 Professor Bridges you said several times you've used a phrase I want to make sure I understand what you mean by it You've referred to people with a capacity for pregnancy Would that be women? Many women cis women have the capacity for pregnancy many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy So this isn't really a women's rights issue We can recognize that this impacts women while also recognizing that it impacts other groups those things are not mutually exclusive Senator Holly. Oh, so your view is is that the core of this this right then is about what? So I want to recognize that your line of questioning is Transphobic and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing that. Wow You're saying that I'm opening up people to violence by asking whether or not women are the folks who can have pregnancies So I'm one I want to note that one out of five transgender Persons have attempted suicide So I think it's important because of my line of questioning because we can't talk about it because denying that trans people exist and Pretending not to know that they exist. I'm denying that trans people exist by asking you if you're talking about women Are you having pregnancies? Do you believe that the men can get pregnant? No, I don't think so you're denying that trans people exist And that leads to violence. Is this how you run your classroom or students allowed to question you or are they also treated like this? We're you're told that they're opening up people to violence. We have a good Class you should join I bet you might learn a lot. Wow, I would learn a lot. I've learned a lot. I know Extraordinary That was amazing So for those of you who don't know that was Kiara bridges She is University of California professor of law and she was shutting down senator Josh Holly's Transphobic line of questioning during a Senate judiciary committee hearing and my favorite part was when she said you should join one of my classes You might learn a lot. She said this to a US senator like a boss. That's Perfect, that's what you have to do these people they do not deserve our respect And you can tell that Josh Holly was trying to be patronizing He was smugly trying to own her but she didn't back down and she's correct Now one thing that irritates me about these anti-woke politicians and anti-woke broadcasters is that they oftentimes will talk about the woke PC police trying to tone police other people But was Kiara bridges their tone policing anyone was she correcting Josh Holly and said no no It's not women. It's people with the capacity for pregnancy No, she was just trying to be more inclusive and more factual to be honest, but she wasn't tone policing But here you have Josh Holly Seemingly offended that she was using more inclusive language and trying to tone police her So who's the real tone policers? Is it the woke people or is it the anti-woke people? I mean, it's just ridiculous now What I want from people to do the takeaway from this is to be like Kiara bridges Don't just be a passive ally actually confronts this type of transphobia actually stand up For marginalized people because as an ally if we're just passively supporting we do nothing to advance their cause But if we actually vocalize our support for them and defend them when need be that's what actually Helps them solidify not just their rights, but security in the United States which trans people desperately need currently Now why was Kiara bridges there? Well as Alex Bollinger of LGBTQ nation explains bridges was testifying at a committee hearing about the legal consequences of the Supreme Court's decision In Dobbs v. Jackson women's health organization a decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the federal right to an abortion in the United States So that moment went viral for obvious reasons It was really nice to see her shut down a transphobic senator But there are other portions from her testimony that I think were really important and worth sharing So that's what I want to do so I want to share a response that she gave to a question asked by Corey Booker And the point that he was making here was also really important But she said something that I hadn't previously thought about that really invalidates the argument that Republicans are pushing to kind of make people feel Better about this this whole abortion being returned to the state's issue. Take a look I've been looking at just data and seeing that states that provide a great access to contraception free access to contraception Actually lower rates of unwanted pregnancies like Colorado lower rates of abortion by empowering Women and low-income women in particular I in the in the dissent of the Dobbs case They pointed out what to me was absurd The reality that many of the states moving to create the most restrictive bans on abortion Are the various states that aren't doing the things that are obvious to lower the rates of? maternal death like expanding Medicaid and And so this argument that they value life by not providing access to contraception By not expanding Medicaid Their states have some of the worst records for women dying and pregnancy related causes It seems rank hypocrisy to me and And especially as it affects African-American women who died three times more And I was wondering if you just maybe dr. Nichols and dr. Bridges could just as cogently as possible in the limited time I have left Can you just talk about how these bans in the name of life are actually causing so much more death In communities especially for the most vulnerable women. I'm just gonna take 30 seconds and then I'll pass it to you Thank you so much for that question I want to also point out that the states that are passing the most restrictive laws around abortion are also the states that are preventing people from voting Senator Lee senator Cruz have talked about oh this decision just to turn through this Dobbs decision just returns it to the Elected representatives of states too and people can battle it out in these laboratories of democracy as to whether they want to protect Fetal life over the interests of the pregnant person These are the same states that are stopping people from voting Texas has the most restrictive voting laws on the books Texas's SBA doesn't represent the will of the majority of Texans Texas SBA represents the will of the majority of Texans that were able to vote so in order for this to be a Democracy we have to protect voting rights and I leave it to Everyone in this in this room as well as the rest of Congress to prevent voting rights so that we can be a real democracy That is such an important point that she made and I haven't heard anyone talk about it in this manner I don't believe it's acceptable to strip women of their right to make decisions about their own bodies Even if we had a functioning democracy I don't believe in this prospect or this concept rather of states rights in a way all of our civil rights and civil liberties That being said we don't even have a functioning democracy The states where they're out long abortion are also the same states that impose harsh restrictions on voting and as Cory Booker pointed out they have the highest rates of maternal mortality So if these states actually were serious about giving the people a say if these Republicans were serious about protecting, you know Life wouldn't they try to do something to address the high rates of maternal mortality in their states? Well, no because they are hypocrites and they don't care. This is all about controlling women They don't care about bodily autonomy pro-lifers Supposed to pro-lifers really forced burthers, but you know these pro-lifers they never Suggest that we should be forced to donate blood be forced to donate organs Even when you're dead and you're no longer using your body They don't mandate that you give those organs to people to save lives You have to at the DMV say I want to become an organ donor So if we truly valued life Wouldn't there be these other steps that they take? I mean it's a joke and honestly I'm to the point where I don't even want to engage with this pro-life argument because they are Demonstrably anti-life because when you outlaw abortion that is a pro-death position You're subjecting women to unsafe and illegal abortions that could threaten their lives And that's what professor Bridges was pointing out here now in a different portion She was asked by John Cornyn a question and he was very clearly trying to do this gotcha game with her But as you're going to see she doesn't take the bait. She doesn't play along with his semantic game She doesn't play along with what he wants her to respond to take a look. Do you think that a Baby that is not yet born Has value. I believe that a person with a capacity for pregnancy has value. They have intelligence They have agency they have done about the baby and I'm talking about the person with a capacity and I'm you're not answering the question I'm asking I'm answering a more interesting question to me I think that the baby that is not yet born Let's say the day before those mother delivers. Do you think that baby has value? I think that the person with a capacity for pregnancy has value and they have the they should have the ability to control What happens to their lives? Well, and and I just note you refuse to answer the question That's how it's done folks. That is how it's done. You don't have to play their games You don't have to answer their bogus lines of questioning because these are people who are not serious They're not living in reality when conservatives visualize women having abortions They visualize a woman that's like eight eight months pregnant who just on a whim decides to go get an abortion But if you actually look at data for abortions by gestational age the overwhelming majority of abortions occur within the first 10 to 12 weeks of pregnancy. So we're not talking about babies. We're talking about zygotes We're talking about clumps of cells. So if someone is eight months pregnant, they want that baby They're not just going to flippantly have an abortion because they had a change of heart, right? Abortions are necessary because if you have an abortion at that point in the pregnancy Well, then that means either the life of the pregnant person is at risk The fetus is non viable or they had a miscarriage and an abortion is needed to remove Said dead fetus. So, you know Republicans they have to lie and up escape because they don't actually have an argument They have to try to cultivate sympathy Illogically so in order to control women in order to control people and what they do with their own bodies and it's unacceptable Now one more clip that I want to play for you features Kiara answering a question from Chris Coons About what other rights could be stripped away now? This isn't necessarily surprising but because she is a law professor I think that her expertise here is necessary and this is a warning more rights are going to be stripped away because of the Rationale that the Supreme Court used to overturn Roe v. Wade. Let's watch what other fundamental rights might reasonably be imagined to be at risk Right. So looking to the nation's history Whether that you know date is 1787 when the Constitution was ratified 1789 when the Bill of Rights was ratified Or 1868 when the 14th Amendment was ratified is to look at periods of the nation histories In which marginalized populations today were completely erased So I can talk about the LGBTQ community They were not contemplated by by the framers by those who ratified the Constitution Their ability to live lives that are have dignity their ability to love who they who they love and to marry who they marry That just wasn't contemplated contemplated by those folks who ratified the Constitution people of color Immigrant people people with disabilities people with a capacity for pregnancy, right? All of those groups were not simply thought of and their interests were not Considered during that moment in the nation's history So I can tell you the litany of cases that we ought to be wary about being reversed Obergefell versus Hodges Lawrence versus Texas Loving versus Virginia Professor what's the common thread across all those cases some folks who are watching me Not know as much as you do about the specifics of what kinds of freedoms are protected We're talking about the the court framed These these cases the link that links them is this Using the liberty term of the due process clause to recognize that people Need the capacity to make decisions about their their personal lives about whether they create a family about how they raise their family I'm about decisions regarding love and sex and marriage and and so Pull row out of that thread of cases that have all recognized though the right to privacy and liberty interests is to create Chaos and create uncertainty with regard to those cases that came after and that's Lawrence versus sex is protecting same sex Contact same sex marriage as well as the cases that came before. Thank you professor That's a insightful comment on how much else is at risk here and why this impact Fundamental rights that we've many of us millions of us come to rely on to make decisions about our own life about our families about Who we love how we love And when and how we choose to have children. Yes, Senator Coons. Isn't it frightening? I mean, it's almost like your party should take extreme action to reign in this rogue Supreme Court before they strip us of more civil rights and civil liberties But really he's not the focus Kiara is the focus and everything that she said there It's what we've been hearing from legal experts So she's just reinforcing what we already know, but I still think it's important to hear from experts They're saying look all of these civil rights and civil liberties that were won through the Supreme Court because of the due process clause They are in danger So this is a warning sign to Democrats to people in power if you want to stop this Supreme Court who's gone rogue From taking away more rights, you can't just sit here and complain when it happens You actually have to take action. You have to pack the Supreme Court Institute judicial ethics that would lead to impeachment of the Supreme Court justices who lied to get confirmed of the Supreme Court justices Like clients Thomas who wouldn't recuse himself in a case related to January 6th, which implicates his wife Ginny Thomas You could pack the Supreme Court You can't just sit here and let them take rights away from us and if you're Joe Biden warn us that gay marriage is next Warn us that they're going to do more harm to us if you have power you have to act you have to wield that power So that's all that I have. I think that Kiara Bridges is an Amazing person and to see her shut down all these senators put them to shame Was really satisfying to watch so um, yeah shout out to Kiara Bridges I absolutely love what she's saying. She is um a treasure