 for joining us a very, very eventful week. A lot of possible things to pick out of the air and we're going to focus in on what the recently leaked first draft Roe v. Wade overturned opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court tells us and what concerns it raises and we're extremely fortunate to have with us today on her birthday. Tina Patterson from Germantown, Maryland, mediator, arbitrator, experienced entrepreneur and business coach, Rebecca Ratliff, one of the leading insurance claim executives in the country for many years and now a leading mediator and arbitrator and nationally and internationally and losing very timely and appropriate the APABA Asian Pacific American Bar Association group awardee this year together with a women's rights advocate and leading attorney in Hawaii for a good number of years. Well, we've all seen what Justice Alito has to say, what strikes you having seen what he said, what's missing, what's wrong with that in your view? Where does it go off the rail? Tina, you want to start us off? Actually, I'm going to defer to Louise on this one for a legal opinion first. Okay, Louise. Oh, thanks, Tina, but I think I've lateral thanks to Tina before. So oh, I don't know. I don't know where to begin. I think what strikes me is the fact that there is a sense of betrayal on so many levels from the time of confirmation hearings where many of these people who have signed on to the opinion have claimed that the Wade was settled law and basically not to be disturbed and then to have this just not even to make an effort to pretend that they're just sort of moving a little bit to just have this totally polarity of views on what's happened and also to just misrepresent the history to claim that this is only reflecting what the history has been on abortion when in fact there's more information coming out on how all of the laws against abortion are of fairly recent origin that this was not something that existed in the 17 or 1800s. I also think it's just incredibly dangerous to be re-examining the scope of the right of privacy and then to claim that it has nothing to do with all these other civil rights that have sprung from the right of privacy like same-sex marriage and the right to contraception and the like to say somehow that's different. I just see this as a very dangerous slippery slope and one that just seems to be I don't know just sort of totally disregarding the advances in the idea that you know women of the right to privacy that women should have a decision over their own bodies and principles that have been you know I've seen develop from the time I was a college student until now and not and you know hard to imagine and sad to imagine that now we face the idea that it's going to be left to the political winds of every wind winds of every state. Rebecca what strikes you about this? I think Louise hit the nail on the head. Dangerous is the word that comes to mind for me because this can set so many wheels in motion in so many areas that it's a little well it's not a little scary it's a lot scary for the reasons that she gave. It can open up Pandora's box and our country is fragmented as it is and to now leave you know to have this this law changed and to have the states be able to weigh in with their flavor could really just tear up the country worse than it is. There are so many different reasons why a woman might need to make a decision about her body and it's I just I do feel that it's very dangerous and it's a very sad time for America that this is being contemplated. My concern too is that it's just done there's no there's no vision or view to it I mean what are we trying to do here is it legislating morality rather than keeping this a medical decision between a woman and her doctor are we trying to make people more moral take care of kids because I you know if that's the case then we can't just you know ban abortions there needs to be a whole social network or system put into place to you know support parents and children and children from unwanted pregnancies and the like you know is that going to be happening in these um states banning abortion I don't know I I'm not optimistic Tina I think your thoughts chair um I think the timing is unsettling the the one the leak um the time the timing of the leak the fact that there was a leak and the timing of the supreme court bringing this forward to the public I don't think it's a coincidence that it's a that all of this is unfolding as we're entering midterm elections and that it's not just politicized but literally parties are taking different positions and the fact of the matter is the topic or subject of abortion is not always defined by political party it's literally defined by that person's beliefs perspectives and experience I always tell people if you want to find a room divide a room have them talk about birth death and property those three topics will divide people immediately because each person has a different perspective and underlying each of those three areas is the this concept of power what having power over who comes into this world or the choice that you can make as to who comes into this world how you leave this world and in what context do you leave do you leave pre-mated do you leave in a casket do you own property or do you have to go through someone else so the timing to me um is very interesting I also think that it's it's it shouldn't be a surprise and because we've seen the swing and I still of the perspective that we are undergoing huge changes from a societal perspective um talking about race racism gender who we love how we love and now as was called out by louise this right to privacy how how you maintain your body or what you do with your body your choice um I do think that it's it's part of this pushback we see it with critical race theory and this to me is just another step in that pendulum swinging back and people really conflating fiction versus what the reality is a row versus weight and what this means or what it potentially means so it's very unsettling and those are really important insights because putting this back in a historical perspective as for example austin history professor heather cox richardson does so very well in her six day a week blog letters from an american which I commend to everyone very very well researched and thought out and presented is you now have for the first time in decades a despite a popular majority favoring woman's reproductive rights a a small white male christian minority operating in favor through state legislatures of restrictive women's reproductive rights restrictive voting rights restrictive educational and employment rights and protections all of these things under the guise of state rights states rights which was exactly the pretext that would use in the civil war to try and perpetuate slavery we come from full circle it's like that doesn't it in many ways yes scary to me because you know I don't want to sound too extreme but yeah my thought was well you know there might be some legislators in states that want black people out picking cotton again I mean it's this is that I know that sounds really extreme but since you brought it up chop you know when I was saying that it's scary for so many reasons that was one of the things civil rights are in jeopardy on many levels and that seems to be exactly the point that this is only one of many really critical personal private individual civil rights protections that now stands at risk of being eroded on a claim of interpretation of our history and traditions by justices who clearly have not been educated in and don't know what our rich cultural history and traditions of all of our peoples especially people of color and indigenous peoples really maybe those the groups that you're so indigenous peoples african americans raised here africans who live in america but maybe were educated in some in america and some abroad um caribbean americans latino americans um asian americans we all although we're black and brown people we all have though we have some shared experiences we all have very very different historical experiences and sometimes um as a mediator um and as a as a speaker a lot of times when i'm a panelist i'm talking about cultural competency and the you know the importance of understanding that every brown person is not the same every brown person doesn't think the same and you know again but we have some shared experiences there are many things that we see differently because in context of our culture there are different realities that apply to maybe one group and not another and you know that's that's a reality um here you know tina mentioned critical race theory and how it's being canceled in so many different states um this is just uh it's just a scary time in our history where um i'll go back to what luisa what are we really trying to accomplish what what is all of this really about um and the minority of people who are kicking up all of this dust um you know you just have to wonder what the end game is and you know and and why um harmony you know i i pick harmony although we all have to agree all the time we're not going to always agree sometimes i don't agree with myself um but harmony really is a beautiful thing when we take care of each other we were i believe we were created to be communal and the division of americans and people really um all over the world especially at a time of pandemic when they're they're already so many factors of instability it's just it's just a it's a bad you know it's a bad time and tina spoke to the timing of it time and timing um you know we'll tell the story later because um yeah what is the reason for this to happen now um and you know who really is behind it you have to think that these issues are very highly motivated which is even more scary please your thoughts oh yeah um you know you're right it just seems like one in incidents of just a whole disease of um you know so the anti-democratic anti-multicultural movement in this country and you know my my question then is okay how do we come back that in the long run um you know i think we go back again to the importance of voting um we go back to the importance of making sure that the voice of the you know those those values are reflected in our local and state legislators legislatures um there was a commentary i heard on on npr this morning about how you know the republicans have really focused over the last decades on building up their political power in the state and democrats not so much and i'm thinking well why not i mean that was you know we got a clue during the trump years that we needed to focus on our local and state governments to shore that up um but i just think that this underscores the need for uh you know being vigilant about voting rights getting people out to vote and also just you know continuing to tell a positive story about the values of multiculturalism and the good things that are happening there's so many bad things happening in the world right now that you you know just want to pull the covers over your head but it seems to me this is the time that we just need to uh you know make sure that we're educating the next generation to be you know much more open-minded and humane and communal and you know multicultural than what is i hope um you know a slowly shrinking minority view that right now is just too dominant in our culture and that's an important insight and perspective because we know that a lot of the history and traditions of this country have moved strongly in a direction of inequality mistreatment disrespect for people who were not male white christian landowners the way things started out and that over the last particularly 50 years or so a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice have gone into moving the needle in a more balanced less unequal less disrespectful direction and now to have that needle swing back so far so quickly through minority control what do you see that might help us get back on track have to keep speaking out we have to keep talking um many of the programs i've done if i'm moderating i end um my parting words are stay safe but don't stay silent um we have to keep having these conversations and facilitating conversations being willing to be uncomfortable um these are uncomfortable topics because um people don't really want to admit to the stain of racism and um you know slavery racism the sins of america people don't really want to talk about it and you know we've talked to about allyship and what that really means um and what i know is ally is a verb even though it's a noun in the dictionary ally is a verb um there are many people who are aspiring allies and i've had people say i'm an ally um and i thought well you you're trying um but an ally is willing to be uncomfortable willing to speak out against um injustice and inequality and inequity um chuck crumpton is an ally um you know a person who is is willing to be criticized for supporting what is right not what is comfortable and the conversations that chuck facilitates and louise facilitates um and we don't have um our our comrade sandra on on this one but you know tina and i um are um you know happy to to have and lead conversations around these topics so that people can be seen heard so that perspectives can be shared so that solutions can be found and that's you know this this really is a movement there is a movement of of there is an evil movement and there is a just movement and people have to pick a side because again uh silence is complicit if you're if you're silent we hear you um and you know people at this point need to to pick the side i pray is democracy um but it's you know we have to continue to have these conversations to keep not just the awareness um going but also the activity around making things better together oh exactly right yeah that reminds i was just thinking that um you know sometimes when you know you've suffered a personal setback or insult you have to think this is not going to define me and to me this setback is not one that ought to define the the work of those of us who want to have a different more just democratic um you know multicultural society and this is our you know sort of the the bell sort of the bell to get us to move forward i mean i i do think of this past years and maybe the coming years is one of focusing on allyship and intersectionality um and building coalitions across different groups you know the course of planning an agent specific heritage month event for our firm one of our speakers who's Asian American talked about his work on a black reparations panel in california because they have a legislative initiative going forward to study black reparations and his his approach is you know the why the Asian American community is should be supporting this and you know the his the common historical roots and so i think that you know this we need this reminder of the bad things that could happen to try to get you know ignore that and just move forward get the right people to get together and you're exactly right i love that rebecca stay safe and don't say suck stay silent people need to be willing to speak up i agree with rebecca regarding the idea of speaking up but i i i also think this leak and the conversation regarding roe vs weight is an opportunity to have a larger discussion regarding reproductive rights and women and and where we are in terms of how we discuss reproduction um how we discuss our bodies how we discuss the choices that we make it's it again timing in the us we're coming up on mother's day and the part of this discussion regarding roe vs weight is abortion and and how is abortion perceived and we're seeing what i'm seeing on social media women talking about and not the stereotypical person actresses and other people who are well recognized saying why they had to make a decision i think it's also important we're hearing as we talk about the reasons in which abortion may be permissible are things that we wouldn't that are considered taboo incest human trafficking and at times other health reasons rate would be another reason having a discussion about that and taking the taboo away from these topics but also taking the taboo away from women's reproductive um stages as we become young women as we move into our full reproductive years and as we age there's still this discussion that we don't have about women aging and a woman deciding that she wants to be a mother or she doesn't want to be a mother and that the taboo that's associated with that is underlying part of this um this discussion and and where we're seeing the division i think it's an excellent opportunity to have that that talk and to really come together again across cultures um what does it mean and in some cultures it's it's lauded you know having a child or having being a mother is is highly regarded and for other communities yes if you do it great but you know taking that stigma away and saying here here's what can happen here are the choices here are the many paths but at the end of the day it's my choice it's my body and that's a really important centering value to come back to is that as we've seen in the polls favoring abortion favoring protection of voting rights favoring same-sex marriage favoring open sexual preference classifications all of those things have indicated if anything the efforts to build a growing respect and appreciation and understanding for the most personal private choices of each other has been growing at least in the populace at large and but now we have a situation where neither the federal legislative branch nor apparently the federal judicial branch is going to protect those civil personal private rights and the states are questionable so where do we go from here we do have a few state legislatures hopefully more that are you know vowing to uphold the right of privacy and the right to reproductive choice we're just having discussion today about how some employers are taking it upon themselves to offer benefits to women who need to travel for you know to terminate their pregnancy and the like so I you know I just think yeah you're right Tina and Rebecca great I you know points about we need to get the stories out this needs to be the start of a conversation and we need to think about all the different ways that we can whether in private or public forums support reproductive rights and that's a great reminder because maybe the decisions and the choices should best look for their protection at the levels where people are interacting directly rather than protection by government forces which clearly can be politically directed or manipulated okay in our last minute any last thoughts on where we are where we're headed Rebecca I guess I'll just say that I know a lot of the points that I made or make often when we're having these discussions are broad which is why I appreciated Louise identifying that so much of what we talk about and the issues when we're drilling down our intersectional one thing affects something else and you know and every everything that we do all the spaces we're in the politics around you know these issues well that that don't start off politicized but get politicized it all ends up affecting us as individuals and how we live and interact how we live personally and professionally and so I just I want to say Chuck thank you for this platform for us to have these conversations and thank you all Louise last I did have one but I think it left me but anyway I just think this is part one of a continuing discussion because this is going we need to sort of keep this for you know front and center on how this is going to motivate our activism one little thing I did as I think I pointed out to you I started wearing my Ruth Bader Ginsburg pin to remind me about courageous women who have you know set a good example for all of us and we need to remember people like that. Chuck I think you were trying to find a quote by her who remembers that about Reducted Tina found it and Tina it's your birthday we honor you today actually all right any last words yes I am going to read a quote from former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg the decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman's life to her well-being and dignity it is a decision she must make for herself when government controls that decision for her she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices and what a great place to wind us up for today to remind us all the most important thing we can do is to respect understand and honor that individual worth and value in each of us thank you all thanks those who join us come back in two weeks and many more topics including probably more on this one take care thanks Chuck 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 linked in and donate to us at think.kawaii.com mahalo