 any subject. Welcome back to Think Tech. This is Jay Fidel. We're talking about community matters and today we're talking about abortions beyond state borders with Cynthia Sinclair, one of our hosts who has a number of shows on Think Tech, and Kimi Ide Foster, who is actually a practicing lawyer and associated with the Hawaii women lawyers, which is right in my right. So this is great, you know, and we're going to talk about this topic because this is something we need to follow. It's a moving target. I hate to use that term, but, you know, it is not over, it won't be over. It is part of the, what do you want to call it, the American political landscape, and it will be for years to come. And even the events in Ukraine are not going to ameliorate the difference of opinion we have in this country. I might also add, you know, that if the Catholic church in Rome were to say, we do not oppose abortion anymore, wouldn't that pull the rug out from all of this fighting and controversy? It's just one statement by the pope. Cynthia, let's go you first. Let's talk about the state of affairs and the Missouri statute that's mentioned in this article, which appeared what, in the New York Times, about abortions beyond state borders, and how the people, the Republican legislature in Missouri wants to change things to reach beyond the borders of Missouri. Well, it's not just Missouri. It's Texas. It's Idaho. It's, well, isn't there four, I think there's four other states that are, if they're not doing it, they're poised and ready to do it. And this is the part that gets me. America has always been against vigilanteism. It has been, from all the way back to, you know, Western days, you know, this whole everything, this mentality that they've got going, it reminds me of mob rule. And it's like, how can, just because I think it doesn't mean you have to do it. And that's what, you know, America has always been this very rooted in that mentality of anti-vigilanteism. And this is exactly vigilanteism. It is encouraging people to sue people. If I give someone a ride, say I lived in Idaho or Texas, and I gave someone a ride to California to have an abortion, when I came back, I could be sued for that. That's just ridiculous. And then one step further, there's people now, they're saying in this specific one with Missouri, I think, they're saying that if you have sex in Missouri and get pregnant in Missouri, even if you're from Illinois, and it's legal to have an abortion in Illinois, or I don't know for sure, I'm just using that as an example, because I think Illinois is one of the states that's not. But at any rate, you know, so if you just get pregnant in that state, it is illegal for you to have an abortion in any other state. That is ridiculously outrageous. And every time I see anything from these crazy, almost rabid people that are anti-abortion, is that- You mean the people that say, my body, my right, don't touch me, don't make me wear a mask or have a vaccine, it's my right, liberty, freedom, you know, all that. That's the irony. Exactly. Every time I see that, my body, my choice thing, I just scream and have to turn off the TV, because I can't watch anymore. It's ridiculous. For them to not see the hypocrisy in what they're doing. Well, Kim, let me turn to you about the national federal system. And what it means, for example, for California to adopt a whole bunch of like, they haven't done it yet, but there's a movement to do it. Non-cooperation with any state that wants to reach, like Missouri, that wants to reach outside its borders. Can you talk to us about what California has in mind and maybe other pro-abortion states have in mind? And can you tell us what that means within the federal system on the basis of which this country is organized? Absolutely. So, I mean, a little bit of background here is that, of course, we know right now, as of today, which is likely to change in the next few weeks, maybe in the next few months, the Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. It's federally constitutionally enshrined. Technically, everybody is supposed to abide by it. What we are seeing now is a slow chipping, well, we're starting to see a slow chipping away at Roe. And what we are now looking at is just a tidal wave. We're going to live in a post-Roe world. I was telling Cynthia prior to this that I sit on the board for Planned Parenthood Advocates affiliates, which is the national board that covers, I think, six states now. And we have just seen so much fallout from this as people are getting ready for it. Because these states, like you were saying Cynthia, Texas, all of these states, I think we estimated after the Texas SB-8 ban went into effect, we saw an 800% increase. That's crazy. That's absolutely bananas. So, what states like California are trying to do is they're going the opposite direction. They're saying, okay, if you're going to make this a state's rights issue, which it's not, but if it's going to come down to a state's rights issue, fine. You want to play that way? We will, too. We don't have to comply with you. We don't have to turn over people to you. California has a history of doing this. I believe, I don't know if you guys remember, but kind of during the Trump years, California just refused to comply with ICE. They were just like, nope, we're not doing it. You know, bless California. I love those people. And honestly, that's what states have to do is being, if these other states want to say like, okay, we're going to do some state-by-state basis, then pro-states have to be willing to stand up and say, then fine, this is a safe event. Other states that have been doing that is Washington, I think is on the eve of passing a bill that would make it a safe harbor state as well. Hawaii is very, very close. I mean, Hawaii's protections have always been, thank God, very, very good. Are there constitutional signs? We were one of the first states to allow this. We sure were. We were. And the bill right now is honestly just tech cleanups that makes it obvious that it's open to everybody. It is gender affirming and getting rid of some kind of archaic criminal sanctions that have been on the books, but to my knowledge, have never actually been used. And so that's, you know, that's what we can do is you make it available for these people to come here and you make it easy for them to come here. And I think this is getting a little off the legal track. But one of the things that that article you sent us talked about and one of the things that we try to encourage people at Planned Parenthood is, you know, donating money to organizations that can pull resources across state lines is huge. That is the number one thing people can do. Because like you said, it's crazy. You can sue an Uber driver. You can sue the neighbor who drove you across. That's bananas. And so having resources where you're going to have to fight it and God knows if any of these are going to stick. But part of the problem with dealing with a legal suit is you still have to go to court. You have to get an attorney. You have to go to the process and take time off your job. Like besides the trauma to the poor, you know, I'm going to say victim. It's everybody else that gets pulled into this that don't have a monetary wearable necessarily. So that's that's my take on this. You describe the situation of the post row world. And indeed the article talks about that. We were on the threshold of a post row world. And I guess that means everybody assumes, and I like your take on this, everybody assumes that as soon as the court gets its hands begins to speak in a while, I think that'll be soon like the latest the October term. They will, they will, they will say that a state, any state has the right under the this section eight, bill eight, whatever you call it, Texas legislation or any Missouri legislation to outlaw and to make criminal and to do this vigilante kind of thing against abortion. And so half the states in the country will jump on that. And we will we will be outlawing abortion completely in half the states. And the other part and I want to ask Cynthia about this in a minute is how the anti abortion forces react to that because the article touches on what they will do when this happens. But my question to you, Kimmy is we have chaos. It's chaos. It's madness and no question. Absolutely madness. And, you know, okay, let's let's let's take the partisan element out of the Supreme Court for a minute, just for a moment. Imagine with me almost in a fictitious world, a reasonable, impartial Supreme Court that is bent on doing the right thing for the country. Okay. What would it hold now given the chaos among the states? Oh, I mean, absent a compelling reason. And I'm thinking of things like Brown v. Board of Education. I'm thinking, you know, those are those are landmark decisions. After the compelling reason, a previously decided decision is the law of the land. You don't take it up. You don't dismantle it. There's no reason for it, frankly. And they're doing I mean, if in your perfect world, J, I would love to live there right now. If this was, you know, a nonpartisan court who wasn't held bent on taking away women's rights, minority rights, immigrant rights, they would let Roe stand because frankly, Texas, you have no business doing this. You know, Indiana, you have no business doing this. Kentucky, what are you doing? Like, there are certain things that are left to the states. And there are certain things that as a matter of either law or judicial decision have been decided at the federal level. Roe is a federal decision. It is the law of the land. You don't get to just say I think something was saying like I'm opting out, you know, like it's not how that works. And that's to me, that's just crazy that people are that they're doing this under the guise of states rights. And it's like, no, you're you're reaching a little too far here. There's there's absolutely no basis for you to be doing this. You don't have any basis to overturn this and kick it back to the states. This is not a, you know, police matter. You know, states are entitled to police their borders, how they want to. This is something that has been enshrined in our federal law. And it should stay there. And the circumstances that existed at the time Roe was decided are really the same, though the world, our society has not changed. This is strictly political issue. I want to come back to you in a minute about, you know, the Supreme Court, because it's turning out to be a huge disappointment. I want to talk to you about that. But Cynthia, you know, the article suggests this is very interesting, is that after in a post Roe world coming soon, okay, the there'll be more trouble. And there'll be attacks of one kind or another on states which do what California is is thinking of doing and Washington is thinking of doing. And for that matter, what Hawaii is thinking of doing to frustrate these attempts to reach beyond the border of an anti-abortion state. This is very frightening because this means that states will not only reach women who have abortions out of state, but they will reach providers who are doing abortions out of state, even though those providers have nothing to do with the original state. What do you think will happen? This is this is very troubling. What do you think will happen? And how will it how will it work out? Well, all people that are involved, even nurses, you know, not just the doctors that do the or the nurse practitioners that that do the abortions, but anybody who works in the clinic is at risk. And that's a big problem. It's been a problem for a very long time, even in a in a pre row, even during the row world, you know. So there's a thing called state at home laws that can be put into effect. And then the addresses and the zip codes of the providers and the people who work there are not actually given out to the public. That's just the first step. But you know, activists have blown clinics up. Activists have shot providers. That could happen anywhere in an anti-abortion state or in an abortion state. And there's no reason why one of those crazy activists couldn't cross the line and go shoot up a clinic in a state where it's legal, right? Not could, but will. There's there's no gray area here. We don't have to give them the benefit of the doubt. They've already established who they are. They they stand there with a pro life sign and then shoot somebody. You know, none of it makes any sense in that will not sense 70%. This is an important thing. 70% when every time they do a poll, 70% of Americans are okay with abortion. So what's, you know, or some sort of a, you know, I just am always hoping we can make peace here in the midst of all of this. Some sort of a, you know, is there a way we can make an agreement that, you know, it's only to a certain state 12. Oh, what about the notion that the majority rules? Well, isn't that isn't that in the Constitution? Well, I think so. Isn't that in Robert's rules of order? I mean, it's everywhere, but we seem to have forgotten that notion. Well, obviously, because Republicans are all about minority rule. They know they're in the minority and they're right back in control of Congress and the White House, because they know. I want to ask you one more thing, and that is the pill that gives you an abortion. I'm afraid I don't know too much about it, but it's obviously it's a technology that works. It's being used. How does all of this affect the use, the distribution, the legality of a pill like that? Well, you know, when it was the pandemic, there were special laws that were made so that they could nail out prescriptions. So maybe they could find some sort of something in that sense. All I know is every single person that claims to be anti-abortion and wants all this to go forward is saying that it's okay to rape somebody or abuse them incest and they're still going to get an abortion. They have to be tortured because this person thinks that that baby's more important. And then those same people, those same Republicans vote no on any kind of social welfare. So, you know, they're just hypocrites is what they are. True fact, but what about the pill? How does it work? Is it in general distribution? How does this all affect the use of the pill? Can the pill get by all of the trouble we're having on the issue? Well, I think it has to be used in before a certain time in and before a certain, you know, month. So maybe Kimmy knows more about the specifics of how the pill works, because I am not familiar with that. Okay. Kimmy, do you know about that? Do you want to comment on that? I know a little bit about it. So I think you're talking about what's commonly known as Plan B, right? Yeah. So Plan B, it's very, very early on. Ironically, I believe, and don't quote me, I'm a lawyer, not a doctor. But it would be effective within those six weeks, which is the trigger ban. I think it's even affected up to, you know, eight weeks, maybe 12. But it's not a little bit long, maybe eight weeks, but at any rate, it definitely would be effective. And like Cynthia was saying, during the pandemic, once the more progressive states started making available via mail, which was fantastic. It's kind of always baffled my mind that you have to go in for a full exam and do a full physical exam for an oral ingestion. That just doesn't make a lot of sense, you know, like, you also want to be home because the after effects can be traumatic on your body. And so I think that, I think, I know there are definitely some states, and I cannot remember the knots out of my head that are trying to stop even the administration of the pill, which is just crazy. I don't know how, and to your point earlier, J.F. Catholic Church, a lot of these people root their arguments in the morality of, you know, vitality of life, and life begins at conception, but I'm sorry, that is just a load of crap. Like right in the first, in the first two to three weeks, that has as much sentience as a scab on my arm. Like it is the same thing. It is a cluster of cells that has, it is not thinking independently for me at all. It is just sitting there, it is occupying space, and that's it. You know, so I would love to say the pill's a way out of it, but I think if these states have their way, they're going to get rid of all of it, because it has nothing to do with, and I think what Cynthia was alluding to here, it has nothing to do with morality argument or women or abortion in general. I think it has everything to do with controlling women's bodies and controlling minority populations. And, you know, God forbid you let them get up off the farm because they might start thinking and reading and having ideas. And like, what would we do then if the country gets more diverse and people actually have a chance to plan their families? Like, you can't put them on welfare. Oh my gosh, horrible. And I think that's what it comes down to. That's what they're worried about. It's not abortion as a morality clause. It's, you know, all of a sudden it doesn't happen. It's about women. Right. We let you vote. We let you own property. And now we're going to let you control your own destiny. Like, that's just too far. It's just too much. Cynthia, you wanted to add? You wanted to add to that. I can see you were getting very excited. I was going to jump in only because I wanted to see. I think traumatic is the wrong word. I have friends that have used that pill. And I think it depends. I've had, I've also had some friends who've had some bad reactions, but some who have no reaction whatsoever. So, okay. So I guess just I know had no reaction. Depends. Yeah, depends on who you are. Okay. Well, I have a question on a very, very subject. And it's addressed to Kimmy, Kimmy. It says North, North, New Hampshire, New Hampshire just passed the bill, making it legal to deny the purchase of birth control medication at the store slash cashier's discretion based on their own beliefs. That is the belief of the store and the cashier. What are your thoughts on this? And how does it relate to other efforts in other states? This blows my mind. That's horrible. I mean, this sounds to me like it's an extension of the whole hobby lobby, like religious exemption. And if I, if I don't think it's right, which doesn't stand, it doesn't make any sense. But the problem with this is the same problem with somewhere like Texas and New Hampshire is that if they pass the law, somebody is now going to have to go and challenge it, bring it up to the state courts, and then it's going to go, you know, the state court's going to go to appeal, it'll go to the state supreme court, if it gets all the way there, then you'll take it to the federal system. And so while I think that that is complete and total BS, and I don't think it's legal, I don't, it's been tested, it's not legal. It's going to take a while to undo the damage. And that's one of the most dangerous things about bills like this is that even if it doesn't stand in the end, and I hope it doesn't, but obviously they're a lot more conservative than I realized, people will have been heard already, like the damage is done, you know, and, and we've seen what we've seen in Texas, and that's really terrifying in New Hampshire is that other states, sea states doing things like that and think, ah, the good idea, copycat bands, you know, and whether or not it should stand at the federal level, it has to go through the state process first. So it's, I think you said this, LAJ, it's just a mess. I, yeah, I take your point. And why does this remind me of all these bizarre voting statutes that are being adopted all around the country? And I take your point, Kimmy, that this creates confusion. While it is in court, nobody knows which end is up. So Cynthia, how, how do we deal with this? I mean, it's really, I'm wrapping around, you know, both, both all of these bills about abortion, but also about voting. We have a state of confusion in the federal system now, where you don't know which end is up. The guy in the department store, rather in the, what do you call it, the store. I don't know. I guess it's a, it's a drugstore, you know, he's confused or she and, you know, the people who administer the voting and the voters, they're confused. And the public, including women who would like to have an abortion in another state, you know, they don't know which end is up. They, you know, and it changes. I mean, we have some good articles lately in the times, but let me assure you, there are other articles in other newspapers and, and, you know, right wing channels around the country, radio and TV, that are making it much more confusing. And I don't know which, which way to go. What can you do? They may take these, these bills and statutes much more seriously than the guy who wrote the article that I circulated to you. And so how do we deal with this? This is kind of a plenary confusion about critical issues. Unfortunately, the Republicans started this move long before now so that they now control so many legislative houses in so many different states. They do not represent what the majority of the American people want. They represent what their small slice wants. And until, um, I think we need three parties for one. And I think that until people get involved at the, and I've been saying this, Jay, you know, this, I've been saying this for a long time, people need to get involved at the base level that, you know, we wouldn't use that term base. Oh, excuse me, excuse me. Um, grassroots. Thank you. Thank you. No problem. Um, but that we get it involved at the macro level, you know, and the micro level that we start going out and running for office, run for office, vote in the little elections, the local elections, vote for who your mayor is, who your school board members are, vote, vote, vote. It's funny, you know, there is an organization called run for something, run for something.org. And it's, um, the CEO is a woman named Litman. I remember this because it left such an impression on me to find out about it. And it's exactly what you're saying. You know, don't sit in your chair and you're not in, you can't be an armchair participant. You have to actually do it. And that's why, you know, she's doing this website. And I'm sure she has a lot of thoughts about the issues we're talking today. So I want to go, I want to go to a larger point though, Kim, and I talked about this with Abhi Soyfer, you know, the dean, the former dean of the law school. And, you know, my concern, our concern is the Supreme Court, because it's really taking the country in the wrong direction. And it's wrecking our, the most important thing is public confidence in the government. You know, the social fabric by which we all agree on fundamental points, values. And the Supreme Court is dousing that one after the other. You can't say it's 100% of the time, but it's surely over 90% of that time. Yeah, pretty close. They're wrecking us. Okay. And so what, you know, you're an attorney, I'm sure you think about this. I know I think about it. The Supreme Court is a failure, man. It's a failure right now today. Nobody has confidence they will do the right thing. What do we do? I make you today here, I appoint you the commission that was supposed to come up to come up with something. Judicial review. Go ahead. I mean, yes, I do think about this often, Jay. I think, I mean, the hardest part to me, there's a couple of things going on in my head right now is that, you know, on the one hand, the lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court was meant to be a balance to the other two branches in that you have one branch that moves very, very slowly. You have Congress that moves, you know, at an every and you have the president changes out every four years or eight years, depending on how they're doing. And I think while people were generally good, educated, fair, I think that that worked. I think that that was the model that worked. What we've seen recently to reiterate your point is this is a train wreck. I mean, it has just become the mouthpiece. It's the Trump hangover at this point. And all it's doing is kicking us back to the 1950s in every way it's possible. I'm sorry, did you say the 1950s or the 1850s? Both honestly. But it's and what people can do is what I would do is I honestly don't really have an answer for this, unfortunately. I've thought about this a lot. And I think some of it comes down to like somebody was saying for God's sake, vote, like get out there and start making noise because you elect the people that confirm or not confirm these these judges at the end of the day. But you know, I would love to have some terms you just review board where you have an independent bioparty system where you look at these decisions and you can see if they comport with law. But that undermines so many of our basic federal tenants. It's like, where do you start going with this? When do you start rewriting the Constitution? And when you open that kind of worms, it's a whole mess. And so I don't know what to do at this point. And I think that's it's frustrating so many people is it's like, you feel like a speck in the grass, because there are these the nine sitting there making these decisions that affect people all across the country for generations. And they're never going to have to feel the effects of their policies. That's what drives me the most. That's is that they are so far in their ivory towers, they're they're okay. They don't have to worry about how it feels. And so they have to worry about recusing themselves. They never have to worry about recusing themselves where their wives do very bizarre things. Oh, my God, insurrection context. I cannot believe. I know I have a whole list of things that I think about just as Thomas. But it's frustrating because once I mean, we're seeing two effects. Once they say it's law, it's supposed to say law. But they're also doing this weird thing where they're picking and choosing and they're going to start kicking things back that they know the states will overturn. And so they have now made themselves, you know, judges aren't supposed to make law. They're supposed to interpret and rule on the law. And they have made themselves a law making body. And that is not acceptable. That goes against every principle of constitutionality we have. It runs against federalism. It runs against common sense. You already have a law making body. That's a legislature. And I don't know what else people can do other than, okay, like I said before, if this is going to become a state's thing, we got to shore up on our side. We have to start, you know, putting these protections into place. But in the long term, short of, you know, getting rational, reasonable people in there that will confirm people in a timely manner, maybe adding a couple more justices. I wouldn't be opposed to that either because it's a little weird that nine people decide the fate of the entire country. And more viewpoints would probably help. Maybe some kind of, I don't know, threshold or diversity DEI initiative would be wonderful. But how do you how do you put that into practice with the Supreme Court? You know, I'm not sure if I answered your question other than to say I'm not sure. I've always thought that you, you know, it would be very positive if you if you gave them a course call it judicial temperament, judicial reasonableness 101, and they had to get at least a B average, you know, I don't think they would get that. Cynthia, I want to go to you with my Dickensian question. I always like asking about the ghost of Christmas future. Okay, so right now we were on the precipice of a post-world world. We're in the precipice of a lot of states following, you know, this right wing movement about abortion and other things for that matter. We're on the precipice of confusion and fragmentation around the country and and and fear, a fear on the part of women who don't know what to do and whose lives will be upset, whose, you know, whose careers will be upset, who will wind up without the funds to have an abortion or without the will or the clarity to cross state lines and have an abortion and they will be profoundly affected in their lives and and okay that's that's clinical that's one person but now I'm going to give you the Dickensian question, the ghost of Christmas future. Suppose I give you 330 million people who are all concerned and all afraid and all having children they don't want. What kind of a country do I have demographically with a lot of kids that were not wanted? I think that the answer to that is sort of obvious yes and it's a mess. It's an absolute mess. You've got people that walk around with PTSD from not being wanted. They know that when you are when you just, children that are abused and that is a form of abuse, neglect is a form of abuse. If you don't want your kid, you're going to neglect them. They're going to be having to deal with the PTSD of that. They're going to grow up to be narcissistic jerks so we're going to have a country full of narcissistic jerks. Oh how wonderful doesn't that sound fun? Well they should all join the Republican Party. I'm sorry I said that. Why did you say all I heard was the Republican Party? Never mind. Maybe it's good that's all I heard right? That sounds like the Republican Party actually. It's you know um it's hard to know how things will go because they're going to be just reversed back and we haven't talked about what it was like in the 1950s when people were going to back you know back alley doctors. There weren't even doctors to get their abortions because they were going to have them anyway right and so they they're they're dying so we've got mothers and babies dying all the time because they get septus and they die painful deaths. The sepsis is terrible from that and so the the possibilities of horrific damage to women is just a little more than I can stand and I I scream at the TV about it all the time. Okay last question for you Gimmy you know and you and I have talked about this is um you know the in the bar you take an oath in the bar you have a professional obligation. Every lawyer which distinguishes a lawyer from other people um has a special obligation to the community. So my question to you is what and lawyers have really not weighed in on this the bar associate American bar association nothing nothing and many other Trump Trump type issues nothing. So what's missing here why is that and what should a right thinking thoughtful committed patriotic if I can use that term lawyer do in order to change things because after all we are the merchants of the law. I love that Jay um well one I think the reason that you know the ABA and other organizations like that have not weighed in on it is that there's that bizarre archaic moral stigma that they you know God forbid you get involved in something that's a little bit controversial um you know it's one thing if there's already a a clear national movement like me too ABA came out and weighed in on me too which was fantastic finally but it also waited until it was clear that the country was not going backwards um and something like this you're right it drives me nuts I don't know why people don't say things but I think you know it's I completely agree with you in terms of our role in society is that we were blessed to be a part of something and we have the education and the tools and the know-how um so to the extent you can I mean volunteer go educate people there are community programs you know Planned Parenthood does community education programs volunteer your time as I mean this is not legal but as a lawyer you're probably a little more thick skin in the average community because you get yelled at all the time either by your your own client council judges like you're used to just kind of being like okay sure like brush it off um but do things like volunteer to walk people to clinics walk people in and out of clinics show up at educational events um volunteering schools volunteer with universities all of those things volunteer your time even as a counselor like you don't necessarily need to understand the educational law but you have a way of thinking you've learned how to logically process and you've learned how to communicate information that you should be putting to use in the community you know if somebody calls and says like is this legal just tell them you know the answer you meet like I I know a lot of a fair amount about what's legal what's not legal in terms of traffic speeding am I the person you want to call for traffic court no do I still volunteer for things like access to justice yes because that's my responsibility and that's our responsibility is you know take the education you've had and put it to use make it accessible to other people thank you Kimmy Cynthia you look so excited there I want to offer you that the opportunity to close what would you like to leave with our listeners Pammy's awesome you thank you you're so sweet you were slang making my heart form I wish I'd and I'm really glad you're on the show with us today and I'm glad I was on the show with you guys to hear this because it's my honor honestly Jay thank you for reaching out thank you Kimmy thank you Cynthia great discussion thank you so much for speaking out on this