So here we are with America's favorite conversation of the moment, abortions and America's
favorite conversation from olden times, federalism. So here we talk today about the
convoluted nature of the Supreme Court having to adjudicate over the Biden administration, saying
federal law comes first, and OHI an Idaho say no, no, no,
state law comes first in a case that clashes with emergency room doctors healthcare
in Idaho and will raise wider issues when it comes to healthcare and abortion across
America. This story is from The Guardian by Katie Sherman from the twenty third
of April twenty to twenty four and discusses the Idaho law restricting abortions and the
federal law requiring emergency room medical care. So, Emma, you're a fiery
person when it comes to talking about issues like this. How fiery do you
find this issue? You've started on the person with no understanding of US law.
So my understanding of this is more well less based in the law,
because I don't know what the difference between federal and state law is. Someone
else can deal with that later, Thank you, and please, I just
read this news with the sort of an air of despair, especially because every
article like this that talks about abortion law has a doctor sort of crying and
lamenting the disastrous state of affairs. And I think to bring a bit of
a smile. Yeah, yeah, I'm starting to feel a bit religious dystopier
about it. This is like coming, but it increases with every article on
abortion, right, yeah, this is this is following Italy and now allowing
anti abortion activists inside it's clinics, is abortion clinics, And it's just it's
one of those situations where you have the experts, who are the doctors and
specialists, saying this is bad and or fleeing the state or considering fleeing the
state, and then the US saying, well, you know, there's people's
lives and there's people's health, but uneducated Christiom activism is more important than the
medical expertise. And I'm like, yeah, I don't get it. I
don't understand how this is allowed to be a thing. Perhaps somebody with a
better understanding of the legal aspect of this, perhaps one of our American friends
can help me out. Helen, you know the law backwards, don't you.
You don't want yes, I am such a legal scholar in American law.
But basically, basically it is is that there's a federal president that is
set and when that federal president is set, usually the states have to follow
it. They can set their own laws, but the but like the federal
law comes first. And basically, I know, I was like, no,
no, we're not going to do that. And we're shaving tenth amendments
here problems, So we're gonna start shouting enumerate powers and unenumeratean rights and all
this stuff, right and that, and that was the problem with you know
thor and shit getman saying that it's going to go back to the states,
because that's what happens, is that he kept stands and because it's such a
contentious issue, and that the Christian nationalists are basically saying that no, we
want the states to decide. But the thing is, though they're willfully educated
in healthcare and science, they just want to do whatever their skydatting tells them
to do. This is leading to people's lives being at risk because also like
a problem with this is a complete lack understanding a woman's health, what pregnancy
does to the body, why women get abortions in the first place, what
actually happens when someone gets an abortion, they they they just have this am
maagulous sort of like you know, peripheral idea that it's like, oh,
like they conceived this issue immaculately conceived that. Yeah. Basically, yeah,
that's basically what happened. Because like if you look at us, like like
I understand, like I'm a mom, I like babies, you know,
but there's a big difference between a psycho and then like an actual human baby.
But somehow they conflate the two and then they're like, well, I
think that it's the same thing as it's like, no, motherfucker, it's
not the same thing. Let me say that, you say that, So
you say that. But I remember recently on this show we dedicate that you
can find the card up here for where we discussed in vitro fertilization. Now,
those were those children, were those you know, right to life,
and I mean, this is where it goes when we talk about these how
far down the path do we go with what is and is not protected by
these laws? In Alabama, it was an embryo frozen in a tube that
could or could not be implanted in eitherho it's six weeks and it's a smaller's
board of strangness. It just feels very odd. It's not even got.
The thing is, it's not got. This is it's rotten in Christian nationalism.
It's not got a good biblical precedents. You can if you're looking for
fins on abortion in the Bible, you'll find more pro abortion related stuff than
you will. So they make all these arbitrary rules, but there's not even
a good religious basis for it, and somehow that it's that's okay with everyone,
and it's it's just it's just very very odd. And I mean I've
spoken to Infidel and Helen about coming from a Jewish background, and I mean
there are people who are Jewish who are challenging these laws, saying in pinges
my religious freedom to prevent me getting an abortion. And I mean, Infidel,
you're the only person who identifies a man on this panel. How do
you feel when you see an article like this? As somebody who identifies as
a man, seeing this, I have to say that the first thing that
I think is that with this being a law dating back to eighteen forty nine
and we had our recent fiasco in Arizona where their state Supreme Court brought up
a bill that predated the state is existence. What we're seeing is, you
know, so many times I remember reading books as a kid and growing up
and reading about different people, and it's like their first wife, for their
second wife, dial die during childbird die during childbirth. And I almost feel
like that we're getting back to a full circle of where these Christian nationalists really
do view women as being expendable as long as they're able to do the things
that they want. They don't care because ultimately they want control. Because this
is just the beginning. If we think that this is going to stop at
abortion rights, this is going to go to birth control, this is going
to go to a whole lot of other medical decisions. And why Well,
if there's one thing that a good Christian has always been able to do is
that is to tell you what you needed to do. And so this is
just another example time and again, and not necessarily following it, because I'm
sure there's plenty of them that are willing to fly to other states wherever they
need to go to do what they want to do, but they are more
than happy to tell you what you need to do, who you need to
like, who you need to dislike, and where you need to fly on
this issue. Because at once they were in prior to twenty twenty three,
they took one woman out of the state from maternal complications. Now they're doing
it roughly every other week in Idaho. So this is having very real ramifications
of people who are able to get healthcare who instead of getting it are getting
shipped after other states, and our lies being endangered for work for power.
And I mean, you raise a good point there when you bring up contraception.
I mean, in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, that's not
codified in federal law. That is just Supreme Court precedent, in the same
way ro versus Waged was just Supreme Court precedent that said that you had the
right to access abortion. Griswold Reconnecticut, which says you have the right to
access contraception and you have a right to privacy in your own bedroom. It's
just Supreme Court. President, So you have to remember that you had the
Supreme Court here the activist five. And I do love how Republicans used to
rally against activist liberal judges and then they get their activist five who start doing
all the activism on the court, who say that there is no right to
follow starry decisives, There is no right to follow precedent. There is no
decision being made on the facts of the case in front of them. It's
all about I want this to happen. I want this to be the case.
It's legislating from the bench here. This case is an odd case for
the Supreme Court. It's entirely of their own making. But they are the
arbiters, as they should be, of what the law is, and not
what the law that they want it to be. The Court here should be
arbitrating between states and the federal government what the law is. It should not
be deciding what they want the law to be. They need to be deciding
what the law is as passed by the relevant Congress or as enshrined in the
relevant section of the Constitution. When it came to Dobbs Missus Jackson's Women's Health,
that was quite clearly before a single word had been written on a piece
of paper, the case was going to rule that way. You knew that
it was going to be that way. The only thing was was it going
to be five? Was it going to be five to four or six to
three. That was the only sticking point. Was John Roberts going to join
the rest of the conservative wing of the bench, or is you're going to
go hang on minute, let's not. Ultimately he didn't joined the three liberals
on the court and when hang on, we can't do this. But it
didn't matter. The case before them didn't matter on the fact the case was
a vessel and it was a method of getting what they wanted through. And
I think that that's what is most disturbing here. We could talk about this
all day long, but it doesn't matter if the five people who make the
decision here pay us no attention whatsoever when we bring a case. And that's
the most disturbing thing about what the court did in Dubs. It decided that
it was going to have the outcomes regardless of what was before it. And
now you have cases coming before it which are junk Mifer pristone case. It
was junk. It was one of the worst argued cases I have ever had
this fortune of listening through in my entire life. But basically, six doctors
said I don't want this, therefore no one must. I mean, if
I said that every time I went around doing things, Emma in and Helen
wouldn't get a looking each way Tuesday. But Helen, you've heard me talk
about these things before, You've heard me give my opinion to you on these
league things. What's your take when it comes to seeing where the interactions between
the federal law and the state law is going, particularly on reproductive rights.
In this case, I am deeply concerned because we had decided back in the
nineteen seventies that the state could no longer want with the privacy law, which
is fucking very disturbing where that's going. And also as well was basically like
a person has a right to privacy and their ability to access healthcare, and
now the state is coming going go, no, you don't get to have
that right anymore, Like we're going to decide what is better for you now.
And basically what this says is that if, for example, like and
I've heard this also from republic Ampundance, which drives me crazy, that like
if a state is blue or more liberal or has abortional legal inner states,
like oh, a woman can just go to that state and have an abortion.
Okay, Well, that costs money and time and this is discriminatory,
and this shows the racism and the sexism of this particular law when it comes
down to the state, because a lot of people can not access the money
and funds to move to another state to for that sake, to perform an
abortion. And that's a problem. And the reason why it's a fucking problem
is because because this tends to target poor people that don't have access to healthcare,
don't have access like if you make like let's say you have to take
three days off and you don't know if you're going to have complications from having
the procedure, you're going to lose time at work. So that's also something
and it leads into the like, let me finish my thought real fast,
like, and that leads into another issue of this is this is not so
much about you know, like we're trying to preserve life. This is like
we're trying to control your body and make sure that you're going to be a
brood mare. It has nothing to do carrying about women's health. What they
need to make sure, like even if they were going to have a pregnancy,
that make sure that they have access to the healthcare to make their sure
that pregnancy comes to fruition that the baby is healthy and the person has access
to the resources that they will need after the baby is born. They are
pro birth and they're not about pro life. And that's the reason why this
is such a problem when we're talking about the state rights, because basically,
if you're still stuck in the state that you're living in, even if you
like, let's say you go to California and you know, you get an
abortion, but you live in another state were it's not you have to go
back to that state, that doesn't mean that you're going to get access to
the care that you need where you might get in another state that you do
need it for it. And that's where this gets really like gets very dicey,
and it's not as simple as people want to think it is. That's
my problem. I say, I saw a map the other day because now
Florida's got a six week abortion banning form some people the closest states they can
go to some parts in the country, it's Michigan, Illinois, Mexico.
In some parts of America. I mean, I always fairly believe that in
America have the right to travel. This feels like you're being forced to travel
and I wanted to I wanted to pick up something that is picked up on
here when it comes to reproductive rights. And I wanted to ask infidel here,
do you think that there will ever be a restriction on male reproductive rights
in the same way that there will be on female reproductive rights? So do
you think that states could go off to vos ectomies for example? Well,
I would use a shirt. I hate to narrow down my politics to it
what's on a T shirt? But Ray has a shirt that says regulate your
dick. That's her response to the whole abortion issue. And well, with
that in mind, no, not at all. It'll take a complete upside
down twist before we start talking about male responsibility, even in the close to
the same breath, even though we're talking about a relatively minor procedure. No,
that's not going to happen. One other thing I wanted to say real
quick, was you mentioned it's not as easy as going from one state to
another. Hell and I believe you may been on the panel and we covered
the twelve year old girl who in Mississippi who was raped, had the baby
at thirteen and because her mother literally was on the support system, and unable
to afford to go to Tennessee where at that point it was legal, which
I don't think it is now. And Emma, I was just wondering what
you might have to say. I mean, it's it's just apparently disgusting.
I I think it's kind of funny as well, and something that is well
funny quote unquote, not funny, not half funny, but m hm m
hmm, kind of funny that you don't even have to you don't even have
to go to like discussing male reproductive like health options to see the hypocrisy because
there's a long list of Republican anti abortion activists who have paid for their mistress's
ex wives, et cetera, to have abortions. It's not it's not even
about you know. I do have a question, So what is You're selfish
like I am curious, like what is the like in England, what is
the law regarding abortion? Is it is the access? Is there any restrictions?
Opinion of two doctors? Okay, so if you can get the opinion
of two doctors and it's up to t four weeks. But the UK is
quite strange when it comes to that, because if you're past twenty four weeks
and you'll give birth to a non viable you have a non viable birth,
then you have what's known in law as a still birth, and you have
to legally ridged that in the same way you would have registered live birth.
So Britain is very odd when it comes to strange one. Yeah, so
Britain's abortion laws go back to the nineteen sixties and they've very rarely been updated
and it's just not something And I think Emma would agree with me here.
You don't really see abortion really shouted about in politics in Britain. I mean,
David Cameron kind of brought it up on a free vote and everyone just
went okay, we've done that and kind of moved on. Would you agree
there, Yeah, it's just not really a massive discussion here. I don't
know, it just doesn't. But then I worry because we frequently seem to
take our cues and all over the last ten years from US culture, and
the argument seem to lead to maintain, you know, not being an issue.
But I fear even talking about it might jinx it. And if you
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