 Hi, this is Sandy Baird with our monthly show called What's Happening in Which We Discuss the News. Usually I do all the questioning, but today we have a man from Ivory Coast and a colleague of mine in the law who will be questioning me about the all-important topic of Roe V. Wade and what's going to happen next. We remember that the decision that was leaked by probably a clerk within the Supreme Court, a very unusual occurrence, is not the final step. The final decision will be made in June whether or not to overturn the very important case, granting women's rights to their own bodies of Roe V. Wade. So here is Eric, who's going to grill me, I guess. No, I'm going to ask questions from the perspective of the public. And also hopefully I will carry the questions that the new Americans from which communities I'm from will think about. So exactly what are we talking about? What is Roe V. Wade? All right. I think there's a lot of misunderstandings first out there, and both, by the way, people who are pro-choice and people who are not pro-choice. Roe V. Wade was decided in 1973 in a landmark case in which women's rights were recognized and women's rights to be protected equally with men under the law. That is the argument that is never heard, but I've listened to the argument. Sometime I would like to play a tape of that argument, which I have, that was made in the U.S. Supreme Court by a very young woman by the name of Sarah Weddington, who represented another woman, Norm McCovey, I think her name is, who wanted to get abortion in Texas and could not. The justices ask her, Sarah Weddington, what constitutional basis do you have? And she cited the 14th Amendment, and I want our viewers and you to listen carefully to what the 14th Amendment is. The 14th Amendment says, all persons born in the United States of America are citizens of the United States and are entitled to the equal protection of its laws. How does that pertain to abortion? That is the only kind of, one of the main reasons that Roe V. Wade was granted, because the justices looked at that and said, yes, women, born women, are citizens of the United States and they have the same right to make their medical decisions between themselves and the doctors that men do. So in this instance, it's like the right to make the decision to have an abortion. Right. Okay. As Howard Dean, our governor once said, the issue of abortion is essentially, should be a private one between woman and her doctor, period. Or a woman and her provider of mental health counseling or in order to take a pill or whatever. The issue is a medical decision made between a woman and whomever she wants to consult. Right. And isn't that the way it is with men? Yeah, it is. Okay. In this case, the court said, okay, you know, this has a constitutional base. Yes. Yes. But at first, this hearing in the Roe V. Wade matter in 73 did not, it went for two days, which is unusual. She was asked back, Sarah Weddington was asked back to make her argument again, because the court says to her, where is it in the constitution that a woman has a right to an abortion? And of course, as the right argues, there's no mention of abortion. There's no mention either of a vasectomy, either. There's no mention of appendectomy either. There's no mention of any specific medical procedure. But she had to find a basis that would allow women to make their own medical decisions in privacy. And so that the court said is the 14th amendment, which said all persons, then you get into a definition of what a person is, what is according to you, what do you think a person is? A person, it's someone that is bored. Yes. Yes, okay. That's right. And that's what the 14th amendment says, all persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States and are entitled to equal protection of the law. You'll notice, though, that no one anymore is making that argument. No one. No one. No one. And it's really a mistake. It's a mistake on the part of the pro-choice people, and it is not a mistake on the anti-choice people who can argue, as they do, where does abortion appear in the Constitution because it doesn't. So at this time, just quickly, how was it received by the population? When victory. It might have been a... But many people, you've got to understand abortion is the illegal abortion. It's the leading cause, one of the leading causes of the death of women. I don't think men or other people who are anti-choice realize that at the time it doesn't... Anything they do is not going to outlaw abortion. No matter what happens, women are going to get abortions, right? Don't you think? Don't you think? All right. So you either do it legally or you don't. You either do it safely or you don't. And for centuries, illegal abortions had been killing women. So technically, was it... I mean, this decision by the court was a precedent. Yes. What are the consequences of such a precedent now? For years and years and years, although there was a lot of opposition, and there was a lot of opposition from people who called themselves pro-life, and they organized fiercely, and they have been quite successful. Nevertheless, the decision stood, Roe v. Wade stood, and then in a further decision called the Casey decision, it was also decided that Roe v. Wade was precedent and should not be overturned, although abortions could be regulated. Yeah, because I heard that the lawmakers are talking about codifying... Right, well, that's different. Yeah, that's different. Okay, so here you have at the highest court of the land saying, yes, women have the same constitutional rights as a man because they're born people. Number one. However, it's very unusual, but the court does have the right to overturn cases even though they're precedent. They did, for instance, in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1868 or so said that it was okay for segregation. That was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, but it's very, very unusual. There's a principle called starry decisis, which means that the decision stands. This time, though, the judges are majority, anti-woman, anti-choice, and they've said in this leaked opinion that Roe should be overturned, and I think it's probably pretty likely that it will be. To play the devil's advocate, is it a bad law? What can we reproach to Roe v. Wade? I'm not going to talk about whether it's bad law. I don't think it was bad law because it was based on the 14th Amendment. You've got to understand that there's an opposing argument from the anti, I call them the anti-woman source, the anti-woman argues that it is bad law because they'll continue to beat the drum. Abortion is not listed in the Constitution. Why don't you let legislatures decide this issue? That's the other argument they're using. I'll get back to that. Tucker Carlson, for instance, believes that people should vote on it. I'm going to ask you a question. Do people have the right to vote on any fundamental human right? No, I don't think so. I'm asking you as a... Yeah, go ahead. No, I don't think that people should vote on what is my right or not. An issue that is not maybe pertaining to human rights, maybe, but my choice is my decision. Okay. For instance, that's what Carlson and others on the right are arguing. Leave it up to the states, leave it up to people's vote. You cannot leave fundamental rights up to a vote. That means the majority could vote. You don't have any more right to free speech. You don't have any right to bodily integrity. You don't have any right to freedom of the press or freedom of religion. You can't go to church anymore. It looks like the Taliban's in Afghanistan. I'm thinking about the states. So a lot of them kind of were waiting for that, you know, overturn of Roe v. Wade to make their move. Right. And in this instance, a lot of them have like what they call, I have to look for, the trigger law. What exactly it is? A trigger law, as I understand it, is the minute that it's overturned, then a law is going to be immediately put into place, which bans abortion. Let me go back to that. I would ask these people, how are you going to ban abortion? And this is the way it was done in the past, even in Vermont. There was always on the books, I think probably everywhere, a law which stated that a doctor broke the law by performing an abortion, the doctor only. So a doctor could be put in jail or penalized by heavy fines. If he could have been found to have performed an abortion. However, now listen to this, this is really important. It was never a crime for a woman to do it herself. Ever. What a confusion he might have. Okay, right. So there was, in a sense, no real crime committed. Not really. It wasn't a homicide crime. If a woman could do it and not be punished, why couldn't a doctor do it? So that case came to the Vermont Supreme Court in 1972, before Roe. Did you know that? You did? Yeah, we had that discussion a few days ago. I was quite surprised. Why were you so surprised? No, but I was kind of puzzled by the contradiction between the doctor being able to be sued. Not sued, put in jail. No, no, put in jail. And the lady nods. Okay. So that was what was decided. In 1972, there was a case called Beecham versus Leahy, our own Patrick Leahy. And Beecham was a doctor who wanted to perform an abortion and was not allowed to. That went to the Supreme Court of Vermont. And in that, I was there the day that that was decided. I wasn't a lawyer, but I was sitting there watching. And all the men came out, and what they said was exactly what you said. Too much of a contradiction. We're going to basically repeal that law. So then there was no criminal part of abortion. A doctor could then perform an abortion. Right? So past Roe versus Wade, how the states or, I mean, the communities where he wasn't welcome to have abortion reacted, how did they react? In Vermont? No, outside of Vermont, for example, there are states that have historically and fundamentally against this right. So Roe v. Wade came. So how did they manage to... Those states in which there were people, maybe majorities, maybe not, who didn't like Roe v. Wade, began to pressure legislatures to pass restrictions to say, the father has rights over this fetus, or your boyfriend does, or that abortion had to be performed in hospitals rather than clinics. They tried to restrict abortion with various degrees of success. That's how they did it. But they really pressured to have a president elected that would be able to control the nominations to the court. And they succeeded in that. They got Donald Trump, and he got on the court, that guy, Kavanaugh. Who was anti-choice, I think. But now the main question is how and then what are the strategies to maintain women's rights? The fundamental women's right that is being taken away, if that Supreme Court decision is passed. All right. So if the Supreme Court overturns it, and please remember that this decision was a draft decision and it's not the final one. If it is overturned completely, it's not banned, abortion is not banned, the issue then returns to each and every state. And then we have a chance to make laws about it or not. In Vermont, there is the attempt to include in our law the codification of Roe v. Wade. In other words, the language of Roe v. Wade, allowing abortion has been put into the language of Vermont law. Also in the fall, Vermont's having a constitutional amendment of Vermont's constitution to allow abortion, to put in some kind of an amendment. I think that's really iffy, though, not so certain. In every other state, however, if it's overturned, many other states will produce their own laws. Maybe they'll go back to a complete ban on doctors performing abortion. That's what I think. And that's trouble because then the nation is split. And then, I think then certain states will be a mecca for that and other states will be places to avoid, basically, if you're a woman or a girl. But I also heard that the idea of banning travels in regard to... Your fundamental right under the constitution is to travel, period. I suppose they can really try to do that, to ban travel, would they do it? It's impossible. In my day, we're talking about that with the vaccines. So it means that, for example, if someone wants to come to Vermont from the states that ban, you know, if that person comes here and then it's like established that that person had an abortion in Vermont, would they have any way to... Go after her? No, not in their own state, no. I doubt it. How would they know? This is going to become, I mean, you got to understand that there's been violence connected with this struggle a lot. I was a part of a big demonstration where the anti-women choice people had invaded the Vermont Women's Health Center and locked themselves with bicycle locks to the file cabinets. All these men locked to the file cabinets. Can you believe this? This was astounding. And I went out there just to watch and to see if anything illegal, which it was happening. And I mean, it was a natural physical invasion of the clinic, but there have been clinics blown up. Yeah, blown up. Yeah, yeah. And doctors who perform abortions murdered with high-powered rifles, right across the lake. You have to also understand that in the other case, I mean, in the opposite camp, you know, there have been also violence against those who opposed, for example. No, where's that been? Tell me, give me some instances. There was one this weekend. Yeah, this weekend. But you tell me others. Well, in any case, you know, it looks like that issue is more of a politic issue than, you know, it's very political. It's very unfortunate. Like seeing it from someone who comes from another country, you know, whatever laws here sometimes and most of the times have some implication for countries that receive AIDS and do business with the U.S. If some such things happen here, there's a chance that countries over there will have to follow these kind of rules. Why? I mean, I... The foolish if they do. Yeah. I know that, I know that, for example, under Donald Trump, you know, some of the money that we're going towards contraception. Emily Pallin, contraception. That's the way, you know, kind of, you know, halted. So is there a way and or until it is in the U.S. Constitution, there's no way to blackmail other countries? Blackmail other countries. The U.S. Constitution pertains to our country. To our countries. Period. But, you know, there have been attempts at the U.N. level to deny funding for family planning that are, that are the U.N. funds in Africa in particular. There are all these religious objections to even having people have contraception in foreign countries through the U.N. And I think the United States has participated in those bands. I mean, there's a heavy duty, as you probably know, Roman Catholic presence in Africa, correct? And I think they have argued against even contraception, haven't they? They do. I mean, they have that idea. My question is, there is a lot of, you know, debate about, you know, the, I mean, abortion, but like less about how we can fight the root causes of abortion. Which are what? Sex. You want to fight sex? No, not sex, but maybe more of, you know, sexual education, more of, you know, access to contraception. Yeah, of course. I'll tell you one country which has been very progressive on women's rights, and that's Cuba. They've had, and Cuban women have had the right to contraception and abortion for a very long time in Cuba. And the standard of women's status in Cuba is very high. If you look at a country like where abortion isn't allowed, women's status is very low. Because this is what happens when a woman has no power over her own pregnancies. She gets pregnant every nine months, doesn't she? Produces these huge families. No one can support them. Back to the Supreme Court, and this is a question that's deroding my spirit. Like, it looks like we're going towards any kind of rule of law that is heavily backed by people's philosophy code. I mean, I mean, yeah, religion or, you know, isn't it, you know, some kind of... Look at that. We got the court, as someone says, elections have consequences, correct? So everybody has known forever that the Republican Party had at least part of it. Not all, but part of it is interested in overturning Roe v. Wade. Donald Trump said it over and over. Now, I'm not a person who hated Donald Trump at all because I didn't. I didn't vote for him because of this. This was one of the reasons. But he said over and over, I am going to appoint pro-life judges. That's what he said. He won. He did it. Democracy is in danger. No. Why is it? How is that democracy in danger? I mean, he was elected. Yeah, no, no, no, no. But if now you have to appoint judges... You always did. According, yeah. Like the only way to fight now is like we're no longer fighting, you know, around elections. We're going to... Always did. ...the Supreme Court. Always. And then trying to... That's why... That's what they call court packing? No. There's nine... No, no, no, no. But that is what... What some of the Democrats want to do. They're very unhappy that right now that the conservatives control the court. So they want to make more justices that will obey them. That's not a good idea either. You know, the good idea is to make sure you know what you're doing when you vote for these people who have become president. The Constitution also can be called upon when it's good for one and then rejected when it's not. Of course. Because that Constitution was written like when the country was dominated by male... Still is. ...white male. White. And even a friend reminded me that a black person was counting for three-quarter of a man. Yes. And there's a story behind that. So, but how can this Constitution... Three-fifth. Yeah, three-fifth. How can this Constitution still be like pertinent, you know, to... Yeah. You don't understand that. It outlines the... That's all been amended. First of all, black people, by the same amendment. You know when that amendment was passed to the 14th? Do you have any idea? Very long time ago. And it wasn't very historical. I think it was... It was 18, I think, 68, right after the Civil War. Okay. So, the big question right after our Civil War was, what legal position did slaves... Were slaves going to have? It was very uncertain. They'd been property before that. So, under Abraham Lincoln and then the presidents after them passed three important amendments during Reconstruction, the 13th, abolished slavery. The 14th said, what I said is said, all persons born in the United States are citizens. Who did that mainly pertain to? Ex-slaves. Yeah. But also women because at that time women also were like... No, they decided later that women were people and allowed them to vote. That was the 19th amendment. Then it's the same spirit that today is like denying women the right to decide. That's right. I mean, because when you're deciding, Roe v. Wade, you're not really deciding the fate of the fetus. The fetus is within a woman's body. The main question, and this is the question that I think has to be answered, who decides who is the best decision maker for that fetus? Who should decide the fate of that fetus? The government. The pregnant woman, not pregnant person. The pregnant woman, a government bureaucrat, a husband, who should really decide the fate of that unborn fetus? Who? Who would you trust best to make that decision? The woman and her doctor. Yeah. Or the woman. The woman. Period. Right? Some opponent to abortion would say that it's like if you were giving a blank check or so forth. Who? To a woman. Gee whiz. That's not such a bad idea. Is it? A blank check to a woman who's poor? That'd be terrific. In my mind. But what are you talking about? What do you mean? No, but you know that people would overdo it. Overdo what? And how? Replace in a way of being careful. I'm just playing the devil's advocate. You can do what you want, but I'm asking you the same question. Who should decide that? Who? Tell me. The woman and her doctor. The women, but you know with the advice or the best. They don't have to get the advice of a doctor either. They can decide the day after they get pregnant to take a pill. Right? Yeah. So I'm telling you, I'm asking you again, the core value is and the core question is who should decide if it's a moral question. I think it's a medical question. But let's say it is a moral question. Give the religious people an inch, okay? If it's a moral question, who's the best person to make those moral judgments? The person. I mean the woman herself. Yes, exactly. Because a woman has sense. She's got brain power. She has morality. She's a moral agent. She's the only person that can make that decision. So at the end of the day everybody is in his own conscience, the person to make that decision according to whatever you know, believe or you know, philosophy. And if I say to all the men, if you don't want to get abortion, don't do it. You go and or to all the women or to the world. If a person, a pregnant woman wants to keep a child, that to me is also a very fine and helpful decision. I like having kids in the world. I do. I think it's very healthy. But it's up to the mother. Yeah. A foolish question. I mean, if that is overturned, is there a way to bring it back and push forward? Probably not. But there is a way to make all the states safe. And that's what Vermont is doing. And this fall is going to be on the ballot in Vermont of whether or not to amend the constitution of Vermont to accept abortion into its constitution. But the law has also codified Roe v. Wade language here in the state of Vermont. But that's really the plan B. I would hope that it's not overturned. If it's overturned, however, I would hope to keep every single state protected of women's rights. And that's a struggle that's going to be ongoing. Because if you think about it, the oldest hierarchy in the world, isn't it even between men and women? And it isn't male over female. That is the oldest and the least changeable. So if you believe in women's rights, if you believe that women are equal to men, then we're going to have to go fight it every generation, it would seem to me. Or not. What do you think? I think that, you know... What about Ivory Coast? Is it... Ivory Coast is... Like the French? Yeah, it's like the French. It's, you know, it's a right, but it's still not a right. You don't really know. But the French allow it. The French allow it. So Ivory Coast also, you know, does, but... And then viewed from France, that debate here is that of, according to a friend of mine, that of the middle age. What do you mean? I mean, like, this is not a debate no more. In France, there's no debate, but how about from Marine Le Pen? Because she's... I mean, of course, she's pushing because she has like all the Catholics and that. But it's mostly, in France, the making sure, at least I think that, you know, whatever is happening in the religious realm, not to affect. No, they believe in the French do, the separation of church and state. In fact, they believe it so much that they outlaw things like the hijab, which just I think is crazy. You know, let people dress the way they want, you know. But at the end of the day, no system is perfect. Certainly not ours. I don't know about other systems. I don't comment on other systems. This is my country. And I still maintain that we have a right to criticize our own country. So wait and see. And then... Wait. No, no. Be vigilant. But because that's... It's not decided yet. Yes, correct. We're still waiting for that decision. Maybe in June, right? Yes, it's waiting in June, yes. All right, final words? No, no final words. We'll be back next month, I hope. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.