM the states
(24:51):
that I'll just do them so and in case people
live in them, Um, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee,
in Indiana, in Texas are the states that are currently
having some form of litigation. Are had UM. In Oklahoma,
(25:16):
as of today, only medication abortions are allowed. UM. This
was after we won broad relief at a preliminary injunction
hearing and then immediately, similar to what Texas did, the
state went to ask to stay that decision. So UM,
that has all been going on. There is a new
(25:38):
order in Oklahoma that makes it incredibly difficult because they
require COVID nineteen testing of the patients and as you
guys know, I don't know if you all have been tested,
but I can't seem to figure out exactly, so that
(25:59):
that's really been UM a substantive roadblock. So right now
medication abortions are being provided there UM. And then in Arkansas, UM,
that's another UM state where only medication abortions are being
provided as of today. But these lawsuits are moving so quickly,
so honestly, tomorrow it could be in a a difference. Yeah,
(26:21):
whenever you guys, when you guys hear this, be sure
to double check and see where where things stand currently
in the in these states together, everything down down. I
wanna go back and talk a little bit about June
(26:44):
medical services versus Rousso I believe you mentioned that up top, UM,
but that was the case that you were trying, and
like I was going to the Supreme Court before all
of this hit. Am I correct? Here? That is correct
again and it was like so long ago. But yeah,
from what I understand it's involves. It involves a Louisiana
(27:05):
law Act six twenty UM that would leave the state
with just one doctor to provide abortions for approximately one
million women. Can you tell us a little bit more
about that? Yeah, absolutely, so that was heard by the
Supreme Court on March fourth. And again, with all of
these cases, there's a long back story, so I'll try
to give a short succomplice. Um. This admitting privileges law
(27:30):
again was similar to what the states are saying now
during COVID nineteen. Right, it's for public health and safety, um,
Except that all of the medical organizations disagreed and said,
actually doesn't make sense for a physician to have admitting
privileges within thirty miles of where they provide admitting privileges
are when uh So a doctor can only provide an
(27:51):
abortion if they have admitting privileges uh to main hospital
in a district. But in a lot of these states,
doctors that provide abortions are not given admitting privileges. That's
a correct crazy catch twenty two, right. So that's it's
something that like a big hospital um would provide to
(28:13):
a doctor who doesn't have an affiliation necessarily with the
hospital and you say, okay, you you, and it's it's
basically a contract that says, you know, you're gonna admit
X amount of people and you're gonna have these you know,
whatever kind of relationships that you have with the physician.
And the problem with that is, you know, abortion care
is exceedingly safe and oftentimes even if the hospital is
(28:35):
willing to give a provider of abortion care admitting privileges,
they're not going to meet the minimum requirement. Right. You know,
hospitals are business and they're gonna want X amount of
people admitted and you just don't have that. So actually,
in the Louisiana case, UM, in our Supreme Court case,
the only physician who was who would be able to
get admitting privileges would be able to do so because
(28:57):
they had their own O. B. G. White On practice
so efort and apart from the abortion care practice right. So,
just to backtrack and how Louisiana decided that this law
was going to go all the way up years ago
when we first started seeing these laws in two thousand
tens and on, we saw the law appear in several states,
(29:18):
including in Louisiana and Texas. Again several market leaders UM
and what we saw was UM Texas had UM admitting
privileges law as well as a requirement that all abortion
carapy provided in a surgical center. UM. That case went
all the way up to the Supreme Court and that
(29:39):
case was called Home and Sell versus Hellerstead. The Center
represented the Texas providers in that case, and we won
in a five four decision. UM that explicitly said that
when you think about these abortion restrictions, you need to
weigh the real benefits. So evidence based real benefits, not
just what a legislature says or seems to say about
(30:02):
health and safety, but what real evidence shows against the burdens,
all the things that you and I talked about UM
with what people, real people go through to access their
abortion care. So it really was thinking about it almost
like a cost benefit analysis. You weigh the scale and
if it tips where the burdens are greater than the
(30:24):
law is unconstitutional. So the Supreme Court already weighed in
on admitting privileges in two thousands six very very recently,
very recently, and the Supreme Court is not in the
business of looking at cases, you know, three years down
the line. But in two thousands sixteen they said Texas
is admitting privileges. Law is unconstitutional bar none, and all
(30:48):
of the states thereafter that had admitting privileges just started saying, look,
we we see the writing on the wall. We're going
to either withdraw those laws or enter into settlements. So
right after Home and Tealth, you saw a flurry of
states say, okay, we got it. We got the mandate
from the Supreme Court. It's the law of the land
right and it's weighed in period. One state held out
(31:14):
is Louisiana. They took it all the way and they said, no, no,
we think ours is different, um, even though it was
modeled on the Texas law itself. Um. And they we
had a trial, the trial judge had extensive fact finding,
and we won at the trial level. Then the state
(31:37):
appealed to that Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and they
won um there, and the court the Good Circuit there
actually reweighed a lot of the evidence, which is not
something that UM an appellate court is supposed to do.
So that's really the job of the first court, the
district court. It's not supposed to be something that the
(31:57):
next court does, which is supposed to just look at
the saws application. Like because when you're at a trial,
you can look at that witnesses face and know how
credible or you know, or make a determination of how
credible that person is. Right, as a district court judge,
you don't get that on the appellate level. You just
get a cold transcript and you just read it. And
that's something. But that's why you the pellet court applies laws,
(32:20):
not um you know, read does the facts. But in
our case, the fifth Circuit panel did do that. They
sided with Louisiana, and we asked the Supreme Court. UM,
the center of representing our clients to medical services asked
the Supreme Court to just what's called summarily reverse. So
(32:41):
just don't even think about it, right, obvious, No, it's
just like why you know, the Supreme Court is busy,
there's so many other huge topics to consider. You don't
go back on the decision that you made three like
it is so simple. Obviously, the Pellet Court messed up here.
All you to say is reverse, they decided not to
(33:02):
do that, and um, the next thing that we asked
them to do was to take the case. And I
want to just for those folks who have followed this extensively,
and and and I've heard this question a lot asked,
which is like, oh, should we be you know, worried
when the Supreme Court takes up an abortion case? Right?
Like should we should that? Soam the alarms? And and
(33:23):
I want to say, um, you know, obviously we're looking
at a different composition and I don't know the outcome
of the case will be. But in this case, in
June Medical, we did ask Scotus to take it because
we the the other alternative if if the Supreme Court
didn't weigh in, was that the law would go into effect, right,
(33:43):
and then we would have that landscape that we were
talking about. So frustrating. It's so frustrating that you have
such a recent precedent set and here we are needing
to bring it back to the Supreme Court already and
I mean if ever, but yeah, already, And yes, now
we have a completely new makeup of the Supreme Court.
(34:03):
It's terrifying. So I believe that this is the first
real challenge to Roe v. Wade that we're seeing on
this under this new makeup. Correct, this is the first
reproductive rights case, abortion case that's before this new set
of justices. I want to say that if the rule
of law holds, and it's really important right law is
(34:25):
built on the one before it, Um and there can
be different interpretations, but when the law is exactly the same,
and I really emphasized, you know it was modeled after
the Texas law, we should not have been in this position.
But when we find ourselves there, no matter what President Um,
you know, appointed that justice, the law should be in
(34:47):
the same if our role of law holds. So I
want folks to know that whither you know, you think
about abortion at all, no matter which side of the
spectrum you might fall on on the abortion debate, that
it is really integral that the Court holds this decision
because if this falls right in this area, it can
(35:08):
be used to chip away a precedent in a lot
of other types of scenarios, and I think that's really
quite dangerous for me as a lawyer who you know,
believes that the Supreme Court will uphold the role of
law right as they should. Yeah. And if it wasn't
about abortion, I really believe this would have been like nothing,
nothing case. So where does that stand now? I mean
(35:30):
we're all sheltering in place. I mean, how does your
work even continue right now? I know that you're very busy,
are you guys skyping in with people in in the
chambers or at their homes and their home offices. Yeah,
so it's been interesting, right, So the courts have adjusted. Um.
So for example, not that we are before the Supreme
(35:52):
Court again, but there was a little bit of a
hiatus that the court took and then now they are
resuming telephonically. Um. So very similarly. Um, you know a
lot of our work is done on our computers drafting papers.
But when we are in quote unquote in court, um,
we will do it through telephonic conferences or you know,
(36:13):
some judges have asked for zoom Okay, so they are
technologically advanced, which is very cool. Um. And so you
know you wear your suit. I was gonna say, do
you get dressed up? Do you wear a nice shirt
in your pajama bottom? Right? Exactly? Got your stretchy yoga
pants going on exactly right. That's how we're kind of
(36:33):
making do UM. And you know it's been interesting, UM
I am. I have to say kudos to the state governments, UM,
and and judges out there who are making it work
and adjusting to these hard times. UM. You know, obviously
there are pressures not only with all of the COVID
nineteen abortion cases, but a lot of criminal cases from
(36:57):
justice is coming up a lot of very press saying
issues in this time. So UM, they are really UM
adjusting and making UM. It's so that there's no interruption
in justice. That's something. UM. Are there any other things
that you are working on that are on your radar
(37:17):
that we should be aware of? Yeah, you know, so
I don't want the picture to be bleak, right. Like
I mentioned, even in the COVID crisis, we had some
states actively protect healthcare and actively protect abortion care. So UM,
there's another side of our practice that involves proactive work.
(37:37):
So this is actually where we are protecting access or
increasing access. And UM, I just want to give a
shout out to UM the Commonwealth of Virginia. The legislature
passed a bill and the governor just signed into law
a reproductive health UM Act that would take away, um,
(37:58):
several abortion restrictions, including an unnecessary waiting period. So now um,
you know, starting as as soon as July one, you
can just get your abortion care the day of instead
of these unnecessary barriers, taking away the need for patients
to read unnecessary literature that the state has has produced,
UM that was largely medically inaccurate. UM allowing advanced practice
(38:22):
clinicians to provide care, and also UM lifting up um
what's called a TRAP law, targeted regulation of abortion providers,
so making it really much more accessible for people to
access care. And I just want to say that because
that's just one example of the work that advocates as
well as the Center have been doing too. UM looking
(38:46):
at the big picture of the United States, right, Like
Virginia is one state where it kind of is is
the northern most southern state and the southernmost northern state, right,
and so it holds a place where when you look
around the picture, sure, it's it's great to shore up
access in that state. So UM the pictures now bleak.
We're still working on many states and UM working with
(39:07):
legislators and UM, you know, fighting battles in court to
preserve access and also protect acts us. I love that.
I'm very grateful to hear in positive news like that,
especially in this bleak land otherwise bleak landscape across the board. Um,
that's really incredible to hear. And yeah, I mean it. Uh,
(39:28):
it's great for that state, but also it sets a
benchmark for other states. It starts to change the temperature
in general in the South. UM. And yeah, I love that.
Are there things that our listeners can be doing to
support you guys, to support these efforts if they live
in states where it is really tricky to have access
to abortions? Are the things that we can do for
(39:48):
our fellow citizens to take action into our own hands? Yeah? Absolutely.
I would just you know, one thing is to just
be knowledgeable, right, to focus on facts. I think all
across the board, you know, we your listeners, myself, we
should all focus on facts and legitimate authorities. UM. And
I also would say, really provide if you have any
(40:11):
financial capabilities to abortion funds right now, especially in the
states that I've mentioned, um, and especially in places where
there are lower access, because right now they are taking
up so much work in you know, providing um, you know,
the ability for people to be able to either leave
the state or even access within the state. UM. So
(40:32):
I just want to give a shout out to UM.
If you don't know UH an abortion fund and one
of those, do look it up on the National Network
of Abortion Funds and they have a great website called
Abortion Funds dot org and hop in your state and
you can figure out a whole list of places to
give to. And you don't really even have to have
that much, right like, honestly, a small donation makes a
(40:53):
huge difference, and they have really cool swag. Okay, say,
you know, I would be remiss if I don't give
a shout out to my own organization, and we are,
you know, keeping up the fight both UM what you've
heard today, but globally across the entire country and the world,
So UM Center for Reproductive Rights. You can find us
(41:14):
online as well. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jenny. This
has been incredibly informative. I know you're incredibly busy, so
we really really appreciate your time, and I know our
listeners do as well. Thank you so much for having
me UM, and we will be following all of these
things closely absolutely, And I just want to say your
podcast probably is so prescient, and it has the best title.
(41:37):
Everyone is feeling right now. Well, now it's my turn
to say thank you phrase I so desperately desire. That
was Robert's genius. Stroke of genius. Although sometimes I wonder
if we created this, we like this pandemic is our fault. Sorry,
I take full responsibility. We all blame you, Robert Well,
(42:00):
Hargel dargel boog boog. That was a conversation, wasn't It
was like the new catchphrase. Yeah, yeah, catchy, perfect, make
a T shirt. I just want to say one more
and I'll just say one more time. Thanks to Jenny
for joining us for that interesting conversation. I felt the
(42:23):
gambit of emotions anger, frustration, relief, gratitude, and inspired. And
I hope you guys feel those emotions. You were going
to end on frustration. I felt anger, frustration. That's those
are the ones. Those are the only two emotions this year. Yeah. Well,
(42:44):
all I have to say is thank you to our guests,
and of course a classic worst your ever hageld Blue
Blue to all of you back at home. You can
follow us at Where's your Pod on Twitter and Instagram.
You can follow Katie at Katie Stoole. You can follow
Cody at doctor Mr Cody. You can follow Robert at
I Right okay, Oh. You can follow the Center for
(43:07):
Reproductive Rights on Twitter at repro writes in perfect everybody,
have a great rest of your quarantine day was everything
everything so again. I tried Dan. Worst Year Ever is
(43:28):
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