transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:13] Hello, fellow law nerds. Welcome to another episode of Boom! Lawyered, a Rewire News Group podcast hosted by the legal journalism team that wants to reform the federal judiciary really badly. I'm Rewire News Group's executive editor of legal content and culture, Imani Gandy.

Speaker 2:
[00:30] And I'm Jess Pieklo, Rewire News Group's executive producer of legal content and advocacy. Rewire News Group is the one and only home for expert repo journalism that inspires you to light a candle, say a prayer for Sam Alito and his time on the Supreme Court. And the Boom! Lawyered podcast is part of that mission. And a big thanks to our subscribers and welcome to our new listeners and viewers.

Speaker 1:
[00:54] So we're going to start off with our segment that we like to call, What the fuck is going on? And I have a doozy for you, Jess. You may remember this case. Do you remember Lizell Herrera?

Speaker 2:
[01:03] Oh my gosh. I have not heard that name or thought of that poor woman in a minute. Please don't tell me they're harassing her again.

Speaker 1:
[01:12] No, they're not harassing her again. But she was told that she would not be able to sue some of the law enforcement people that charged her with murder when they couldn't charge her with murder because the anti-abortion statute in Texas doesn't allow for prosecuting people seeking abortions with murder. So let me take a little step back. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[01:32] What?

Speaker 1:
[01:33] Prosecutors in Texas sort of whoopsie-daisied their way into charging Lazel Gonzalez, formerly Lazel Herrera, with murder for taking abortion pills. Now, you may recall that Texas law, which is SB 8, that bounty hunter law, does not permit a person seeking an abortion to be prosecuted for anything, right? You may remember the case we did a whole podcast about it back in 2022. In 2022, Gonzalez took Miss Oprostle when she was 19 weeks pregnant. She went to the hospital after suffering some complications, and after she was discharged, one of our favorite nurse cops, because you know how most nurses are cops, well, not most, but some nurses are cops. And those ones that are cops tend to be actually married to cops, so it's like a whole law enforcement regime. But a nurse cop called local law enforcement, probably called her husband, right? So Gonzalez was arrested. Again, that should never have happened because the law does not target people who get abortions. So Gonzalez, after she was released from jail and was told that she wouldn't actually be prosecuted, because even the DA in the case told her to her face that it was a mistake, right? So she sued for damages, as one does when one is prosecuted or thrown in jail for something you can't be thrown in jail for. Okay. So the Texas bar fined the DA, right? Like something like $1,000, which isn't much, but as a lawyer, you never want to get fined by the Bar Association of any state.

Speaker 2:
[03:01] It's not a good look.

Speaker 1:
[03:02] So find him and put his license on probation for a year. Okay. And now some dipshit judge is saying that she can't sue the prosecutors personally because they have qualified immunity. Now, she might get some money from Star County, which is the county where this all happened. But the DA has actually said that he feels personally vindicated. Not because the court told him that what he did wasn't wrong, but because the court told him that he can't be sued because he can avail himself of qualified immunity.

Speaker 2:
[03:36] I mean, I shouldn't be surprised. I shouldn't be shocked. This is what happens consistently. But to be a prosecutor and to be like, ha ha ha, just kidding. My bad. And then to have a judge say there are no consequences from that after you've already been fined and your license suspended, is just a clear signal to other prosecutors who would be quick to yoke somebody up into the criminal justice system, that it's okay to charge first and think later. And that's not how the criminal justice system is supposed to work. That's not how any of this is supposed to work. She was maliciously prosecuted. There's no way to say that doing that was in the course of the prosecutor's line of work as a public servant, which would qualify them for the immunity. This is literally just buddies looking out for buddies.

Speaker 1:
[04:30] Right. Right.

Speaker 2:
[04:31] I hate it.

Speaker 1:
[04:32] 100 percent. And if you think about some of the cases that we've covered over our decade of this show, right? If you think about Pervy Patel.

Speaker 2:
[04:39] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[04:41] And the bullshit legal theories that were used to prosecute her. Remember the float test?

Speaker 2:
[04:45] Right.

Speaker 1:
[04:45] The float lung test. If it floats, it's a witch. They're using absolutely medically incoherent standards to prosecute people. Or one of the first pieces I wrote way back in 2013 about Amanda Kimbrough in Alabama, who was prosecuted under the state's chemical endangerment statute, which was never intended to prosecute actual people who have substance abuse problems, but rather to prosecute drug dealers, right? Like people who were cooking meth in a Winnebago and had their baby in the Winnebago, and the baby was getting some sort of negative effects from the chemical endangerment from the meth.

Speaker 2:
[05:24] Right.

Speaker 1:
[05:24] Your womb is not a meth lab.

Speaker 2:
[05:26] Exactly. That's what prosecutors in the Kimbrough case argued was functionally her womb was a meth lab. And that is just personhood amok.

Speaker 1:
[05:37] It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible.

Speaker 2:
[05:40] But literally just to be like, you know what? I'm a judge. I've got power. So I'm going to protect my friends is the reason why everybody believes or not everybody, but a lot of people believe that the justice system is totally cracked because it is like, that's not how it's supposed to go. You know what else is totally cracked, Imani?

Speaker 1:
[05:58] Besides everything?

Speaker 2:
[05:59] The New York Times and its breathless reporting on the decline of fertility rates in the United States. This was in the New York Times last week, and it's like Jess Bate. It is literally got all of the markings for me to lose my mind on. So I don't know if you saw this, but last week, the New York Times ran another piece of pearl clutching around fertility rates declining in the United States. In particular, concerns around teen fertility rates. I got a lot to say about this. I have a lot to say about this. First, first, I need everybody, every single person to understand that the concerns around fertility in the United States, this fertility panic, it's a psyop. It is a psyop. This is not a real thing. Fertility rates are neutral. They are not good. They are not bad. They are just rates. And so let's get into this and why I am still pissy about this a week later. One of the reasons the rates are down is because teens are having less babies. This is just objectively true. Conservatives are panicking about this, and that should alarm everyone in the age of Epstein, right? But the problem with teen birth rates are also neutral. If you are a person who believes in reproductive justice, and you understand that teens have the ability to make those decisions for themselves, including sometimes the decision to parent. So if a child is pregnant, if a teen is pregnant and decides they want to carry through that, with the right support, they can. Gretchen Sisson is amazing on this, has a ton of research, even published a book that shows very often the societal concerns around like, you know, drops in poverty. All of that is around support, not the act of teen parenting itself. I need everybody out there who's like, you know, on the liberal and progressive side of things that is like, you know, actually teens not having babies is good. Teens having babies if they want to have them is fine. Teens not having babies if they don't want to have them is also fine. That's a tenet of reproductive justice. Rewire News Group did a whole editorial drop around this called Who's Choice. Like there's a lot there, all right? But here's also this. Three years ago, you remember this, I was insufferable with my social media. Because I was in the throes of tracking the rise of pronatalism and that rhetoric with all of these looming restrictions on birth control, the sort of ways in which rhetoric in social media drives policy change. Well, that time is now and those restrictions are coming. The DeAnda case, which we've talked about on this podcast a lot, that was one of the first trial balloons. And that's the case from Texas where a Christian father claimed that teenagers ability to access contraception through the Title X program without parental involvement violated his parental rights. Not even his daughter trying to do it. Just any teen in Texas generally, it was a violation of his parental rights. The Fifth Circuit said, yeah, you know what? That's legit. And that decision stands right now. Conservatives don't want everybody having more babies. This is not a generalized, we need more babies panic. They want some folks, the folks with the good genes, if you don't fit into their eugenics project, you're not part of it, right? So again, the way we're talking about this is all wrong. And I just really need folks on the progressive side of things to like leave the teen parents out of it. Teenagers are constantly the tip of the spear when it comes to reproductive autonomy restrictions. We saw it with abortion and contraception. We see it with gender affirming care, leave the kids alone.

Speaker 1:
[09:41] Yeah. And I have to, you know, I'd really want to point out that this is kind of a trap for liberals, right? Yes, thank you. This idea that teens are having too many babies or teens are having too few babies, right? Like whether teens are having babies or not doesn't have anything to say about society generally, right? Like it is neutral. Some teens want to parent and so they become parents. And it is our job, it is the job of people who believe in reproductive justice to help that teen parent their child in a safe and healthy environment.

Speaker 2:
[10:10] Correct.

Speaker 1:
[10:11] If the teen does not want to parent, then the teen can get an abortion and it is our job, the job of the reproductive justice movement to make sure that teen can get an abortion absent these sort of constricting rules regarding parental notification.

Speaker 2:
[10:25] Correct.

Speaker 1:
[10:26] Like it's not good or bad, but it does read a little bit creepy that one of the things they're concerned about is that there are not enough teens getting pregnant.

Speaker 2:
[10:36] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[10:36] Like why do you want teens to get pregnant?

Speaker 2:
[10:39] Absolutely. And it fits in with like, I mean, you know, when you actually hear conservative men talk about it, the Ick factor goes to like 10,000, you know, like the sort of prime for reproducing is in those early teen years. And that's just gross and also not biologically accurate, but whatever, you know. And again, only some people they're concerned about, right? Like it's not like this is a generalized, we need everybody to have more kids. There are lots of ways to create policy solutions to support families in and even, you know, single parents in those instances. None of that's happening. This is just like, oh my gosh, there aren't enough white folks with good genes having babies. So what we're going to do is make it harder for everybody to have reproductive autonomy. That's nonsense.

Speaker 1:
[11:26] But this harkens back to the days when Teddy Roosevelt was president and would routinely talk about race suicide, how the fact that white women weren't having enough babies meant that they were complicit in some sort of race suicide. Because you're right, they don't want black and brown people to have more babies, right? They're currently trying to deport everyone brown so that they won't have babies in this country.

Speaker 2:
[11:47] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[11:47] Right? What they want is for white people with good genes to have babies. They don't even care if you're poor. Like if you're poor and you can't afford the baby, they'll just take the baby and give it to some nice Christian family. But you have good white genes and you need to be reproducing, right? Like I used to talk about this all the time with Laurie Bertram Roberts. They are a reproductive justice advocate. They've always talked about how they grew up in an evangelical household and how it was always about producing more babies, producing babies with good genes. They weren't the type of person that anti-choices wanted to have babies. It was the people with the good genes. So as you were typing, I wrote down in the script, womb to prison pipeline, because I didn't want to forget that terminology. I may have just made it up now. I may have made it up two years ago and forgotten. That's what menopause will do to your brain. But the point is, is that there are black and brown kids who are not going to have any shot in life, right? And so the fact that their availability of abortion has been decimated means that more people from quote unquote disfavored communities are going to be given birth. What do we do with the babies of these quote disfavored community members? We put them in prison, right? Whether it's from school, whether it's straight from the womb, whether it's after circumstances and poverty have forced the child to do something that is against the law, we just throw them in prison and then they can contribute to the slave labor that actually still runs a lot of this country in a way that a lot of people don't think about.

Speaker 2:
[13:14] Right.

Speaker 1:
[13:14] So this is a matter of making sure that white babies, whether or not they are born to people who are in poverty, those white babies can just be removed from those families and given to a nice Christian family. And then we're just raising another Christian army, I suppose. But black and brown kids, there's no place for black and brown kids. The Trump administration is currently trying to deport everyone who might have a brown kid in this country.

Speaker 2:
[13:39] Right. One more point and then we will honestly move on. I promise and get to the rest of the show. Everything you said is true. And also, they're going to put some of those older kids in foster care too, if the parent is struggling to provide for those kids. And I just got to say the audacity of the New York Times to run this piece, while conservatives are arguing a replacement theory in the birthright citizenship case, like literally trying to erode the ability of folks who do have kids in this country for them to claim citizenship and also during Black Maternal Health Week. Like, come on, guys, get it together. Yeah. Really, truly get it together. All right. Moving on. We're going to talk about the conservatives' obsession with abortion pills. But first, we have an ask, okay? So for over a decade, Rewire News Group has been covering reproductive health, rights, and justice. For one reason, one reason only, well, not only, but primarily, and that's to watch out for you, right? And on Boom! Lawyered, that means helping you understand what's happening in the courts and what it actually means in your day-to-day life outside of the legalese. We've had your back and now we're going to ask that you have ours. We're trying to raise $10,000 by April 30th to keep the show going. So if you can, please support us. And we're going to throw a link on how to do that in the show notes and in the bio. So thank you ahead of time for your support. Boom Lawyered family is always very generous and we are in another campaign. And thanks ahead of time for the support.

Speaker 1:
[15:13] Indeed. Thank you very much for your support. All right, let's talk about these abortion pills.

Speaker 2:
[15:17] All right. So folks, look, I know, I have been teasing this for a while now. It's the thing that I've said I'm always looking out for, but, but, but, but we finally have some updates to share in the fight over Mythopristone approval and access in this country. All right. So buckle up, folks. Here we go. Last week in Louisiana versus the Federal Drug Administration, that's the case challenging Mythopristone access by the Republican Attorney General's in Louisiana, a federal court granted the Department of Justice's motion to stay the case while the Food and Drug Administration conducts its quote unquote safety review of Mythopristone. The state of Louisiana's motion for preliminary injunction was denied without prejudice. So what does that mean in the non-legalese? In non-legalese, the state of Louisiana's lawsuit has been put on pause, and it's on pause while everybody waits to see what the FDA is going to do with this review. It also means that the court turned down for now a request by the state of Louisiana to block the 2023 FDA agency action that had lifted requirements that Mifepristone be dispersed in person and allowed for the expansion of pills by mail and telehealth. The pause also means that the current state by state legal access to Mifepristone won't change across the country. The status quo remains the status quo. The stay was granted over the objections of the state of Louisiana who want to just block access entirely. They had sought a preliminary injunction to bar patients nationwide from obtaining Mifepristone by mail or from a pharmacy and to force them to pick up the medication in person, at a hospital, a clinic, a medical office, all of those things that the Biden administration had lifted.

Speaker 1:
[17:03] The same judge also denied a request by GenBioPro, the manufacturer of generic Mifepristone, to dismiss the case rather than stay it, right? GenBioPro wanted the case dismissed. The same judge was like, nah, we're just going to stay it. The request to dismiss the case outright was denied without prejudice by the court. Without prejudice means that GenBioPro can ask the court again, at a later time, to throw out Louisiana's lawsuit.

Speaker 2:
[17:30] Right.

Speaker 1:
[17:30] Okay. Now remember, Louisiana is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF was also counsel for the plaintiffs in the original case challenging Mifepristone's availability. That case was called Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine versus the FDA.

Speaker 2:
[17:47] Sorry, I was going to say we had approximately 42 episodes on that case.

Speaker 1:
[17:50] Yeah, we really, we talked about that case a lot. But for those who don't recall, that's the 2024 case where the Supreme Court determined that the plaintiffs that comprised the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which included, by the way, a pro-life dentist, and I have still challenged anyone to come up with a circumstance where you're going to see a motherfucking dentist because you're pregnant.

Speaker 2:
[18:14] It's never not funny.

Speaker 1:
[18:15] I'm sorry.

Speaker 2:
[18:15] It's just never not funny.

Speaker 1:
[18:16] It's ridiculous, right? But the Supreme Court said that those plaintiffs didn't have standing to bring their claims because there was no evidence that they had ever interacted with a person in a way that would violate their right to, I guess, have Mifflpristone make them sad. Okay. That was two years ago. And the conservative legal movement has not stopped trying to upend abortion pill access. And as far as this bullshit, quote unquote, review of Mifflpristone safety by Trump's FDA, here's what you need to know. The FDA conducted a rigorous review of Mifflpristone safety and efficacy less than three years ago in 2023. That was part of the justification for lifting the in-person dispensing requirement, right? Basically, Mifflpristone is hella safe. It's extremely safe. It's safe AF, one might say, right?

Speaker 2:
[19:12] It is. And so if you see reporting in traditional media that the FDA is undergoing this review and it sounds at all objective, don't believe it. It's not true. All right? So here's where things stand right now. We wait on a decision by the FDA. And in the Louisiana lawsuit, the court gave the FDA six months to give status update. So the FDA could give us some information next week, or we could be waiting here for six weeks. Just kind of twisted in the wind. And remember, there's more litigation in Texas, right? GenBioPro was also recently granted an intervention there as well. So thank you to those attorneys for doing the Lord's work and making sure everybody can continue to have access to medication abortion right now, while the conservative legal movement, I don't know, like continues foaming at the mouth over this stuff. But so we're really, as a result of the Louisiana court's action in a holding pattern, and we don't have a lot of tea leaves to read here. They kind of put everything on pause and said, we are waiting for the Trump administration to make the next move.

Speaker 1:
[20:18] But don't think that the antis are just going to wait for this FDA review, right? Like that would be folly because they are obsessed with the fact that abortion pills, and especially abortion pills by mail are the key to upending conservative control over our reproductive capacities. Recently, three states, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arizona all advanced bills in the legislature aiming to stop the mailing of abortion pills to their residents. Currently, Mississippi and Tennessee have near total abortion bans where in-state distribution of abortion pills via mail or telehealth is illegal. Right. So they want to stop people from other states, from like radical left states, from mailing abortion pills into those states. And I got to say, once again, Jess, you called this way back in 2021, before Dobbs and when Roe was still good law. Remember Roe?

Speaker 2:
[21:15] Oh, she. Remember Roe?

Speaker 1:
[21:17] So cute.

Speaker 2:
[21:18] Yeah, it's like Auntie Roe.

Speaker 1:
[21:20] Auntie Roe. But like back then, Roe was still good law. And you were like, yeah, it's still good law now, but wait, wait, what's coming? Abortion pills by mail changed the game maybe forever. And you called that. We had a whole editorial drop about medication. Abortion is the future.

Speaker 2:
[21:38] It is. And the future is now. And I mean, your point that they're not going to wait is so right on because what we have learned in, you know, the decade plus covering this space is that there are always parallel paths that the conservative legal movement is taking, particularly when it's targeting reproductive autonomy. So of course, the courts are one way and one avenue that they use to enact policy change. But, you know, a good old-fashioned gerrymandered state is going to do it too. So hey, you know, why not? But we should talk about some of these bills because there are some truly, even for the anti-choice movement, unhinged provisions in this. Okay. So let's start with Mississippi. Mississippi, friends, we love you. Heart of the RJ movement, you're doing the work. I'm sorry that this is the legislature that you have. Legislatures passed House Bill 1613, which this will sound familiar to you, Imani, amends the state's overall drug trafficking laws and classifies sending abortion pills into the state as a form of drug trafficking, when those pills have been prescribed without an in-person visit and with the intent to cause an abortion. So just straight up going at shield laws and the telehealth expansions. Violators of the law could face prison time for 1 to 10 years, while the state can seek declaratory or injunctive relief and to recover civil penalties and costs from those offenders. The law passed overwhelmingly in the state house 76 to 38, Jesus Christ, and 37 to 15 in the Senate. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves is expected to sign the bill into law as of recording this podcast. That has not yet happened. It likely will. And when that does, the law is supposed to take effect July 1st, 2026. So state rep Celeste Hurst, who introduced the mail order amendment, claims that Mississippi does not restrict the legitimate uses for these drugs, such as treating miscarriages, right? But Imani, we know that that's all spoken mirrors, restricting the drug from one form of pregnancy termination, in this case, abortion, and then claiming, oh, no, no, no, but there's an exception for another kind of pregnancy termination, which is miscarriage. That's not possible in practice because of the chilling effect the band has on the practice of medicine in general. We're not buying it.

Speaker 1:
[24:03] Right. Like, the miscarriage exception is about as useful as like a screen door in a submarine, right? Because, like, because there's no world in which a doctor can confidently distinguish, in my opinion, not a doctor, but it seems like there's no world in which a doctor can confidently distinguish under threat of criminal prosecution, including a potential decade in prison. How are they supposed to distinguish between a medication abortion and a medication miscarriage? Right. They're the same medication. That's the whole point. Right. So you pass the law that's going to chill everything because people are going to be afraid to go to prison. And for those people who are like, well, they should do it anyway because fuck the police or whatever. But if doctors take that stance and they get yoked up by the criminal justice system, then all of the other people who might go to them for care are asked out. Right. That's one fewer doctor to provide care for people. And also, I love that they're calling it drug trafficking.

Speaker 2:
[25:03] Right.

Speaker 1:
[25:04] They're not calling it unauthorized telehealth or unlicensed prescription or whatever. They're calling it drug trafficking. Like it's Mipopristone, Fentanyl, Cocaine and Heroin. Like these are all similar substances. It's just it's absurd. It's absurd. It's absurd even.

Speaker 2:
[25:23] It's absurd and it's both unintentional. Right. Like your point is exactly right. The idea is to get people thinking about abortion medication as illegal, illicit drugs that require this kind of scrutiny when it's hella fucking safe. Knock it off.

Speaker 1:
[25:40] Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, Tennessee is sort of on the same track, right? Tennessee's House Bill 5, which is currently in the state Senate, it aims to hold out-of-state abortion pill distributors liable in wrongful death lawsuits if pills mailed into the state cause the death of an unborn child.

Speaker 2:
[26:00] I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:
[26:01] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:01] Did we just say wrongful death lawsuit?

Speaker 1:
[26:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:06] For causing the death of an unborn child. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:10] A pre-born child, as they often like to call them. A pre-born children. Yeah. It's bad news bears.

Speaker 2:
[26:16] You know, bad news bears. Straight up fetal personhood, right? Literally. I mean, pregnancy at six weeks is not a person.

Speaker 1:
[26:24] No.

Speaker 2:
[26:24] Not a person.

Speaker 1:
[26:25] It's not a murder.

Speaker 2:
[26:27] But, okay, Tennessee, go off, I guess. Another attack on shield laws and organizations that mail pills like Plan C. I mean, these are, you know, it used to be that state legislatures couldn't pass laws that specifically targeted a business or a line of business. That was discriminatory. But I guess if it's abortion, all bets are off.

Speaker 1:
[26:50] Yeah. And also here's where it gets really messed up. The bill would allow family members to sue the abortion pill provider that sent the pills.

Speaker 2:
[26:58] I'm sorry?

Speaker 1:
[26:59] The law allows distributors to face a minimum of a $1 million damages liability. $1 million in damages when it comes to quote, wrongful death of a child lawsuits. Like this is just, not only is this a boon for abusers, I mean, given the news right now with Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzalez, like it is a boon for abusers to try to sue abortion pill providers because they weren't involved in a decision to terminate a pregnancy by the person that they're abusing. I mean, that's one of the big problems of laws like this. The other big problem, as you mentioned, is that fetal cells are not children. Like they are not children. If you ever look at what an actual six-week embryo looks like, it doesn't look like much and it certainly doesn't look like a fucking child.

Speaker 2:
[27:48] I mean, the idea that Uncle Johnny can just bring a lawsuit because I had an abortion is insane.

Speaker 1:
[27:56] Yeah, it's 100 percent insane.

Speaker 2:
[27:58] Insane.

Speaker 1:
[27:59] We also have one more state to talk about, and that is Arizona.

Speaker 2:
[28:02] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[28:03] So earlier this year, the Arizona House of Representatives advanced HB2364. You know, HB2364, I think, used to be their race. I know that number. Why do I know that number?

Speaker 2:
[28:15] Because we used to track all of these. We had a legislative tracker. We knew all of these bills, whether it was the anti-abortion ones, the anti-contraception ones, the religious imposition bills, and they recycled these numbers and stuff anyway. But this was something like an anti-DEI or something.

Speaker 1:
[28:32] I don't know what it was. It was like, you can't abort your baby if it's black. That's what it was.

Speaker 2:
[28:36] Oh, that's right. It was a race ban.

Speaker 1:
[28:39] It was a race ban. I used to always joke that black women were going to the doctor. What do you mean it's a black baby? I'm pregnant and I'm going to the doctor like, give it to me straight doc. Is my baby going to be black? Because if so, I want to terminate right now.

Speaker 2:
[28:53] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[28:55] God, why do we know this stuff? That was easily nine years ago.

Speaker 2:
[28:58] But the race bans were wild.

Speaker 1:
[29:01] They were absolutely wild. But back to the current HB 2364, that would make, quote, providing an abortion-inducing drug via courier, delivery or mail service, a felony carrying a prison sentence of up to four years. The bill would also make ordering abortion pills, not just mailing them, but ordering them a class one misdemeanor, which would carry a penalty of up to six months in jail or fines of up to $2,500.

Speaker 2:
[29:29] Okay. Couple of notes here. One, don't listen to anti-choicers. They are absolutely going after people who have abortions. There's a provision in the bill right there.

Speaker 1:
[29:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[29:39] Right. Also, the ordering abortion pills and mailing the bike courier, for whatever reason, I just imagined like the Pony Express.

Speaker 1:
[29:47] Pony Express, some guy just carrying pills like this.

Speaker 2:
[29:50] Like, you know, maybe it's the Colorado to me, but like I immediately went to like horseback for that.

Speaker 1:
[29:57] Or like ravens, like send a raven with like a little bag of pills.

Speaker 2:
[30:03] Oh, God. Arizona, though, is a little different, right? The state has a constitutional right to abortion that Arizona residents passed in 2024. That's Proposition 139, the Arizona Abortion Access Act, and that enshrined the fundamental right to abortion into the state constitution. So good job there, Arizonans, because what that means is that Prop 139 has already resulted in the state's 15-week abortion ban being struck down, as well as a law forcing patients to make two separate trips to their abortion provider and wait at least 24 hours before getting care, as well as a ban on the use of telemedicine for abortion. So your state elections, your state constitutional protections are coming in hot and important right now.

Speaker 1:
[30:47] Yeah, Arizona is a case study about how important state court litigation and the interpretation of state constitutions actually is, right? Voters passed Prop 139 with something like 60% of the vote. It was an overwhelming victory. And this is what SCOTUS and DOBS wanted, right? The whole point of DOBS was to throw the abortion question back to the states. But conservatives didn't really want to send the issue back to the states. That was just something they said to kind of placate liberals, because what they really want to do is eradicate abortion. So they're panicking, and they're passing a felony statute that is likely going to be unconstitutional under Prop 139. And this is, incidentally, why it's really important to figure out if you live in a state where your judges are elected, because you're going to need the right judges to interpret constitutional protections for abortions in the proper way so conservatives don't start panicking like they're doing in Missouri, trying to undo what Missouri voters did in enshrining legal abortion of the fetal viability in the Constitution by saying that's not really what they meant to do.

Speaker 2:
[31:47] Correct.

Speaker 1:
[31:48] Right. And, you know, I don't want to go on a wholehearted, off-script rant, but that's where the fight is going for states that attach the right to abortion to fetal viability. Here in Colorado, we don't have that problem.

Speaker 2:
[31:59] No.

Speaker 1:
[32:00] Right. And I can rant about that another time. No, I'm going to rant about it right now. We don't need to tie the availability of abortion to a standard that no longer matters, right? Roe and Casey are dead. So let's move forward with abortion for everyone whenever. And that's not something that's impossible. I spoke for a piece I wrote about Missouri's amendment. I spoke with people at Calore, which is the RJ group here in Colorado. And they were insistent that there's no need for a fetal viability limit. Because people in Lauren Boebert's district voted for abortion access not restricted by fetal viability. So that's something that you need to be thinking about when you're going into your election booth. Who are your judges? Who makes up your Supreme Court? How are they going to interpret the Constitution that you amended to include abortion rights?

Speaker 2:
[32:41] It's so true. And one of the reasons why I think we push so hard against a lot of the traditional or conservative framings around these fights because there shouldn't be restrictions on abortion. Like that is an inherently anti-autonomy, but that's going to sound like a radical position to a lot of people who grew up hearing Democrats talk about safe, legal, and rare. And why our messaging around these things is so important. Because the conservative legal movement and anti-choice movement has it dialed in. They're calling Mipha Pristone an illicit subsistence under drug trafficking laws. They are calling abortion at six weeks, the murder of an unborn child. They don't give a fuck. And so we have to understand that messaging around this is a huge, huge part of getting past dobs and building better.

Speaker 1:
[33:41] Yeah. And messaging includes counter messaging, right? When Trump or any other conservative dumb-dumb goes off about abortion right up until birth, I've heard that they're doing abortions right up until birth. There's beautiful babies that are being aborted right up until birth. It's like we need to have a counter message to that that does not involve a scientific explanation that takes 10 minutes, right? They move on emotion. The reproductive rights and justice movement needs to also move on emotion. And while they've been successful in doing that and picking the hard cases, like the white lady in Texas who couldn't get an abortion and she was going to die if she didn't get one, and she had to fly to Florida to get one. Those are emotional cases. But what about the regular cases? What about the ones that aren't that tragic? We need to start centering more sort of normalized interaction with abortion care. So we're not always trying to appeal to the people who don't want the nice white lady to die in Florida because she couldn't get an abortion in Texas.

Speaker 2:
[34:37] Absolutely. And I'm going to just say the only good thing about a second Trump administration is your impression. It's the only thing so far that's been good. But so folks, you know, the TLDR is that the fight over abortion pills is still live. We're waiting for the Trump administration next, and we've got approximately six months until we can hear something, maybe sooner. But the court has said, hey, let's, you know, let's let us know by then. So, you know, who knows what we are, what we're in for. And again, I mean, you know, we've got the possibility of Comstock still lurking in the background, and all of this could end up being moot if, you know, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[35:20] It's like Harmeet Dhillon or whomever is going to be the next attorney general ends up deciding to move on Comstock.

Speaker 2:
[35:26] I mean, Harmeet Dhillon, for folks who don't know, was David DeLighton's attorney in the Center for Medical Progress cases. That's the Baby Parts cases where the doctor videos resulted in a bunch of clinic violence, including here in Colorado at Colorado Springs, where Robert Louis Dear killed a couple of folks and claimed it was justified for Baby Parts. Anyway, that's fun. I love the messaging part. That's so true.

Speaker 1:
[35:52] We need better messaging. It's been four years. Like, where's the messaging?

Speaker 2:
[35:57] Truly. Truly. All right. We've got some stuff coming up, though.

Speaker 1:
[36:01] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[36:01] Looking ahead. What's on deck? I've got some news, Imani.

Speaker 1:
[36:05] Oh, hit me.

Speaker 2:
[36:06] The fallout is returning in May.

Speaker 1:
[36:09] What?

Speaker 2:
[36:10] Do you remember my baby newsletter? The OG newsletter that could Rewire News Group. The fallout is coming back. That means more writing on the courts by yours truly.

Speaker 1:
[36:25] We miss it. We've missed it.

Speaker 2:
[36:28] It's going to be good. I'm putting a little feminist twist on it. It feels it feels timely. Anyway, also, I am big on SCOTUS Retirement Watchman. Alito is in the hospital and it just really feels like with all the war theater going on, that we are about to have some Supreme Court theater as well. You know these bastards love nothing more than the theatrical nature of all of this. So Alito is in the hospital. We had an episode about Ted Cruz. I'm not saying you should light some candles. Wait, I did say that in the upfront, actually. But you know, as much as I don't want a fight, I'd be happy to get Alito off the bench. And the last thing, Imani, that I am keeping an eye on is the next Denver Summit home game on April 25th. I'm just gonna take this platform and use it. Colorado Law Nerds, am I gonna see you there? If you are a Colorado Law Nerd and love women's soccer and are supporting the Denver Summit, look for me at the games. I'm a season ticket holder and I am going to be impossible to miss.

Speaker 1:
[37:34] Look for the nice white ladies streaking across the field.

Speaker 2:
[37:38] No, I definitely keep the clothes on. I'm a little prudish for that. I am, but I am impossible to miss.

Speaker 1:
[37:49] It's fantastic. It's fantastic.

Speaker 2:
[37:52] There's real stuff happening, but the point there is that also grab your joy while you can.

Speaker 1:
[37:55] Yeah, you got to have some fun. You got to have some fun. For me, Portia and I decided to grow potatoes. That's what we decided yesterday. What variety? Yeah, I don't know yet, but we're going to get a raised garden bed. We bought one yesterday. We're going to fill it up with soil. We're going to grow some goddamn potatoes. I love it.

Speaker 2:
[38:10] I love it.

Speaker 1:
[38:11] Also, in other news, bitch, listen, next Thursday, my guest is going to be Blair Imani. She is the creator of Smarter in Seconds. She's brilliant. She's also only 34, which I find shocking.

Speaker 2:
[38:23] That's assault. That is rude.

Speaker 1:
[38:26] That is rude, particularly because she's been an activist and has been in... I've been mutuals with her and watching her be an activist for at least nine years, nine or 10 years.

Speaker 2:
[38:36] Can I tell you a story? I remember you and I were in DC for ACS.

Speaker 1:
[38:39] Yeah, I met her for June Medical.

Speaker 2:
[38:41] And for June Medical Services and the American Constitution Society Conference, and there she was in some random DC hotel lobby, and we were like, holy shit.

Speaker 1:
[38:51] I found that picture. I was like, oh my god, there's my niece, Larry Monte, like six years ago.

Speaker 2:
[38:56] I vividly still remember that. I can't remember what I did yesterday, but I remember that encounter.

Speaker 1:
[39:01] She makes an impression. So I'm really excited to talk to her about online education, and whether or not online education has the capacity to move institutions, or if I'm wrong, that that's even the point of education, right? Maybe the point of education is just to educate.

Speaker 2:
[39:19] I love this refined concept for the show. That's going to be so good.

Speaker 1:
[39:22] Yeah, it's going to be great. I'm really looking forward to it. So pay attention. Bitch Listen has its own feed now. So make sure wherever you get your podcasts, you look for B asterisk TCH, because that asterisk is important, or just look for my name. And please subscribe, because it is very humbling starting a podcast from zero. I'm like, whoa, I've got a thousand downloads total, which is fine. I mean, I just released my own feed like three weeks ago, but it is still humbling. So please subscribe.

Speaker 2:
[39:47] You're killing it.

Speaker 1:
[39:48] And on that note, you should follow Jess and I on Blue Sky, on Threads. You should follow Rewire News Group on all the platforms. And aside from that, what are we going to do, Jess?

Speaker 2:
[40:00] We're going to do something with these bangs that keep falling out of my situation here and see you on the tubes, folks.

Speaker 1:
[40:07] Bangs and tubes, baby. That did not sound good. That went real pointy real quick. Wow. We'll see you on the tubes, folks.

Speaker 2:
[40:19] See you.

Speaker 1:
[40:21] This is Boom Lawyered, a Rewire News Group podcast produced and engineered by Chapter 4, and available on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts.