Episode Transcript
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>> Rebeca (00:16):
I'm Rebeca Seitz, and this is right to
life.
Since the first episode of this program released,
I have fielded numerous conversations
with abortion advocates and opponents.
Some key questions keep coming up, most of them
related to what exactly is banned
(00:37):
and what exactly is allowed. I
am not a fan of politics or pundits. My apologies
to you if that's your bag. I am a fan
of information and critical thinking.
This show is meant to provide information
so that those of us who love life can
think critically about this issue.
(00:58):
So today we're going to get into the language of
the heartbeat bill. That's the bill that Governor
DeSantis signed which bans abortions in the
state of Florida in almost all instances
after six weeks gestation. Now, there are
four exceptions to this rule.
One, a woman can find two
doctors to state in writing
(01:21):
that her physical, not mental,
life is in danger of being lost
or she's in danger of irreparably
losing a major bodily function.
This written letter would allow either an emergency
or a planned abortion, depending on what the doctors
are willing to write about the danger to the woman's life
(01:41):
or major bodily function.
Two, a woman
confined two doctors to state in
writing that the fetus has a fatal
abnormality. It is important to note that
this exception is only allowed during the
first two trimesters.
Three, the pregnancy is a result
(02:03):
of rape, incest, or human
trafficking. This exception comes
with additional significant requirements for the
woman, and we're going to get into those in this
episode. Also, this exception is only
allowed up to 15 weeks gestational
age. That's it. Those are the three
exceptions listed in the heartbeat law.
(02:25):
But since the law went into effect, there's been
another development that resulted in exceptions being
made.
In the previous episode, you met Samantha, a
Florida woman who underwent a DNC type of
abortion to remove an ectopic pregnancy and
(02:47):
save her life. Exactly one year later,
Sam was back at that same hospital where
she gave birth to her third child, whom she
calls her rainbow baby. The state of
Florida has now issued some emergency rules regarding its
abortion ban. These, emergency rules
describe three more instances in which
(03:08):
a pregnancy can be terminated and the termination will
not be deemed an abortion. If it's not
an abortion, then it isn't subject to laws
governing abortion. And those three
instances are prom, which
stands for premature rupture of
membranes, trophoblastic
tumor, and wait
(03:30):
for it, ectopic pregnancy.
Exactly the kind of situation that Sam
experienced. So, to clarify, if you
have an ectopic pregnancy in the state of Florida under these
new emergency rules. Your doctor should be
allowed to terminate that pregnancy, thereby saving
at least your fertility, if not your life,
and not be in danger of losing their medical
(03:52):
license or going to prison for several years.
Emergency rules, however, have time limits
themselves. We'll get more into that later in this
episode. For now, let's first get clear
on exactly what the heartbeat loss says
and means for women and their
doctors in the state of Florida.
(04:21):
Welcome to the right to Life podcast, James.
>> James Chilemi (04:24):
Thank you so much for having me.
>> Rebeca (04:25):
So let's get started with introducing you to everyone. Tell me
your name, and as important, importantly, tell me
where did you get your education.
>> James Chilemi (04:33):
Sure. my name is James Chilemi. I'm
originally from the New York metropolitan area,
and now I live in Naples, Florida, and I own a
law firm down here. My education
background, like we talked about off
mic, I have been in catholic school
since kindergarten. I, went to St. Elizabeth
(04:53):
Ann Seton Elementary School and middle
school. I went to Archbishop Stepanak High School in White
Plains, New York, and I matriculated to
play basketball and golf at Avi Maria University,
following that, Ave Maria School of Law. So I've
been through the Avi Maria farm system, as I call it, but
also in catholic school, and
(05:14):
was raised in a strong catholic household my, entire life.
>> Rebeca (05:17):
So I reached out to you because I've known your partner for
a long, long time, and I was trying to understand some of
the language in this law because,
you know, I started law school, did not finish.
Congrats to all of you who do. that was not for me.
That was definitely not for me. And, you know, I worked as a
legal secretary for a while, so I know enough legalese
(05:38):
to know that I don't know Legalese. Do you know what I mean?
>> James Chilemi (05:40):
100%.
>> Rebeca (05:41):
So I really wanted to make certain that as I was reading this
bill, I understood exactly what it
allows, what it does not allow, what these words mean, because
I also, as the phone calls and emails are coming in
as a result of people listening to the show, it feels like
there's a lot of confusion right now over
what exactly does this mean, this law
(06:01):
that went into effect on May 1, that everybody caused, the heartbeat
law. It was called the heartbeat bill when it was filed
last year and passed last year and signed into law by Governor
DeSantis. Right, right. And am I
right to begin with, that this was Senate
Bill 300 in 2023?
>> James Chilemi (06:18):
That is correct. And I do want to preface any
of my commentary today. I, am not an expert on,
on abortion laws. I'm not an export on the legislative
branch. but I am here today to provide some general
information as I see it.
>> Rebeca (06:31):
Thank you. Okay, so, first question. There's
this section in this bill, and for those of you listening, you
might hear some paper rustling, because I have the bill in front of me,
as does James. There's a section in here,
that reads, any person,
governmental entity or educational
institution may not expend state funds
(06:51):
as defined in section 215, point, three one.
In any manner for a person to travel to
another state to receive services that are
intended to support an abortion.
So my first question is, how would the
state know if
an organization or entity
(07:12):
took someone out of the state to receive
abortion services? How do they monitor
that?
>> James Chilemi (07:18):
No, it's a great question. as you can imagine,
a lot of these laws are left purposefully
ambiguous. And the reason for that is because
that's where us lawyers make our money. I see, is
determining what does this mean? You know, I'll have people come to me
all the time with traffic tickets.
And you look at the traffic ticket and you look at the statute upon which it's
based. What does this statute mean that you can't,
(07:40):
in a certain situation, go this speed
limit if you're in an, industrial
area versus a residential area? What
does this actually mean?
So when reading this, what this reads
to me is, and the intent behind it
would be that any institution, especially an
educational institution, with college campuses the way they are
(08:01):
today, would not be able to use, any
of the subsidies or any of the governmental funds that's going
towards them to sponsor abortion groups
that would provide this sort of service.
>> Rebeca (08:12):
Okay, so if there was like a medical
clinic on campus and a student needed an abortion,
and it's past six weeks, and so the, the student's going to have
to go out of the state for that abortion. The university couldn't.
>> James Chilemi (08:24):
Well, let's say, let's take our state, for example, and
let's say Florida state has a pro choice,
group that is on campus, and this pro
choice group, by virtue of being a part of Florida
State University, who receives both, federal and state
funds, would then be sponsoring people
going out of state. Now, I guess drawing the line of
causation from where that money is coming from, how much money
(08:47):
is going into sponsoring this specific group would,
I would imagine, would have to come into question. But any,
anything that was sponsored by the university would be disallowed
under this provision.
>> Rebeca (08:57):
Okay, so let me move on to this idea of
services that are intended to support an
abortion. So that doesn't sound
to me as somebody who doesn't know legalese. That doesn't sound to me
like it's limited to an abortion. Like, what happens if, let's say
someone has an abortion and then there are complications, complications of it. So you
need healthcare to support you
surviving the abortion you had or getting health care
(09:19):
from complications that this would. This would
also then be prohibited.
>> James Chilemi (09:24):
That's what it does read to me as well. I think it would be anything that
would fall under the umbrella of providing
abortion abortifacient services.
Any company, any, service that would
provide that, this would be disallowed.
>> Rebeca (09:38):
Wow. Okay, so there's the
woman that is in our next episode. I was speaking with her today
about her story, and she had to go out of state because
the service that she needed was not available in her state.
And I'm just thinking, okay, so she is a prime example
of it wasn't available in her state. She had to go
elsewhere. We can't do that from this state anymore. We can't use
(10:00):
state funds to facilitate that.
>> James Chilemi (10:02):
So the way I understand it, and when I did kind of do some
digging into the reasoning behind this section
and sections like this throughout the country,
what a lot of people said on their respective Capitol
hills during session and while they were debating,
the intricacies of it, was that this is supposed to be a
deterrent from letting
mothers have a chance to second guess their decision,
(10:25):
that if they have more time where they have to go out of
state, they'll reconsider their decision and they'll decide to keep
the baby. And so what they don't tell you is that
92% of the people who do go out of state to achieve an
abortion do not change their mind. It's only
8%. Based on the data
that I reviewed.
That, would actually fall under this or fall under
(10:46):
the intent of this.
>> Rebeca (10:51):
Okay. Okay. So let me move on to
it's a, if you've. James has the bill in front of him as well. If you go to
paragraph b under that subsection two, it
reads, one of the exceptions to
being able to get an abortion says there is a
medical necessity for legitimate emergency medical
procedures for termination of the
(11:11):
pregnancy to save the pregnant woman's life,
or to avert a serious risk
of imminent, substantial and
irreversible physical impairment of
a major bodily function of the
pregnant woman. Okay, so I
have lots of questions.
>> James Chilemi (11:28):
Right, right.
>> Rebeca (11:29):
First of all, what is a. What is
who defines what is a major bodily
function, because I get that you're male. So let me just say, for
instance, as gender
notion, you're right. You're right. As someone who has
been pregnant twice and carried to term, you know,
that places some, weight
upon certain parts of our bodies, and some women
(11:51):
develop incontinence and things like that as a result
of pregnancy, you know, is the ability
to hold your own urine in a major bodily
function. What does this mean? What is major bodily
function? Since if it's
going to be affected, then we are allowed to have abortions.
>> James Chilemi (12:08):
Sure. To provide a little background on, again,
the procedural aspect of this, of how this actually works.
So there's two different types of,
let's call it jurisprudence. When
talking about definitions, legal definitions, there's the
bright line, statutory rules that are written into law.
So this legislation would fall under the same. And
(12:29):
then there's common law jurisprudence, which would
be courts deciding, when it does get to
a judicial branch, when it does get in front of a judge or a
jury, what does this mean? And so what you
do have, especially at the appellate level, is
judges deciding the definitions of what a major
bodily's function is. And so what they'll rely on a lot
of times is there's two different types of,
(12:52):
legend. There's two different types of ways to
interpret a law. One would be relying on
what's called binding, precedent,
something that is inside your jurisdiction, and something that's called
persuasive jurisdiction or persuasive understanding of
it. And that would be looking to other states, other countries, how
do they interpret it?
So again, I think it's really subjective, really
(13:13):
totality of the circumstances and judges understanding
of what a majorly bodily function in their jurisdiction means,
and it'll be different.
>> Rebeca (13:20):
Is there any part of that
process of definite, of defining major bodily
function that involves the woman whose
body is in play?
>> James Chilemi (13:30):
You would have to imagine that during
whatever lawyer was making the argument, especially at the appellate
level, they would rely on studies, they
would rely on testimony, they would rely on
what is, what is commonplace in
your jurisdiction. what are the medical journals
say? That's what we're supposed to be relying on
is the peer reviewed data, and that's what
(13:53):
we're supposed to be putting into law. Now, can I guarantee that's where
it's what it's going to be everywhere? I can't.
However, I do believe that it, again,
is left ambiguous for a reason.
>> Rebeca (14:03):
So if it's ambiguous, and
yet doctors must make these
calls, and if they get it wrong, they're subject
to fines and prison time, years in prison,
because it's a third degree felony. If they break this heartbeat
law, if it's
ambiguous, how would a doctor
know how to think about making the
(14:25):
call of if a major bodily function is going to
be, how do they put it? Is going to be
imminent, substantial, and irreversibly
impaired.
>> James Chilemi (14:35):
It definitely constrains, a
doctor's understanding or a doctor putting
or implementing their understanding, because now you're right. When
you make something criminal by punishable by jail time,
punishable, by severe, life changing
circumstances, if you were to commit that crime,
I would imagine as a physician, you would have to
(14:55):
take a double take on each and every individual case
that you encounter. because you are, you're right,
facing prison time if you were to
violate it.
>> Rebeca (15:04):
Okay, so let me ask you this. Let me ask you to envision that you're
the attorney for a physician.
>> James Chilemi (15:10):
We're talking criminal defense.
>> Rebeca (15:11):
Mm
>> James Chilemi (15:11):
Okay, so somebody has been charged with.
>> Rebeca (15:14):
No, no. The physician calls you and says, I have this
patient and this is the situation and this is what's going
to happen to her body. And she's past six weeks. But, you
know, this, this awful thing is going to happen to her body.
I, as a physician, would absolutely call this a major bodily
function. I don't have any definition
that I can refer to that I can know
(15:34):
for absolute certain that I'm right. What do you, as my
attorney, what is the safe route for me as
a physician? Safe in terms of retaining my
license and not going to prison.
>> James Chilemi (15:44):
That's, another very poignant and excellent question.
What I can say is this, what you would
look at as an attorney is you would look at the case law,
and what does the case law say about what in your
jurisdiction and the jurisdiction in which the physician is practicing? What
does that say about, what a major bodily function is? And
then you take from there and you try to see if it falls under the umbrella of what
(16:05):
that doctor's talking about. Now, what happened
recently in our own backyard.
Is we got switched. We used to be in the second district court of
appeals. We are now in the 6th district court of Appeals.
The second district has a body of case
law, upon which you can rely and upon which
I could give advice about. Well, this is what the law tends to
say. This is what it said in the past in the 6th
(16:27):
district, there are so many cases of what's called first
impression, where these are now cases going to the appellate
level, where there is no case law to support it. So
you become the test subject for what does
this actually mean? And so, again,
what I would probably recommend in that situation
would, I would tell the doctor, or, you know, a lot of
(16:48):
times I get calls from dentists as well.
what do you. Follow your conscience. You
know, you have the medical training. You've taken the oaths.
You've obviously achieved the licensure.
Follow your conscience and follow your training.
>> Rebeca (17:02):
You know, I was talking to a physician friend of mine earlier this week, and
she's a mom as well. She has several children at home.
And. Cause I didn't understand some of the medical terminology.
And so I called her and I said, hey, could you tell me what these words mean? I don't, you
know, it's important that I really know what I'm talking
about on the show. And as we talked it
through, she kept saying to me,
(17:22):
one of the difficulties in being a physician is that I
have to do what is best for my patient, but I'm also
a mom, so I have to do what's best for my family, and
it doesn't serve my family for me to go to prison.
And so I'm being placed in a position now because
I talked to her about this situation as well, of how would you make
this call? Do you know what a major, is that a thing that you doctors
(17:43):
know? You know what a major. She said, first of all, no, it's not a
thing that we know. She works for a major hospital, chain
here in the state. And she said, no, that's not a
thing that we just know what that means. Major
bodily function. she said, but she
said, so that puts us in this position of, I've got
to make this call, and I'm weighing all of these
(18:03):
things. The life of my patient, my own license,
me going to prison, my entire life being
disrupted. It puts the physician in
a near impossible situation.
Because of what it sounds like. Exactly. You're saying
it's ambiguous and it's a balancing act.
>> James Chilemi (18:19):
So I took a class in law school, where
we. It was an ethic, ethics based class.
And what we would talk about there is the job of an
attorney. Is it to do what your moral
compass and what your conscience say to do, or is it to do what
your client wants? Because a lot of times, those are conflicting
m. A lot of times, you'll give advice to a client. They don't want
(18:39):
to follow it that way, especially when it comes to a moral
question. Right. if somebody's coming to me and saying,
listen, I don't settle. I want to go to trial.
When I think settlement is in their best interest, when I think
that it probably would be the best case scenario for
them. It's tough. It's a balancing act. And so I can
imagine, especially as a doctor, when someone comes to you
and thinking about all of that
(19:01):
family, your own moral compass, what the
law says, what your training says to do,
it's very difficult. And it's the reason why we need
good people in these positions, because it's not just as easy
as performing a surgery or, doing a checkup. There
are poignant moral questions that will come into
play.
>> Rebeca (19:23):
before I get off this, I just want to point out the other word here that we
haven't. There are two other things here. One of them is that included
in all of those descriptors before the words physical
impairment of a major bodily function is the word
irreversible. So the doctor also has to decide,
well, you might lose this bodily function, but can we fix it
later? And that feels like a gamble as well, with a
woman's health of, okay, well, you
(19:45):
might lose your liver, but we'll get you
another. I mean, I just. There's so many things, again,
having been pregnant myself twice to term five times, but
I've miscarried three times. there's so many
factors that go into carrying a pregnancy
that impact your body on so many levels
that, honestly, I can't fathom
(20:06):
sitting there as a physician going, well, if you carry this
to term, this organization going to
be damaged. But, hey, we'll try to fix it in
the end and hope that works out, too. And then
even being further complicated of what if the
patient is already a mother? So the patient's got
children at home that they need to be alive
to mother. So it's not just
(20:29):
this current fetus that is in the consideration
for keeping this woman alive or not. It's
just. I don't.
>> James Chilemi (20:36):
It seems so I'm nodding my
head. I know the audience can't see me. I continue to nod my head as you
talk here. Let's not pretend.
Let's call a spade a spade here. This,
law and laws like it throughout the country
are some of the most restrictive
in terms of what a person can do with their
(20:56):
bodily autonomy when it comes to the area of deciding
whether to keep or terminate a pregnancy. So the.
The language kind of falls in lockstep with that, right? So,
irreversible physical impairment, major bodily
function. These are words that were chosen very carefully
to be as restrictive as possible.
>> Rebeca (21:21):
And the other thing I wanted to point out in this section is it
ends with other than a, ah,
psychological condition. So you cannot take
the woman's mental health into
consideration when you, the physician, are trying
to make this decision of whether or not an abortion is allowed.
Her mental health can't be included. Is that what that means?
>> James Chilemi (21:42):
What I can say, knowing from the area of law that I practice,
and especially personal injury, it's much easier to quantify
physical damage than it is emotional or mental damage.
>> Rebeca (21:51):
That is, what the physician told me that I spoke with. She said, the thing
is, we can say, oh, well, these
levels in your blood mean this, these levels of hormone
mean this, but we can't say this means
this mental condition is good or bad or
managed or whatever.
>> James Chilemi (22:06):
I mean, if you look into history, psychology,
psychiatry, these are soft sciences, but they're also
relatively new sciences. So the body
of, work out there in terms of
quantifying what an emotional distress
damage would be. What, a. You
use the buzzword. I love people always use the buzzword. Mental
health. Mental health encompasses so much.
(22:28):
And people like to abuse that word because sometimes,
I get calls to my office every day. People want to sue their
neighbors. Well, why do you want to sue them? Well, because I can't
sleep and now I have weird thoughts at night
and. Okay, well, have you seen a psychologist? Well, no, I don't.
It's not that bad. Okay, well, what is it? That is
going to rise to the level of a quantifiable
(22:48):
damage that we can measure.
And so as a science, I'm not sure
people, will want to stake,
would want to stake going to prison over quantifying
it at this time.
>> Rebeca (23:01):
There's so many vague areas, and it feels,
this, it feels like this is not the space to be vague when we're
putting doctors lives on the line. You know,
years in prison, third degree felony
fines, loss of your license. That feels like
a time to be as specific as you can possibly be, not to
just willy nilly leave it up to, oh, we'll figure it out
later.
>> James Chilemi (23:22):
Again, I think you could go through the body
of statutory law here in Florida and in many
states and in many countries, and what you're going to find is that the law
is purposefully vague, purposely ambiguous,
purposely nebulous in many ways, shapes and forms,
because this is
how a bright line rule is
(23:42):
written. It is open to interpretation. And you're right, in
a perfect world, I think it would be a lot more specific.
but let's not kid ourselves this again,
this, The Heart
Heartbeat Protection act is designed
to make it a crime to perform
an abortion.
>> Rebeca (24:01):
Is it, more or less likely
that someone would
prescribe an abortion, would perform an
abortion with ambiguous
language?
>> James Chilemi (24:14):
You would have to imagine the answer.
>> Rebeca (24:16):
Would be yes, that it would be less likely or more.
>> James Chilemi (24:19):
It would. If so, repeat the question one more
time.
>> Rebeca (24:22):
It's written ambiguously. Right. So open to
interpretation. So is that in favor
of a doctor erring on the side of
caution for the woman or erring on the side
of caution for the fetus.
>> James Chilemi (24:36):
For the fetus.
>> Rebeca (24:38):
At the expense of the woman.
>> James Chilemi (24:40):
If you're. Again, I don't. I'm trying not to pick a
side here.
>> Rebeca (24:43):
Right, right. And, yeah, I don't want you to.
>> James Chilemi (24:46):
My understanding is that, yes, it would be. This bill is
geared completely towards the fetus at the expense
of the person delivering the fetus.
>> Rebeca (24:54):
Okay, moving on. I, have several questions
on page eight. Sure. Again, we've been
over. This is another place where major bodily function is
mentioned, and I think we've established that there's just no
way to know what that is using the
information.
>> James Chilemi (25:09):
In this law, in the bill itself. Correct.
>> Rebeca (25:11):
Okay. And this is another place where
psychological conditions are carved out, as those cannot be considered
when making a decision about whether or not this
abortion needs to happen for the health of the woman carrying the
fetus. So I'll
move on then, to section d
here. And this is where it allows for the
exception of rape or
(25:33):
incest or human trafficking.
First of all, this law. Let me make sure I understand.
This law allows for an abortion, allows for
a woman to receive an abortion
if the pregnancy is a result of
rape, incest, or human trafficking. Is
that true?
>> James Chilemi (25:52):
Up to 15 weeks with certain,
clarifying procedures.
>> Rebeca (25:57):
Up to 15 weeks gestation.
>> James Chilemi (25:58):
Correct.
>> Rebeca (25:59):
Okay. And I just want to clarify, because this is another thing that I
discussed with the, physician this week to make certain I
understood how gestation is calculated.
The gestation begins with the
first day of your last period.
So not the one you missed that gave you a clue that you
might be pregnant, the one before that.
(26:20):
So by the time you find out you're
pregnant, there's roughly four weeks in
between your period. In between your periods.
So you miss your period. So your
four weeks gestation at the time that you
miss your period. Many of us, you don't know this,
James, because you're not a woman. But many of us are like, oh, I'm
(26:40):
just stressed and I'm a little off my calendar and it's
fine, it'll come. So we don't immediately think pregnancy
unless we're trying. So we might wait another week or
so, and then if we're busy at work or we've
got kids at home that we're already dealing with or partners or
whatever, it might actually be
six weeks, which is two weeks after our missed period,
(27:01):
before we actually take a test, and that it's even
longer if any of us are not regular
with our periods, which are. Is a lot of women. A
lot of women do not regularly have periods every 28 to 38,
32 days because stress and hormones and everything affect.
>> James Chilemi (27:15):
I'm married, I have.
>> Rebeca (27:16):
Oh, that's right. I mean, you know,
honestly, I'm one of those women that if I skip a month, I'm like, thank
God. I mean, it's not automatically going, oh, I
must be pregnant. So, even. Even
the idea that we're going to somehow know
we're pregnant before the six week time
period has passed isn't realistic,
(27:37):
because most of us aren't even taking
pregnancy tests before that six week gestation
because it began counting with the first day of
our last period, not the missed one.
>> James Chilemi (27:47):
So, based upon what you're telling me, it seems to me that this
would be a very undue burden
that you're placing on women to really track their
periods and take pregnancy tests and figure out if
you're pregnant, just to the off chance that you do have an
unwanted pregnancy to make sure that you're.
>> Rebeca (28:04):
Inside that gestation, that you're less than six
weeks.
>> James Chilemi (28:07):
Wow.
>> Rebeca (28:07):
so now we go to the cases of rape,
incest, and human trafficking. This law allows
for you to go up to 15 weeks to get the
abortion. Right?
>> James Chilemi (28:17):
That's the way I understand it. So, again, just to give a little bit of
background and some general information on this, there was a
case in 1989. Yeah, in
1989 it was called in RETW. And in
RETW, the way I understand it, basically
codified in the state of Florida a row.
Row like protection, which said
that included in the right to privacy in the state
(28:40):
of Florida included abortion rights for
all women. Now, after the
decision that came out, I believe it was last
year.
of the. Believe it was Planned Parenthood
of central and south Florida versus
the state of Florida. that overdid, or,
excuse me, it completely did away
with in RETW's case law and the precedent that it
(29:03):
set and said that women would only have a right to
abortion after 15 weeks and got rid of it as a
constitutional right to privacy here in our
state.
>> Rebeca (29:12):
Got it. So that's where the 15 week thing comes from.
>> James Chilemi (29:15):
That's where that came from. And now we took it a step further with this
heartbeat Protection Protection act that's now taken it
back from the 15 week to six weeks.
>> Rebeca (29:24):
So is the 15 week in the case of
rape, of pregnancy as a result of rape, incest or
human trafficking, does the 15 week
timeline still apply? Or the six week timeline?
>> James Chilemi (29:35):
The way I understand it is if you are a victim of
rape, incest or human trafficking, the 15 week
timeline would apply, provided that
you have made a. If you are a
victim of rape, incest or human trafficking,
you make a report to a law enforcement agency and
you have proof of that report.
>> Rebeca (29:56):
Okay, so full disclosure, listeners, I'm a rape
survivor. And so this one hits close to
home, because I've lived through that
nightmare of, oh, my God, could I. And I
was raised, I can't even imagine. I was raised not to take the Lord's name
in vain and even say, oh, my God. And that was one of the few instances that
I ever in my life went, oh, my God, could I be pregnant
with my rapist's child?
>> James Chilemi (30:18):
I got goosebumps just thinking about it.
>> Rebeca (30:20):
And if that's, what do I do? If that's so, because
I was thinking, even if I carried that to
term, what am I going to do? Never tell the child?
Cause what child needs to be burdened with the knowledge that you're here
as a result of. There were so many
things that I had to sit with and
think through, on top of the fact that I.
>> James Chilemi (30:40):
Had been violated and to figure out, so let's say,
for example, you were pregnant by a
rapist. Ah. Who's going to take care of the child? This child's going to
grow up without a father. Where are they going to go to school? How are they going to eat? What are
my parents going to think?
>> Rebeca (30:52):
I can only imagine it was a lot. Thankfully,
I did not end up being pregnant. Full disclosure. But
that was certainly in all of the swirl
of storm of thought of first you
have to even get to a place of what was
just done to me. How did that happen?
Is it my fault? Am I, should I feel guilty about
(31:13):
any of this? Did I do anything? Did I make him think this
was okay? What have I done? All of that
self recrimination that happens or that happened for
me on top of
now, what? What does this mean? What does this mean
for me as a human being, for my worth, as a person, for myself,
as a woman that other men might or might not find
(31:33):
attractive for me as a future mom and wife. So
many things. And so when I read this part of the
bill, I did not report, my
rape. After a lot of consideration, I
purposely chose not to because, number one,
my rapist was prominent and
the police probably wouldn't have taken it seriously given who the family
was. But also because
(31:55):
I studied whether or not rapists
got justice through the court system, and the vast majority of the time
they did not. And it felt to me like if I
tried, I was just gonna get raped again by the court system.
That's truly how I thought about it.
>> James Chilemi (32:09):
I don't mean to laugh. I don't mean to laugh.
>> Rebeca (32:11):
No, it was the reality. I was just like, y'all are just gonna rig me
over the calls all over again and I'm gonna have to get on a stand in front of everybody.
And I'm not doing that. I've already been
violated. You don't get to do it to me again in public.
>> James Chilemi (32:22):
It's totally reasonable and totally understandable.
>> Rebeca (32:25):
So I went, I got counseling, I got
healthy. I am a, healthy person as a result. But
when I read this and I thought, okay, not
only are we going to force
her to carry that baby to term,
the only way she can get out of that is if she
(32:45):
does subject herself to a court
system that very clearly
the majority of the time in every state in
this nation does not get justice for
the victim.
>> James Chilemi (32:59):
I think this, I could opine for another
hour and a half, 2 hours, 24 hours on, prison reform
and my understanding of what
needs to happen in this country and the difference between deterrent and
retributive justice and what happens to the victims and
what happens to the perpetrators. Why is it
that they're given, let's say somebody gets a 30 year
(33:19):
prison sentence for rape, so they go to a
air conditioned and heated building, get three square meals a
day, and basically live out their life on the taxpayer
dime.
with all the comforts that come
along with that. Doesn't, seem to be aligned
with my views on what should happen to a person that does something like
that. And I would think a lot of people.
>> Rebeca (33:41):
So am I to understand in this
bill, first of all, if she
tells her dog, if she comes to her doctor, it's after six weeks,
she says, you know, I'm, at ten weeks or whatever doctor says,
you're at ten weeks, this was. You've told me the first day of your last period. I've
calculated it. You're at ten weeks. You could have an abortion, but
you first have to go to the police
(34:02):
and file a
complaint, and then you have to bring me a
copy. Like, how do you. How does the doctor know?
>> James Chilemi (34:10):
When you first approached me about this episode, we had
talked about how that, just talking through this was
gonna be beneficial not only for you and I, but for anybody
listening to this. And when you talk about it, when you actually parse it
out, it really does sound ridiculous.
>> Rebeca (34:24):
Yes, it seems ridiculous. What is she supposed really,
like, is she supposed to. I need a copy of my police report to
show my doctor again.
>> James Chilemi (34:32):
Rebecca, let's not pretend like this is not supposed to be
highly, highly intrusive into
the rights of the mother.
>> Rebeca (34:40):
I don't. I struggle to find how that
is life affirming and life giving and life
sustaining. like the idea, my
understanding of the packaging of the pr
for the heartbeat bill was, we're here
for life. This is pro life. But when I'm getting
into it, this does not. That certainly doesn't
take care of that woman's life.
>> James Chilemi (35:02):
The presupposition with this bill and with a lot of
the pro life movement is that the
fetus is a human baby.
And because it cannot be killed, let's, say a
day after birth, it cannot be killed the day before
birth. And so where people differ is when you take that
back, one day before birth, two days before
birth, three months before birth, when does
(35:24):
that fetus actually become a human being? And I think the
progenitors of this bill, and I actually spoke with somebody
who's very high up out in Tallahassee on
Capitol Hill yesterday night when I was reviewing this,
and I asked, I said, what's your
opinions on this bill? Because I know he had a hand in it.
And he said, well, I'm pro life, and I'm very happy with the way it
(35:44):
turned out. And when he says pro life, it means something
different than when you say pro life.
Right. I learned that defining our terms, I think, is a very
important thing. I told you when we talked on the
phone, I am not comfortable giving an
opinion on abortion because it's way above my pay grade. I think it's much more
of a medical issue than it is a legal issue at this time
with our understanding.
(36:05):
but again, I think if we're going to look at this bill, we have to view it in the
eyes of someone who believes they are protecting a
baby.
>> Rebeca (36:11):
Okay? And so in this, again, in this instance,
what we're seeing is a protection of a fetus
over the actual
viable life that is in front of them. The woman.
Okay. Okay. So same
(36:34):
page, the section two right there.
This says only a, it says, in person performance
by physician required. Only a
physician may perform or induce
a termination of pregnancy. A
physician may not use telehealth, as defined in this section, to
perform an abortion, including medical abortions. Blah, blah, blah. I
(36:54):
asked my physician friend about this, and she said, this
means that mefoprestone,
which right now is the
number one way women get abortions
in this country, is mefoprostone. It's a pill,
and it induces the abortion pill, and it induces abortion. It used to
be a DNC, which we went over in episode
(37:14):
one of the show. DNC's are now number two because women are
getting abortions earlier. Methopressone doesn't
work later in pregnancy. You have to get it early on. And
so what this section, tell me
if I've got this right means is that
I could not go to my physician, and my physician say,
okay, I'll prescribe you some mefoprestone. And
(37:35):
like, with, like, right now, if I just went to the doctor
last week, I've got an, injured arm, and she prescribed steroids.
It was two weeks ago, actually. She prescribed steroids for me to take.
And so I left her office, and I, had
the text on my phone from the pharmacy. I had told them, as my
pharmacy, that said, hey, we just received a a prescription for
you. Tap here, sign here, and we'll mail you
the prescription. And so I did, and I got my steroids and took them.
(37:58):
In this instance. Does this section mean
I can't do that? I can only get that pill and take it in the
presence of my doctor?
>> James Chilemi (38:05):
What it means, what this reads to me.
And again, the advent of
technology, excuse me, the advent of technology is a great
thing, right? It has provided us with a
comfortability and a standard of living, that has
been unseen in human experience. And
a part of that, obviously, is medical care. Medical care is falling
in lockstep with the rest of society. And so telehealth has
(38:28):
been a huge thing. zoom. Meetings with your doctor,
telephone calls with your doctor, where they're able to
diagnose and prescribe, are great things. What
it seems to me is that they are trying to prevent,
abortifacients from being administered or
prescribed over the phone on Zoom,
anywhere that it would be remote in distance from actually going
to a doctor's office. Now, again, this could be
(38:51):
a part of that deterrent action that they're trying to
achieve, where make it harder to achieve. If
you really want this pill, you got to come into the office, you got to
look me in the eyes.
>> Rebeca (39:00):
So I asked the physician, though, I said,
well, do you keep these pills in the office? And she said,
no, we do not keep those pills in the office. So it
would involve going to the doctor. The
practicality of this section means you go to the doctor,
hopefully you're before six weeks. So somehow
you took your test before,
then found out you were pregnant. You go to the doctor,
(39:23):
doctor administers another pregnancy test, confirms that you're
pregnant. You tell them that you want the abortion pill.
The doctor prescribes the abortion pill. You leave the doctor, you
go to the pharmacy, you pick up the pill. You have to come back, you gotta.
>> James Chilemi (39:34):
Wait at Walgreens for at least 30 minutes at least.
>> Rebeca (39:37):
And then somehow the doctor is sick. Still got to be available
to you when you get back to the office and not on to the
next patient for you to take the pill in the
physician's presence, because that says,
in person performance by physician required.
Only a physician. Only a
physician may perform or induce termination of
pregnancy.
>> James Chilemi (39:58):
So the way this reads to me is that I would take that last
step out. I would think that all they would, you would have to go in the office for them
to prescribe you the abortion pill. From what
they're saying is it can't be dispensed through the United States Postal Service
or by any other courier, FedEx or us or
UPS. So that's what that reads to me. I wouldn't think you
would have to go back to the doctor's office to take it. I would think that the
(40:18):
administration of the pill would be the prescription.
>> Rebeca (40:21):
So let me ask you, let me refer you then to the sentence where it says, any
medications intended for use in a medical
abortion which is methopressed must
be dispensed in person
by a physician.
>> James Chilemi (40:34):
Yes.
>> Rebeca (40:35):
Physicians don't dispense medication.
Pharmacies do. Or does dispense
mean getting the prescription for it?
>> James Chilemi (40:42):
That's what that reads to me, is, especially because of the next
clarifying sentence, it can't be dispensed to the
United States Postal Service, meaning I would think
that a prescription would be the
dispensation of the abortion pill.
>> Rebeca (40:56):
Okay.
>> James Chilemi (40:56):
Once you have that prescription, you can just go get it.
>> Rebeca (40:58):
Okay, so when it says must be dispensed in
person by physician, what that means is must be
prescribed.
>> James Chilemi (41:05):
That's what that reads.
>> Rebeca (41:05):
In person by the physician, my understanding.
Okay, got it. Okay. So now quickly moving on to
the emergency rules. I just have, really one main question.
Sure. So first, tell me these
emergency rules came down on May 2. This
law went into effect on May 1.
>> James Chilemi (41:21):
Sure.
>> Rebeca (41:22):
And if, you've listened to our first episode, we highlighted the
story of a woman who had an ectopic pregnancy. She had a
DNC to remove that ectopic pregnancy so that she
could live, and she managed to maintain her fertility. As a
result, she had another child exactly one year later.
So I was really interested when these
emergency rules came down after this law went into
(41:42):
effect, because there seemed to be a lot of
concern about. Wait a minute, women
with ectopic pregnancies can't get abortions. They're going to
die. They're just going to die. They're going to hemorrhage out. And
so I read in the emergency rules
that they carved out three
instances of terminating a pregnancy
that will not meet the definition of
(42:04):
abortion and therefore not be subject to the heartbeat
law. Is that right?
>> James Chilemi (42:08):
So, yes. Yes, it is.
>> Rebeca (42:11):
Okay. What are those?
>> James Chilemi (42:12):
What I'll say is this. So we just spoke about this bill for
I don't know how long, right. And it's an eleven page bill,
or eleven page law, let's call it. Probably about
four of those pages are the meat and bones of it in terms
of what exactly this law means. Right. Three to
four pages. So obviously, and like we
spoke about before, the ambiguous nature of a lot of these
(42:32):
terms are not going to cover every situation.
They're not going to be able to, in three pages,
follow everything throughout the entire state of Florida and what could
happen. And what should happen.
So the emergency rules,
which, the way I understand emergency rules, different than regular
rules by the Agency for Healthcare Administration, is that they go into
effect immediately and they go into effect for 90 days.
(42:53):
And so these rules, the way I understand it,
would be that they are in effect for 90 days.
>> Rebeca (42:58):
What happens in 90 days?
>> James Chilemi (42:59):
I would imagine it just goes away.
>> Rebeca (43:02):
What?
>> James Chilemi (43:02):
So these are, it's emergency. So it's not the same as
rulemaking for this administrative agency. Right. Because that
has its own procedure of how it has to be followed and how it has to be
implemented. This is an emergency rule that there's no time.
We have to get this on the docket immediately in order to
clarify what we mean.
>> Rebeca (43:19):
Okay, so for 90 days from May 2,
when they issued the emergency rules. Okay, so, Wow.
>> James Chilemi (43:24):
So if you look. I mean, if you look at the inside here,
there's a great paragraph that says, the agency finds there is an
immediate danger to the health, safety, and welfare of pregnant
women and babies due to a deeply dishonest
scare campaign and disinformation being
perpetuated by the media, the Biden administration
and advocacy groups to misrepresent the
(43:45):
Heartbeat Protection act and the state's efforts to protect
life, moms, and families. So if you have on one
side, imagine one island, you have all the people
that were pushing for the heartbeat protection act.
And you have on the other side everybody who's against it. What they're saying
is we hear the concerns. We hear
that there is these, what they call scare tactics
that are being performed by the media, by advocacy
(44:07):
groups, and by the Biden administration. And so we're willing to
grant conciliation here, and we're going to give you guys
what you're looking for. And for that reason, they
clarify those three exceptions that you were talking
about to make sure that they're included when this law
is taken into consideration.
>> Rebeca (44:23):
Okay, so what are these three exceptions
where you can get, effectively an abortion, but it won't be called an
abortion.
>> James Chilemi (44:29):
So it says it right in the full text of the
emergency room. Is. It's not too lengthy.
obviously, when a patient receives
a diagnosis of premature rupture of membranes,
the, patients have be admitted for observation, unless the treating physician
determines that another course of action is more medically
appropriate. when a physician attempts to induce the
live birth of an unborn baby, regardless of gestational age,
(44:52):
it shouldn't be considered as an abortion.
Like you talked about before, the treatment of an ectopic pregnancy is not an
abortion, and the treatment of a
trophoblastic tumor is not an abortion. So those
were the ones they thought were important.
>> Rebeca (45:05):
Okay, so I. This is something that. This is really why I
called my physician friend. We. I asked her a lot of other questions, but it was these
emergency rules that I was like, I don't know what those things mean. And
so she said prom, which is that premature
rupture of membranes. To me, like, as a layperson, I was like, is
that just a miscarriage? Like, most of us women, many
of us have miscarriages, and so we kind of know what that means. She goes, no, no, no.
(45:25):
That's not. That's not. What you're experiencing typically, is a
miscarriage that is a rupture of the membranes. There is
heavy bleeding. The woman is in danger.
And I was like, oh, okay. So this
didn't cover. Like, what if I haven't? And
several of us do. In one of my miscarriages, I had to go to the
doctor and make certain that I had passed everything, because if you don't,
(45:46):
you can get septic and you can die. I mean, it's very important.
And so she said that instance where,
you know, you miscarried and maybe your body didn't
expel everything, which is dangerous health wise,
that's not covered as an exception, but
conceivably it would not be an abortion because it's not a
fetus with a heartbeat. But she said, you know,
(46:07):
we can't always detect heartbeats at seven
weeks or eight weeks. We can't always do that. So again, we're in
that area of, we've got to make a call as a
physician, and we know both our license and our freedom are on the
line if anybody questions what we said and is
successful in that. So it's like pressure on the physician
again.
>> James Chilemi (46:24):
Sure.
>> Rebeca (46:25):
And, so that was. That was premature rupture of membranes.
We all know about ectopic pregnancy. We went into that in our
last episode. That's where your. Your fertilized
egg, attaches anywhere other than
it belongs, which is in your uterus. And so where it
attached is not going to be able to
expand to accommodate a growing fetus.
So it's going to rupture, and you're going to. You're going to
(46:48):
bleed out. They're not you, and you can't. Somebody asked
me this. You can't take an ectopic pregnancy
and transplant it into the uterus.
>> James Chilemi (46:57):
I'll tell you what, ectopic pregnancy was the only one of these that I
recognized. These words are, ah, a little bit above my
pay grade.
>> Rebeca (47:03):
That was a legit question that I got asked, and I felt so dumb because I
was like, that seems like a ridiculous question.
No, you can't move. And
implanted. But I was like, maybe I'm the idiot. So I actually
did call another doctor, and I said, hey, hey, hey, can
you. And he looked at me and he went, look, I know that
you're learning about things, but this is like a no
brainer. No, you can't move.
(47:26):
Okay, I'm just checking. Thank you. okay.
And then the third one, trophoblastic tumor.
Those tend to be cancerous tumors,
like, she said, but the physician said, you know, that may or may not
include cancer of the fallopian tube, cancer
of an ovary, cancer of the cervix, all
of which, if not treated, could
(47:46):
result in the death of a woman. But
if you treat them, could result in
an abortion, could result in the termination of the fetus.
And so in that instance, the woman, well, she's
just going to have to end your cancer, because that doesn't
rise to level of trophoblastic tumor.
So my question to her after reading
(48:06):
about these three instances was, so, are there
still? And that was before I understood what you just said,
which is that these really are only in effect for 90 days.
Anyway, I thought this was just a
chain in addition to the law.
>> James Chilemi (48:19):
Just to clarify. So, the way I understand it, again, not
an expert on the rules of the agency for healthcare
Administration. what I do know is that a lot of times
these emergency rules are passed as a placeholder for a
permanent rule.
>> Rebeca (48:32):
So while they work on additional legislation.
>> James Chilemi (48:35):
Or additional rules and go through the
official rules.
>> Rebeca (48:39):
Got it.
>> James Chilemi (48:39):
Their policies on how they have to pass these rules.
>> Rebeca (48:41):
So there's a difference between emergency rules and
rules.
>> James Chilemi (48:44):
Correct.
>> Rebeca (48:45):
Okay, so emergency rules are like, let's get this out there while we
work on the actual rules. For all we know, they're actually
working on rules.
>> James Chilemi (48:52):
That's the way I understand it. I also understand that the,
ballot in November, in terms of making
abortion a constitutional right, is something
that, has come highly into consideration,
as to why these sorts of things are
coming, into play at this point, and will have
bearing on, any vote that does happen.
>> Rebeca (49:13):
What James is referring to here is amendment
four, which floridians will vote on this
November 5. Amendment four, if
passed, will enshrine the right to abortion
up to the point of fetal viability,
meaning the baby can survive outside the mother's
body as determined by a doctor.
(49:33):
So let me ask you about that as my final question here,
because, amendment
four, my understanding of amendment four,
which I think we'll eventually do a longer episode about, and we'll
read it and all of that. My understanding of amendment four is that
if 60% of voters vote
yes on amendment four, it will
enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution.
(49:56):
And if that happens, laws like this
no longer apply. Is that true?
>> James Chilemi (50:00):
Correct. Yeah. So it's very, very
difficult to.
There's a saying, in the legal field, it's very hard
to become a member of the Florida bar. It's. Or of any
bar association. It's even harder to get thrown out of it.
It's the same thing with the Constitution. It's very hard to pass a
constitutional amendment. You need a 60%
supermajority that votes on this and
(50:23):
enshrines it into the constitution so it becomes
a human and United States
citizens right.
>> Rebeca (50:30):
Thank you very much, James, for coming on here.
Like I said, as the show got out
and I started getting feedback from people, seemed
like everybody wasn't really clear on what is in this
law to begin with. It's not that. As you said, it's
not that many pages to read yourself. But even when I read it myself, I
thought, I don't know what some of these things mean. Let me get someone who actually works
(50:51):
in law every day and kind of explain to me things
like precedent and stare decipher.
>> James Chilemi (50:55):
I gotta say, Rebecca, my hats off to you. obviously, your podcasts are
doing incredibly well. but to sit down and want
to have this conversation, a lot of people are in
our three sentence clickbaity
era, where you click on it, you form an opinion on
it, and you move on with your life. And now you're out repeating talking
points that you heard that just aren't true. So to sit down
(51:16):
and to parse through the details and to have the
uncomfortable conversations and, figure out what is actually going
on is invaluable to our society. So I thank you
for what you're doing.
>> Rebeca (51:25):
Oh, I appreciate that. I think there are lots of times that
I can just be like, oh, that's my opinion. Whatever we want. But this is, like, literally
life and.
>> James Chilemi (51:32):
Death, and it's affected you, and it will affect.
>> Rebeca (51:35):
I have a daughter. I've got a teenage daughter.
Yeah. Very close to home for me. Thank you, James. I appreciate you coming on.
>> James Chilemi (51:41):
Thank you, Rebecca.
>> Rebeca (51:50):
I'm so grateful to James for coming into the
one C studio and helping me understand the
language, the limitations, and the allowances
of this law and the emergency rules.
Please be sure that you are liking or following right
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(52:11):
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twins, only to later be given
difficult news and face an
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(52:33):
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