 To Sister Power, I'm Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. Our topic for this episode, patriarchy unkins to roar and continue fighting for our body overturned the landmark role versus Wade decision in a six to three vote sister power guest attorney Daphne Barbie Wooten, Dr. Patricia Jones, Blessman, all the way here from Chicago, Illinois, and my co-host attorney Leslie Matthews will share their perspectives today. Ladies and welcome to Sister Power. Thank you. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you for inviting us to be on this platform with you. Thank you. You know, this is a, we've had a month this month, you know, first I was, you know, at Rona, and then of course that same month week later I was hit with row responding to row. So before we delve into row versus Wade, let's start with some good news. Judge Katanji Brown Jackson came making history as a first black woman to serve on the high court. So attorney Daphne Barbie Wooten, with us, give us your heartfelt thoughts on this occasion. Oh, it's historic. We're living in historic times. Judge Katanji Brown Jackson is the very first African American woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court for years, 233 years, the United States Supreme Court has had many justices and they have been predominantly white and no black females. So this is a big historic occasion. She's qualified, eminently qualified. We all watched her when she handled herself in a very judicious manner. When she was questioned by various senators who asked such ridiculous and racist questions and sexist questions like, am I a woman? That was Ted Cruz question to her. I mean, it was just horrific. But despite all of that, she made it. And it was the deciding vote of our first African American vice president of the United States Kamala Harris. And there she's going to be sitting for life. Before to reading her decisions. Mm hmm. You know that just hit me when you said for life. Yeah. Oh, right. Let's go to her. She's young too. Right. Isn't she like 50. She's 51. Okay, so we got good 30 years coming. Right. Yeah, that's right. Wow, let's go to our co-host attorney Leslie Matthews. Discuss with our sister power viewers about the meaning of role versus way. Talk to us about the legal definition of role versus way. Yeah, so just looking back at Roe versus Wade. Roe versus Wade was decided in the 70s. So we have over 50 years of precedent, which said that abortion is a fundamental right. And I think that is that it is your fundamental protected right to access whole, I call it whole women's health care. I think that abortion is health care and it is a human right. And so then looking now to the dobs decision and dobs decision that overturned Roe versus Wade, and we have to look at where this came out of Mississippi. Okay. Which looked at a question of, you know, they had a law that banned nearly all abortions after 15 weeks. And so they wanted to question that that legislation and whether or not that was conforming to what we had as precedent for 50 years. And so as we're looking at it now, what this is doing is the first time in the United States history that we're taking away a fundamentally protected right. And we have to look at when you talk about the impact, the impact that this has is disproportionately on black birthing people, black women, lower income people that don't have access to this care. And in Mississippi, particularly they only have one abortion clinic. And so we're looking at a disastrous impact on our access to whole women's health care. And the very first time that a fundamental right and so I think you pick the good title patriarchy unhinged, because this is patriarchy unhinged this is them coming after our right, especially doubling down on black women. Well, we have on our panel today a license, a clinical license of colleges and I want to ask Dr. Patricia Jones, bless me. What are the psychological on mental health impact of carrying and a wanted pregnancy to turn. First of all, you know 45% of all pregnancies are unplanned. So the biggest gift that we can give children is actually becoming to this world wanted and not be the result of the condom broke the pill. I was sick and I threw up the pill while I was having food poisoning. The IUD didn't work. You know, all the thing and we know that birth control methods have a failure rate all of them. So the biggest gift we can give children is to because to come into this world wanted was a difference between wanted children versus those in which the birth is unintentional or unplanned. A million before road. For a million abortions per year abortions was the most common illegal activity outside of gambling and narcotics before road. So now we're going to start criminalizing women for this behavior for wanting to get an abortion. And we also know that an estimated 10,000 women before road road died annually from complications following poorly performed procedures, or what we commonly called back alley abortions. Well, so when we think about what is the psychological impact on of having unintended children are on wanted children unplanned children. It not only impacts the woman, and we're going to talk about that a little bit, but also impacts her other living children, as well as her, the mate her partner or her mate, or her husband. The Journal of Pediatrics looked at what impact of unplanned pregnancy or unintended pregnancy has on the other the mother's other living children. And one of the things that they found was that the children would have a score lower on developmental milestones, and they were more likely to live in poverty as a result. Now, I've worked with kids who, as young as seven or eight who said things to me like, she can't see me. So why is she bringing another mouth. That's gonna have to be fed. I mean, children. And so you guys think about mothers are thinking about what impact another baby might have to their family unit. Yes, they're unwanted pregnancy impact psychological impacts for women who have to carry to term a child, both now in terms of increased stress, increased perinatal and postpartum depression, suicidal ideation of actual commit commission of suicide. But in but the most horrific incidences of psychological impact is when you have cases of incest and rape with children, young children nine 1011 12 years old, or any woman. It is almost horrific and barbaric to make them to force them to carry to term a child or a fetus or into doing a pregnancy, we're after as a result of a rape or an assault. If you've, because I have treated women who have gone through this and particularly little girls, I'm talking nine 1011 and 12. They are forever damaged behind that experience. I mean, there's, there's, you know, we don't have enough, we cannot, we cannot repair the psychological with and the harm. Emotionally that that causes a nine 1011 12, first of all, it's bad enough, but even if they wanted it. Okay, but it's, it's, it's horrific because they've been great. And I'm old enough to be have been in this building business back in the 80s, when rape of a father rape his 10 year old daughter it wasn't even a crime back then. We fought to even make it a crime to call it assault to call it rape. You know what we are going through or what it not only it makes it on. It seems barbaric. Yeah, that we would even stoop to that level that we would not even allow an abortion and give the child or the young person or the woman, some agency in their life to be able to have some over what is happening to them, because that that is a healing thing to be able to say I don't want this child for some women, it's important to be able to say that and to do that and to have that abortion. I've worked with women who said that, you know, they felt that the fears that were growing inside of them was an abomination. It was, you know, it was like, that's a lot to me start, you know, I did here by listening to you, you know, because it's all vital. It's all vital, you know, and Daphne, you had the opportunity to attend a role versus way protest here in Honolulu. Tell us about the temperature of the people that attended this protest. Let me tell you, the temperature here in Honolulu in Hawaii, where it's still legal to have a varsity version is hot and getting hotter. Okay, it's not going to cool down until the law is changed back to allow women to do what she wants with her bodies between her and her physician. It's just going to get hotter and hotter and as I stated before we started this program, I got my boxing gloves on I think we all do we're ready, we're ready. There have been a lot of protests in Honolulu. And, you know, I'm Maui I understand in Big Island and Kauai. Because of the dobs decision which overturned Roe versus Wade, we have one young woman had sewn a crocheted uterus on her halter top and walk through Waikiki. There are a lot of signs, variety of signs and a lot of a lot of people, mainly women but some young men, I'd say in university age have been attending as well. And that's good because we also have people who have big bull horns who follow us and start calling the protesters murderers and things of that sort. There's a real heated argument going on and you know the Supreme Court the US Supreme Court that did away with the right to choose because it's a right to choose whether you have a child or not really did not consider the consequences of telling women they have no control over their bodies. For example in the news there is a 10 year old girl from Ohio where I think you're from Sharon. There's 10 years old rate rate. And she had to go across lines to Indiana to get an abortion, and they talked to the doctor who did it, and Dr said in two more weeks Indiana may not have the ability to do an abortion. And who's going to take this 10 year old girl she's rate by family member who's going to take her across my who's going to examine her to tell her that she's pregnant. You know, some girls don't know they're 10 years old. So this is a real serious problem. And really, you know, the temperature is super hot and getting hotter. Well, for our sister power view viewers, just go over a few companies. Before I go to you, Leslie, these companies are covering abortion travel expenses for for employees, Starbucks, Uber, Disney, Tesla, PayPal, JP Morgan, Chase, Zillow. These are just a few of the companies that are willing to cover this expensive expense. This is exactly what it is because it's unexpected. But I received Leslie a question from Sequoia. And this is a question she has for you. The reversal of role versus weight affects all women. But which demographic of women does it hurt the most and how. Yeah, I, you know, and I will attest to what both of these women have said before me, the temperature is hot. And how are we going to care for people and the people that this is going to impact the most is people of color. Folks that are from lower socioeconomic groups, folks that don't have access to care that can afford to get on a plane and come to a place like Hawaii that has legalized abortion. And we have to be mindful of this because, and I love that Dr. Blussman brought this up because we also need to think about like the right to choose and the right and the ability to take care of that baby from the womb to the tomb. So we're also talking about those things those nuances that she talked about navigating care for the child. Mental health care for the child feeding these children. And one of my pastors from back in Dallas, Pastor Tim Ross posted on Instagram and he said, the church better get really real. And we better start redirecting some of our funds to be able to take care of these single moms and their baby. You know, we're sending funds over across, you know, to help other places which is great. But now we're going to have a lot more children that we need to take care of. And we're going to have a lot more children that will be ending up unfortunately, available for adoption. And so we have to really, really think about these things. And, and as I went and marched and protest. The women are mad. And we have people that are standing there with us mad. We're thinking of ways do we need to start funds to start a cat, you know, set up a couch surfing network so that people can stay in our homes when they come to Hawaii to access this care. So when you think about the people that, and one of one of my really good friends another person that went to law school. She held a sign and she said your mistresses talking to our legislators will still be able to get an abortion. Like let's be real because the people in power the people with access to wealth will still be able to get the things that they're snatching away from us. And, and it's just abortions will still happen. They will be less safe. We will have more women dying. We know that black women have the highest rate have some of the highest rates, if not the highest of mortality as they're giving birth. And so, you know, how are we settling in our souls that we're okay with 10 women young girls that are 10 years old being forced to carry a child. How are we, how are we taking away that choice. We just want you to be able to have a choice to have that child, or to not have that child. And if we're going to be pro life, it's got to be from the womb to the tomb. No, we have to care about our children. We have to adequately fund our Medicaid programs we have to adequately fun. And just real quick and closing on this question. Whenever you spoke about those companies that will be willing to pay for their employees to access whole women's health care. I also want to be really concerned about how they're going to spend their lobbying dollars and who they're in whose campaigns they're going to fund, because we need to get this codified into legislation. Immediately, it needs to be a law that is for that that we protect abortion, because we know the Supreme Court isn't going to do it. And as we sit here right now, the justices are saying that the protest that are happening outside of their home are are are illegal. And so but we know that are we going to roll back then the first, the first amendment that protects the right to redress your grievances before your government. So hear us roar and hear us word loudly. So I'm going to be watching where those monies are going from those companies that say they, that they, they support the right, the right to choose so it's time to roar, a time to roar, and you know, DL Hugh Lee, and I want your thought on this Patricia I'm going to come to you. DL Hugh comedian actor. This is what he had to say. One of the things you can be sure of is that white people, white men specifically will never do anything that infringes upon their right, whether it's gay marriage, whether it's an interracial marriage. They won't do it. What they're going to do is roll back the reflections of other. Well, absolutely. I mean, you know, you know, we make no mistake about it. The Constitution was written to protect the rights of white males, and a specific group of white male white male landowners. I don't know if anybody's read it recently, but go back and look at the original document, the original document, and the three justices. My bathroom can speak more intelligently or deeply about this but as I understand that the three justices that were recently appointed, they are native this, meaning that they look at the original intent. The original intent of the Constitution was to protect the rights of white male landowners period the end in the story. So, there's a whole lot of rights that we have right now. That's not listed in the Constitution as it was originally written. So all of that is subject to be overthrown, but I'm not the legal expert here I'm just trying to catch up with you ladies. I will say this. Lastly, you were right on the money when you said we got to be we need to be care, we need to care for children from the womb to the tomb. Because right now the United States is the only of industrialized nation that hasn't even ratified rights for children. So we don't even take care of our children who are already born. They don't have rights. They don't have a right to an education they don't have a right to safe water drinking water, they don't have the right to safe clean air, they don't have the right to good food. So if you're going to be so concerned about some sales that are going in a woman's body. What are you going to do about, you don't, you don't want to abort them before they before they're born, which is certainly our boarding them after they're born. Oh, there is a good point that exactly before I go on to another question to you is there something that you would like to add to this. Exactly what Dr. Blessman says, the Constitution was written by white man and guess what they own slaves. Black men were not included in the Constitution, women were not included in the Constitution, Native Americans were three fifths of a human. That's, it was all very racist. And I guess the Supreme Court justices will say, Oh, we need to look at the original Constitution, we're going back to slavery days. America is should not be going backwards, we should be going forward. And it's a scary time so people need to wake up, get heated up and fight. And both, you know, you know, we are mad as hell. All right. So each and everyone listening to this. And if you listen to it, talk to your friends and family and you go to the phone. Start checking out who was doing what, because this is serious people that he have two lawyers here and a licensed clinical psychologist willing to okay don't get me started and I went off on something else here but you know, it's just upset. I'm just, this is really sick me. But you know we have five minutes left. Leslie now. You know, unless you take two and Patricia can take one and Daphne you take one and I'll take the rest. Get it, Patricia. What do you want to close out with. Well, you know, I always try to find a silver lining in, in every situation, even the most disastrous, disastrous ones. So the silver lining in this one is, I'm hoping that women are going to wake up a women across the spectrum. Got to remember, there was a certain group of women who voted for that one. And he was the one they brought in those that those Supreme Court justices so we need to be a lot more politically astute and vote. Daphne, I agree and also point out that it was a woman Amy Coney Barrett who was nominated by Trump as a Supreme Court justice and she voted to do away with abortion to. So, women and men who are thinking about people of the United States reputation and protecting our women's bodies, not just women's bodies but every person, giving us a brighter privacy. We need to be concerned and we need to stop this nonsense in the blood before it gets worse because they've already told Clarence Thomas already said, we're going to hit gay rights next. So, wake up. My co-host. Yes, co-host. Well, you know, and that's the thing because I was on a plane flying back to Hawaii and I got a message when I got off from a gay interracial couple who was fiercely concerned about their future and wanted to meet and talk about the what how do they legally protect their family. And so if you think that this issue of the Dobs decision overturning Roe versus Wade does not impact you. I say it does, because this is the very first time that we've rolled it back. And I, and I hope it's okay to share this. When you talked about being engaged civically and voting. Daphne and I are both members of the African American Lawyers Association and we are going to be hosting governor's talk story because here in Hawaii, especially in Maui County, everybody from the governor on down is on the ballot. So I want to invite you all to our sessions where we are talking with folks and you can get more information by going to bit.ly, bit.ly.bite.ly, slash gov talk story and get to know the people and ask them the questions, do you support my right to choose? Do you support being able to support my child after the child is born? Just in closing, the person who's sitting there getting ready to make this really hard decision. This decision is for you and your doctor. And we stand with you. I've got my, I don't know if you can see it, but I've got my Planned Parenthood stands with you shirt on today. Yeah, we love you. You are cared for you are here for a reason of purpose. And it doesn't matter what nine people have to say about your life, you do what's right for you and we'll stand with you. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Well said, well said. Well said. Thank you, Dr. Dr. Patricia Joe. Bless me. Thank you, Attorney. Daphne Barbie Wooten and thank you to my host. Attorney Leslie Matthews. I want to leave the system viewers with this. Next time. The national anthem is played. Every woman and girl should take a knee. I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. Aloha. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.