 Welcome to Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Fighting continues in Sudan, where the U.N. reports over 420 deaths since April 15. The U.S. and other nations move quickly to evacuate diplomats as the Sudanese military and the paramilitary rapid support forces fail to adhere to announced ceasefires and fears mount of a full-blown civil war. In the Western Darfur region, doctors say they're overwhelmed, treating gun victims, including many children. In the capital Khartoum, many residents remain trapped with dwindling supplies of food, water and power, as Sudan experiences a near-total collapse of Internet and phone service. Many others decided to flee for other parts of Sudan. When I fled, I left with the clothes on me, without money, as I kept them at home. I didn't bring clothes. I didn't bring a backpack. Nothing. If you find a way out, do it. Don't plan to stay in Khartoum. If you think you are safe by staying at your home, you are not. We'll get the latest on the Sudan conflict after headlines. The U.S. Supreme Court halted a ban and other restrictions on the abortion pill, Mipha Purstone, Friday, keeping the nation's most popular abortion method available for now, as an appeal of the nationwide ban on the pill plays out. The ban was issued earlier this month by the Trump-appointed right-wing Texas judge Matthew Kazmarek, who ruled the FDA's 23-year-old approval of the drug was invalid. The Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas were the only justices to issue a public dissent in Friday's ruling. The case is still likely to end up in front of the Supreme Court after making its way through a lower appeals court, leading to mounting calls to restructure the nation's highest court. On Friday, New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, quote, The court has devolved into a highly politicized entity that's rapidly delegitimizing, open discussion of checking the court's abuse of power and defying Kazmarek possibly contributed to pause consideration. AOC and others had called on the federal government to defy the Texas judge's order. Arguments in the challenge to the Mipha Purstone ban are scheduled for May 17. Former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo has been extradited from the U.S. to Peru, where he faces charges of corruption and money laundering while in office from 2001 to 2006. Toledo is accused of receiving millions of dollars in bribes from Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht in exchange for public work contracts. Toledo was taken into custody last week and arrived in Lima yesterday. He's denied the accusations. In Kenya, authorities have exhumed the bodies of 47 followers of a Christian cult who apparently starved themselves to death. Investigators say Pastor Paul McKenzie and Tanguy convinced members of the Good News International Church they would go to heaven if they stopped eating. Police say they've rescued over a dozen members of the cult from starvation, only to have them continue to refuse food. Most of the bodies exhumed so far were of women and children. Burkina Faso's military government is blaming fighters affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State for an attack on Thursday that killed 60 civilians near the border with Mali. Survivors said more than 100 people on motorcycles and pickup trucks arrived in their village dressed in military uniforms before targeting dozens of men and young people. President Burkina Faso has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced about 2 million since 2015. In Mexico, thousands of asylum seekers are marching from the southern state of Chiapas to Mexico City protesting abuse and demanding immigration jails be shut down. This comes nearly a month after the deadly fire at an immigration jail at the U.S.-Mexico border. This is an asylum seeker from Honduras. We're protesting the 40 deaths in Ciudad Juarez to demand the closure of the National Migration Institute, to demand President Obrador pay attention to us because ours is a good cause, to demand the removal of the migration's director because these migrant centers are the concentration camps and bunkers of this century. The majority of victims of the fire were indigenous people from Guatemala. Last week, about two dozen makeshift tents in a migrant camp in Maramotos across the border from Texas were set ablaze. Asylum seekers stuck in Mexico due to harsh U.S. immigration policies have long denounced human rights violations, including torture at the hands of organized crime and Mexican authorities. Mississippi's Republican governor Tate Reeve signed legislation Friday expanding Mississippi's control over law enforcement in the black majority capital city of Jackson. The legislation approved by Mississippi's majority white Republican-led state legislature grants the Capitol Police greater authority over much of Jackson without being accountable to local leaders or residents. It creates a separate court system for Jackson composed of judges appointed directly by white state officials. A lawsuit filed by the NAACP seeking to block the law from taking effect warns it will create separate and unequal policing. In Atlanta, Georgia, Rashida Williams, also known as Coco Dadaal, the star of the award-winning documentary Kokomo City about the lives of a group of black trans sex workers was fatally shot last week. The 35-year-old is the latest victim in a wave of violent attacks against trans women in Atlanta following the April 11 murder of Ashley Burton and a shooting in January that left another trans woman in critical condition. Meanwhile, in Maryland, a transgender woman is suing Maryland's Department of Corrections after she was improperly held in a jail for men where she was sexually assaulted and denied medical treatment. According to the federal lawsuit, Chelsea Gilliam, who is black, was then transferred to another facility and placed in solitary confinement for three months. She was in custody from December 2021 to May 2022 and says she continues to suffer from anxiety and depression. President Biden's expected to announce his bid for reelection as early as Tuesday, which will mark four years since he announced his candidacy for the 2020 presidential election. He's reportedly tapped Julie Chavez Rodriguez to run his 2024 campaign. Chavez Rodriguez was Biden's deputy campaign manager in 2020, currently the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. She's the granddaughter of the labor leaders Cesar Chavez and Helen Fevella Chavez. President Biden signed an executive order establishing an Office of Environmental Justice within the White House. Biden unveiled his plan at a ceremony in the Rose Garden Friday. Environmental justice will be the mission of the entire government woven directly into how we work with state, local, tribal and territorial governments. This is in order to direct the federal agencies to address gaps in science and technology. For example, there's a lot we still don't know about the quality of people's wastewater or the air they're breathing. Environmental groups welcome the announcement by caution that Biden remains a major supporter of fossil fuels, having approved drilling projects on federal land faster than Trump did during his first two years in office. The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement, quote, if the president wants to distinguish himself from oily Republicans, let's see him reverse the willow project, stop approving massive gulf drilling and gas exports and phase down public lands drilling, they said. The United Nations warns in a new report that record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases led to planetary scale changes on land at sea and in the atmosphere last year. The World Meteorological Organization stayed at the Global Climate Report released on Earth. They found the years 2015 to 2022 were the eight warmest on record, despite the cooling impact of La Nina over much of that period. And Arctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record. Glaciers retreated at an accelerating pace and ocean heat content reached a new record high last year. The WMO warned sea-level rise due to human activity is set to continue for millennia. The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to announce limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in a bid to cut one of the main sources of U.S. air pollution by 2040. The new rules reportedly would force power plants to capture carbon dioxide emissions from their smokestacks or use other methods to eliminate nearly all carbon dioxide emissions by 2040. Climate activists around the world marked Earth Day Saturday with marches and other actions drawing attention to the climate crisis. In the U.K., Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace and other groups organized four days of protests under the banner of the Big One, which included a massive rally and a die-in outside London's Parliament. This is an air quality researcher and climate activist speaking from one of this weekend's actions. We're in one of the busiest streets of London. The air pollution created from this and the agriculture ammonia is creating a spring haze over London. Now, all of this comes from meat and dairy and fossil fuels. Now, what the government are not doing is taking either of those two things into account, trying to reduce either of those two things. Instead, they're trying to get one over 100 new oil and gas licenses, which are incompatible with a 1.5-degree warming world. Smaller rallies took place across the United States, and Washington, D.C. activists marched to the White House to demand an end to the nation's reliance on fossil fuels. Elsewhere, the German climate group Last Generation organized a slow march through Berlin, causing gridlock in parts of the city. The same group, known for its acts of disruption, shut down dozens of traffic junctions in Berlin today by gluing their hands to the streets, including in the middle of a major highway. An activist from Last Generation, which is calling for Germany to stop using all fossil fuels by 2030, said, quote, we're bringing the city to a standstill so the government moves. And in France, thousands of people in the southern Tarn region marched to protest a proposed new highway and built a cement brick wall in the middle of a national road to oppose the project. Locals say the highway would increase pollution and threatens the area's biodiversity. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We begin today's show looking at the crisis in Sudan, where fighting between rival military factions has killed at least 420 people and injured close to 4,000 since April. Over the weekend, U.S. special forces flew into Khartoum to evacuate U.S. embassy staff. Many other nations evacuated diplomats, as well as their citizens. This fear grows the fighting could lead to a civil war in Africa's third largest country by size. The Sudanese military and the paramilitary rapid support forces have been fighting each other since April 15th, the fighting's dashed hopes of a return to civilian rule in Sudan. CNN is reporting the Russian mercenary group Wagner has backed the RSF by providing surface-to-air missiles. The head of the Wagner Group, E. Evgeny Progosian, has denied CNN's report, but on Friday he offered to act as a mediator between the two sides. In Sudan's capital Khartoum, many residents remain trapped with dwindling supplies of food, water and power, as Sudan experiences a near total collapse of internet and phone service. The World Food Program's warning the fighting could plunge millions more people into hunger in Sudan. This is a Nigerian student stranded in Khartoum. Since there is no electricity, there is no water. I was having some little water left with me after managing the water. I cannot, for two days, I can't shower. There is no water to drink. There is no food to drink. You cannot go out to the street to buy food. There is no—there is nothing you can buy, and even the cash is not there. Doctors Without Borders recently reported up to 70 percent of the hospitals in Khartoum and neighboring states are not able to function. This is Esra Abushama, a doctor at Sudan's health ministry. Most of the big and specialized hospitals are out of service and not offering any services of examination or treatment services for the patients because they have been targeted with shelling and some of them because of the shortage of doctors and also because of electricity and water outages. We're joined right now by Khalid Mustafa Madani, an associate professor of political science and Islamic studies, chair of the African Studies Program at McGill University. He's joining us from Montreal. Thank you so much for being with us. We had hoped to also have a guest in Khartoum, but it looks like there's almost a complete internet, as well as cellular service shutdown in Sudan, so we have not been able to reach them. Professor Madani, can you describe the situation? We've been talking about it being near a civil war. Is it in the midst of a civil war right now? I wouldn't categorize it as a civil war, because that would suggest that you have essentially a collection of people, a group of people fighting another. This is essentially a power struggle, really, between General Abdel-Fatih Burhan, the general of the Standing Army. And as you noted in your report, in your introduction, the head of a paramilitary militia, Muhammad Hamdan Degalu. So unfortunately, the civilians are held hostage. So it's not so much a civil war, but essentially a fight to the death between two generals who have been partners and allies in the past. The consequence is, unfortunately, for a city, the capital city that houses approximately eight to 10 million people is unprecedented in terms of the catastrophe, as your reporting has shown. It's not only that there are over 500 people that have perished. That's, of course, probably clearly an underestimation. But the humanitarian consequences in this city, basically, the infrastructure has completely collapsed. It's not just that the supplies of food are not there, but also people are generally trying to flee the city, and most cannot. But thousands are fleeing northwards towards Egypt or towards the Red Sea in the east. There are also clashes in the western province of that four. Sudanese there are fleeing to Chad across the borders. This is unprecedented in terms of the kind of violence that has really the capital city has witnessed. So I would really categorize it less as a civil war as basically a conflict of between two generals who are basically trying to take over political control over the country. And explain what prompted this latest conflict. Give us a brief history of Sudan. Yes, absolutely. I think for your viewers, it's important to understand that these two generals had conspired and were partners in upending the very fragile coalition government in October 2021 that had been set up after the historic revolution of 2019, where millions of Sudanese took to the streets, not only in the capital of Khartoum, but throughout the country, that overthrew 30 years of an Islamist authoritarian dictatorship under the rule of the former president, Omar Bashir. After that revolution, there was a coalition government that was supposed to oversee the country to transition towards the civilian democracy and elections that would consolidate that. But on October 2021, both of these generals, one was the head of the army and his deputy was actually now is the head of these militias, Dagalu, decided basically to wage a coup to upend that democratic experiment or the transition to democracy. Following that, protests in Sudan continued. The will of the Sudanese people with respect to continuing on the road to full civilian democracy continued, forcing and compelling these two generals to actually get back to the table with civilian politicians and iron out what was called a framework agreement under the auspices of the international community, the Quad, the actors from the international community included the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. That framework agreement was supposed to restart and revitalize this transition to a civilian democracy. But there were three essential contentious issues that really have sparked this particular conflict. One of them had to do with the issue of accountability. That is transitional justice, the accountability on part of both these generals, because on the one hand, Hemeti had been accused of violence in the Darfur region. He was responsible for really thousands of civilians in Darfur, putting down that insurgency in the 2000. And Burhan himself who cooperated with that, but also both of them actually repressed the activists on the street. In June of 2019, both of them and their forces essentially killed over 100 activists that had been in a sitting trying to energize this revolution. And another issue was the dismantling of the economic empire that had been built by the former regime, overseen now by Burhan, and also dismantling the vast wealth that Hemeti, the militia leader, had really amassed through the smuggling of gold cooperation with the Wagner Corporation and also sending mercenaries to the war in Yemen. These were two essential contentious issues. But the one that really sparked this conflict was an issue over integrating the paramilitary militia into the standing army. That is really where the dispute emerged leading to this horrible conflict. On the one hand, General Burhan had wanted the paramilitary militia to be integrated within the course of two years. Very quick integration, after which he could consolidate his rule over the military establishment. On the other hand, Hemeti or Dagalu, the head of the paramilitary militia, wanted this to happen over the course of 10 years, essentially basically rejecting, integrating his paramilitary forces into the national standing army. It is at that point that both decided or calculated that they had to actually defeat their rival. Quickly, Dagalu, the head of the paramilitary militia, began mobilizing even more forces in Khartoum and throughout the neighborhoods of the capital city, and also attacking an airport in Meadoway in northern Sudan. That mobilization is what led Burhan to utilize the forces of the national army to try to eliminate his rival. Essentially, both of them now are in a battle to the death. They conceive it as a zero-sum game. The Sudanese population throughout the country is held hostage to the ambitions, the political and economic ambitions of these two generals. So it's not a civil war. It really is, unfortunately, the kind of result of this kind of greed for power and their interest in maintaining their vast economic assets and empire, both built in the course of the previous regime. You see that this could become a proxy war. I mean, you have Dagalu, also known as Hemeti, what he was in Moscow on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. You talk about him getting support for the RSF forces from the Wagner group, the Russian group. And, of course, then you have the United States there clearing out its embassy staff. About 100, there are still 16,000 Americans in Italy clearing out both its citizens and its staff, Saudi Arabia doing the same. Talk about the significance of all of this, and is this also a fight over resources, as you mentioned, gold? Yes, absolutely. Well, it is—there is no question that it'll—there's a very good chance, unfortunately, that it would devolve into a proxy war, because these two generals had already been utilized as proxies by certain powers. In the case of Hemeti, there is absolutely no question that the Wagner Corporation or the mercenaries of Wagner had helped in amassing the gold, and that was smuggled not only to Russia eventually, but the majority of it actually to the United Arab Emirates, the markets in Dubai. That's very important. As I said, he also served in the past as a mercenary, being sent to Yemen at the behest in support of Yemen, of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in that war. Another very important aspect of Hemeti is that he does have a close link with the Haftar, Khalifa Haftar of the Libyan National Army, who had also supported him. He at—Hemeti had also sent soldiers from his paramilitary militia to Libya to fight under Haftar in that war in 2019. Many of them have returned, however. That is with respect to Hemeti. With respect to Burhan, his links with Egypt are very, very strong. Sisi in Egypt supports him because he's very much opposed to a democratic evolution in Sudan, but also deeply concerned about Egypt's interest with respect to the Nile waters. What I want to emphasize in terms of answering your question in this context is the strategic location of Sudan. I think many people are unaware how important it is located. It not only borders the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, which is so important. Russia historically has really wanted to have a naval base there and had been working out an agreement to do so. That of course is a great concern to the United States and, of course, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. So there's a scramble for control over the strategic location of the port in Sudan on the Red Sea. Sudan also, of course, shares the Nile waters with Egypt and Ethiopia. These two countries, as you probably know, have been in conflict and intention over the establishment of the Ethiopian Renaissance dam. Egypt in particular has been concerned. South Sudan, for those viewers who may not be aware, does have a great deal of oil exports to China, but that oil has to go through a pipeline in Sudan. That becomes really important. So the strategic location of Sudan is the main reason that there's a great danger of this conflict, not only destabilizing Sudan, which it has, of course, in the capital city and throughout the country, but the entire region, as the different actors understand and they are very quickly, that their own strategic interest and their conflicts with their rivals may actually be undermined if Sudan's stability completely evaporates. On Friday, Sudan's top general, the de facto ruler of the Fatah al-Burhan, made his first public remark since the fighting broke out. There remains hope that we are with our great people, and we will overcome this tribulation and emerge from a unified, strong and coherent, and our slogan will only get stronger. One army, one people. In his speech, General Abrahan claimed Sudan's military is committed to a transition to civilian rule, even though he led the coup 18 months ago that toppled Sudan's civilian prime minister, Abdullah Hamdak. If you can talk about that, and then we'll talk about, well, as you said, this isn't a civil war. It's a war between two militaries, and what is happening to the people, including your own family? Absolutely, absolutely. Well, that signaling that both of them, it's not only Burhan, but also even more so Hematri or Dagalo, have insisted that they're fighting for democracy, ironically, that they're fighting for democracy, and to return Sudan to that path towards transition, towards a civilian democracy. That, of course, is simply on their part, propaganda to the international community. But even more importantly, I'd like to emphasize the reason that they're also stating that on both their parts is because of the sheer resilience of the Sudanese population that in their unanimity continue despite what is going on to insist that the Sudanese future must be predicated on a transition to a full civilian government. The reason they're both making these statements is not only to gesture to the international community and to generate their support. After all, the international community had committed themselves until recently, until this conflict emerged, to oversee and help support Sudan towards a transition to a civilian democracy. But neither of these generals, and this is why I'm not calling it a civil war, despite the severity of the conflict, neither of them have a constituency among Sudanese. On the one hand, Hematri Dagalo is relying almost exclusively on mercenaries that he has paid or pays out of his, out of the smuggling of gold and his vast wealth and of course utilizing them as mercenaries. And on the other hand, Burhan is really the head, not so much of the armed forces, but the top brass of the armed forces that are in Sudan referred to as remnants of the former Islamist regime of Omar Bashir, the National Congress Party. So on the part of Burhan, his only constituency is a very limited group of people who are fighting as much as they can in this case at the cost of the Sudanese people in order to retain the vast wealth of the deep state that the Islamist authoritarian regime had built. That is the only constituency they have, and that is very important because it explains the lack of popularity with respect to Burhan on the part of the Sudanese population. On the other hand, Hematri not only does not have a constituency among the Sudanese population, but at the moment he's using his militias in street battles where he's using the Sudanese population essentially as human shields because of the kind of strategies he needs to utilize, absent having kind of strategic weapons, including airplanes or fighter jets. He has to resort, and he's resorting to these street battles in order to generate military victory in the capital of Khartoum. So it's very important to understand that both have very narrow constituencies. Professor Madani, in a moment, we're also going to be joined by Jan Eglin to talk about the humanitarian activities in the area of nongovernmental organizations and what they're able to do in Sudan. But I wanted to ask about your own family. You're trying to get your mother out. Are you able to reach her? Thank you for asking. Thank you. Like thousands of Sudanese, she is hopefully on the road from Khartoum. It's not only my mother, but my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, they've taken several buses. Like most, like all Sudanese, we have relatives throughout the capital city, not just one neighborhood. Unfortunately, the communication is very patchy, and that's why your guest was not able to make it. It's a great concern for all Sudanese. It's a very long trip, very arduous. They are checkpoints. And the decision to leave is really based on basically the evaporation of any other kind of option. No one wants to leave their home, but it's not just about the shelling. It is also about, as your news reporting demonstrated, I think people need to be aware that people are completely running out of water and food. And also, there are absolutely no medicines. So there is absolutely no choice except to leave the capital city and find a refuge elsewhere. And it is absolutely understandable that the international community and the foreign countries have evacuated their citizens and essential staff, and hopefully they'll evacuate Sudanese citizens from their country. At the same time, this is signaling an abdication of the international community's responsibility, not only to the transitioning Sudan to a democracy. But the real concern here is that the depth of the humanitarian crisis will not be addressed. The international community will not have the will to actually intervene. And I think that that is the most crucial at the moment. I think they can. There are many pressure points that they can apply. I would even argue because of the actors that have supported these generals, that selective sanctions, and this is something that even the Congress has been deliberating upon, selective targeted sanctions towards them. I believe very sincerely if it's a concerted, coordinated effort on the part of the international community can work, importantly and finally, it's very important to emphasize that neighboring countries have to be encouraged to maintain their open borders and to be supported in that. It is, of course, a great burden for countries, no matter how generous they may be, to take fleeing displaced persons and refugees. But that can be alleviated by young England and others and the United Nations. And that has been done before in what we call complex humanitarian emergencies. And I believe that that is really important to emphasize. It's very possible, hopefully even though many, most foreigners have evacuated their citizens, this does not signal abdicating a responsibility for Sudan. I would argue that it's not only humanitarian for those in the different capitals in the neighboring countries and the regional blocks, but also far further feel in the United States. This is a country whose stability is crucial to the stability of the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, the Sahel region, and throughout North Africa. It is the third largest country in the continent. And I think that is something that must be kind of highlighted and reiterated to the international community. Well, Khalid Mustafa Madani, we want to thank you so much for being with us. You mentioned Yan. We also have him on the line with us from Washington. He's just back actually from Honduras, but is also dealing with what's happening in Sudan as we look at how virtually all humanitarian work has been paralyzed in Sudan. The Norwegian Refugee Council says the, quote, worst-case scenario is unfolding because they're unable to provide assistance amid such heavy fighting. We are joined by the NRC Secretary General, Jan Egland. If you can lay out the humanitarian situation right now in Sudan that you and other NGOs are facing. If you could start again, I just haven't heard the beginning of what you said. I'm not sure if anyone else is hearing, but I am not hearing you. I think you are muted. We will try. You know, we're going to go to—hi, I think we can hear you now. We can't. So we're going to go to break, and then we're going to come back. We'll fix this issue. I wish we could—I wish the issue in Sudan could be fixed as easily. Khalid Mustafa Madani, we want to thank you for being with us. I'm Amy Goodman. I'm Amy Goodman. As we continue on Sudan, virtually all humanitarian work, paralyzed, as these militaries fight each other, and the civilians or in the crossfire, hundreds have died. The Norwegian Refugee Council is saying it's the worst-case scenario that's unfolding because they're unable to provide assistance. We're going to go back to that. We're going to go back to that. We're going to go back to that. Worst-case scenario that's unfolding because they're unable to provide assistance amidst such heavy fighting. Hopefully, we have on the line with us right now the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council called—he is Jan Egland. If you can lay out—we're hoping we have your sound right now—lay out the humanitarian situation in Sudan. Ah, we don't have you, I am sorry to say. We don't hear you. We're hoping we could get you on the phone. It looks like we weren't able to do that. We're going to see if we could get you on by the end of the show, but we're going to move on to another top story in the United States right now and hopefully get back to Jan Egland by the end of the broadcast. Yes, this is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman, and we are now turning to the U.S. Supreme Court decision, that closely watched decision, where the Supreme Court Friday halted a ban and other restrictions on the abortion medication mephipristone on Friday, keeping the nation's most popular abortion method available for now as an appeal of the nationwide ban on the pill plays out. Issued earlier this month by the Trump-appointed right-wing judge, Matthew Kazmarek of Texas, who ruled the FDA's 23-year-old approval of mephipristone was invalid. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas were the only ones to dissent in the seven to two ruling. The case is still likely to end up in front of the Supreme Court after making its way through a lower appeals court. This has led to mounting calls to restructure the nation's highest court. On Friday, New York Congressmember Alexandra Cazio-Cortez tweeted, quote, The court has devolved into a highly politicized entity that is rapidly delegitimizing. Open discussion of checking the court's abuse of power and defying Kazmarek possibly contributed to pause consideration. AOC and others had called on the federal government to defy the Texas judge's order. Arguments in the challenge to the mephipristone ban are scheduled for May 17. For more, we go to Mary Ziegler, the Martin Luther King professor of law at the University of California Davis, author of six books, including Roe, The History of a National Obsession and Dollars for Life, the Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment. Her new piece for the Atlantic is headline, The Justice's Pass on an Abortion Pill Ban, Until They Hear a Better Case. Welcome back, Professor Ziegler, to Democracy Now! It's great to have you with us. Explain what you mean. Talk about the significance of the Supreme Court ruling on Friday. Well, the significance on the ground is hard to underestimate, because, of course, this means that people will have access to this pill, mephipristone, on the same terms they did before this litigation began. But we don't want to read too much into it either. This is what's considered a shadow docket ruling, meaning there was no oral argument, meaning we don't really know why the majority of the justices did what they did. And of course, it's early in the litigation. But I think most of us are probably correct to assume that this doesn't bode well for the anti-abortion groups that are the plaintiffs in this suit. One of the justices sided with the FDA, and that's a preview of what they think of the merits of the case. But that doesn't mean that this Supreme Court is generally any less hostile to abortion or any less conservative than was the case before. Most likely it just means that this was a lousy case. There were real questions about whether these plaintiffs had standing to sue. They brought this case 23 years after the FDA approved mephipristones, or there were questions about whether it was a timely lawsuit. And so it may just be that no matter how conservative the justices are, they thought this case is procedurally so flawed that we can't sign off on it. But there are lots of unsurprisingly anti-abortion lawsuits in the pipeline because anti-abortion lawyers understand how conservative the Supreme Court is right now. So if you can explain, you had Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting explain what that meant and what it signifies for the future. And, of course, I mean, you have this Supreme Court that's completely bogged down other ways as well, and the serious questions being asked about Clarence Thomas, if you think that weighed in. And this isn't separate from, I mean, that would be levels of corruption, not reporting financial support from this billionaire donor. It's not separate from this story, because he's deeply tied to Leonard Leo, Leonard Leo, who was key to getting cosmetic seated as a Trump appointee, a judge in Amarillo, Texas. Yeah, I mean, the dissent again, I think it was bad news for these anti-abortion plaintiffs in the sense that we don't we don't know why Thomas dissented. He just dissented. He didn't explain what he was doing. Alito dissented essentially to say not that he thought that the plaintiff said standing to sue, not that he thought that the FDA didn't have authority to approve Mipha Pristone, not to allude to this 19th century anti-vice law called the Comstock Act, but basically to say, I don't think the FDA is going to suffer any harm here, because I don't think the FDA would basically enforce any order against Mipha Pristone anyway, because the FDA thinks Mipha Pristone is safe and effective. So essentially saying that the FDA is either going to use its discretion to ignore anything we say, or the FDA is going to be somehow kind of lawless, which was a weird thing to write. But again, bad news for the plaintiffs, because even Justice Alito wasn't taking the time to express any kind of sympathy for any of the plaintiff's arguments about Mipha Pristone itself, right? In terms of whether Clarence Thomas's ongoing scandals had anything to do with this, I'd be a little a little skeptical of that. I mean, it may be that some of the justices who are now considered the often the ones holding deciding votes like Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, maybe they're concerned with the court as an institution and the perceived legitimacy of the court. But I think there are some signs that a lot of the justices on this quarter are not concerned with the court's legitimacy. Don't see themselves as stewards of the institution. I certainly think that's true of Thomas, who at various points has sort of presented himself in very populist terms as sort of an outsider who's opposed to institutions, not someone like Chief Justice John Roberts, who for all that he's very conservative, does seem very anxious about perceptions of the court. Some of the other members of the current conservative majority don't seem to share those concerns. And so it would surprise me, for example, if someone like Neil Gorsuch who joined the opinion staying this the Fifth Circuit's ruling, if he was concerned about what's going on with Clarence Thomas, I think it may be more that even within the conservative legal community, there are a lot of sort of pet arguments that people like Leonard Leo have cultivated over the years, and those include arguments about standing. And these plaintiffs, I just don't think had standing. But I don't know if this augures a sort of broader shift in the court or broader concern about the legitimacy of the court that might slow down some of the really revolutionary changes the court is making in jurisprudence across the board, not just, of course, when it comes to abortion. Do you think the Supreme Court is aware of the effect it's having, for example, even on the elections to come and how deeply unpopular these decisions around abortion are that across the political spectrum, the vast majority of Americans are against an abortion ban? Yeah, you know, it's hard to say. I mean, so do I think they're aware? Absolutely. I mean, these are intelligent people. The question is more, do they care? Right. And there are sort of different ways you could view the role of a deeply conservative justice, right? You could see yourself as a sort of partisan soldier. So you could see your role as being to facilitate in part outcomes that the Republican Party is invested in or not, right? You could see your role as being faithful to some kind of ideology or interpretive set of commitments that have nothing to do with the GOP or nothing to do with the people who nominated you. And I think at least some of the justices, and this was very clear in Justice Alito's opinion in the Dobbs case last summer, essentially Justice Alito says, you know, people are raising the idea that this opinion will damage our legitimacy. And one, I don't know if that's true, but two, and more importantly, if it is true, we shouldn't care about that because the court's legitimacy and the public perception of the court is not our job. And I think there are a number of conservative justices who really feel that way, that when they're doing things that are unpopular, that's really none of anyone else's concern. Of course, that puts the court in some tension with the Republican leadership because the Republican leadership wants to be able to cut its own path when it comes to abortion and not be pushed into defending things like nationwide bans from the 19th century that the courts are bringing to the fore, right? That people like Judge Kasmerich and the Fifth Circuit are going to bring to the fore. And I think we're going to continue to see that, at least from the Fifth Circuit in as the Fifth Circuit continues to look at this case in May. And it may well be that the Supreme Court takes that up as well. But I don't I don't know, right? I don't know if the Supreme Court cares about its effect on elections or not. My guess is no. And, Professor Ziegler, where the access to the abortion pill, the majority of Americans who the majority of people who use this who get abortions use the abortion pill, it's access right now. Right now, it's the same. It's been before this litigation began. So if you are in a blue state that has no restrictions or bans on abortion, you can get access to this pill via telehealth up to the 10th week of pregnancy. If you're in a state that's criminalized abortion, of course, this this outcome hasn't changed that. You're not able to get access to the pill in your state. You would have to travel to a different state or use something like aid access. And so nothing has changed at the national level. But I think the suit and I think the references to the Comstock Act make clear that that people who are in progressive states can't be complacent in the sense of assuming that their access to abortion will be determined by their state governments, because this is one of a series of suits that are trying to take the question out of the hands of voters and lawmakers in progressive states, essentially to kind of nationalize outcomes via the federal courts. Well, we want to thank you, Mary Ziegler, for joining us. Martin Luther King, Professor of Law at University of California, Davis will link to your piece in the Atlantic, The Justice's Pass on an abortion pill ban until they hear a better case. We're going to go to a 30 second break. Then hopefully we'll be able to connect with the Norwegian Refugee Council about Sudan and Honduras. Stay with us. This is democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. As we end today's show with Jan Eglin, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, just back from Honduras. But before we go to Honduras, we want to talk about what's happening in Sudan. You are the Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Can you talk about the level of humanitarian support? If there is any in Sudan right now as these militaries fight each other and kill the civilians in the crossfire? Well, at the moment, Amy, there is hardly any humanitarian work in large parts of Sudan, which was a place in deep humanitarian crisis before this senseless intra-military battle that has engulfed nearly all of the cities and it's nearly all of the regions. However, I think the story is too much now. Let's evacuate all of the diplomats. Let's evacuate all of the internationals. What will be the role of the Wagner Group and so on? I think the real story is that millions of Sudanese are now in a free fall. And those who are worse off are the millions of internally displaced people and the refugees. And that's why we and the Norwegian Refugee Council and all of our peer organizations are now planning how to resume work as soon as there is a pause in the fighting. And of course, there's been a ceasefire put in place. One attempted ceasefire, but the militaries don't honor it. Are you dealing with these leaders, the military leaders of the country? Well, I've reached out to those UN envoys who have contact with them. We will also use whatever contacts we can via countries who deal with them because we need to get to them that this war will, it's really a war now. It will be impossible to stop if it lasts for much longer. We still have an opportunity to have a real a ceasefire. If they lose completely control over the fighters as they are in some areas, this will be a nightmare with beyond belief. We're going to switch gears now from Sudan to Honduras, where you've just returned from Yanagland. If you can talk about the situation on the ground there, what you're concerned with most and the call by U.S. Senators Chris Van Halen, Ben Carden, Tim Kaine, Congressmember Joaquin Castro, who sent a letter to the Biden administration calling for the president to continue to protect Salvadorans and Hondurans with temporary protected status or TPS, connect all these issues. Well, and that's a very important letter, really. And and and and for the North Americans, it's important to realize that in your neighborhood, there are war-like conditions. I've been out three times to to Central America, Chris crossing many of the countries I was in in Honduras in recent days. The thousands and thousands of families in the middle of the crossfire between armed groups, drugs, cartels, heavily armed gangs. These these these people are in the same situation as as Sudanese or if you like the Ukrainians or the or the Syrians that get much more of the attention. So the reason people are moving north is that there is no security for them in Central America. There is no hope for a better future. So what we have to do and what we can do as organizations on the ground with resources from North America, but also from Europe and Gulf countries and so on, is to to provide humanitarian protection, education, livelihoods so that there is hope for a better future there. At the same time, as as as of course in North America, needs to honor the the the legitimate asylum applications for protection of people from their own neighborhood. And can you explain why humanitarian funding in Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador has been reduced to some of the lowest globally during this crisis and the effect this has and particularly talk about the effect of U.S. immigration policy. Well, indeed, it it's actually underfunded our humanitarian programming in in Central America. The one third of the population needs humanitarian relief on levels of what you would have in other places, even even in Africa in terms of needs. There is one big donor and that's the United States. So whereas Europe, whereas the Gulf countries, where the the larger Asian economies, we need to wake up all of the donor nations for this crisis, which is driven by immense violence against women, children, families, climate change, which is hitting this region so hard, but also in in poverty in general. So so I was in the school just one example in La Lima, Honduras. They had 5000 students in this secondary school, five years ago. Now there is 1200, a reduction of 4000. And I ask why because there is too much fear to go to school for violence and thousands had been walking north. There were several students on the way north at this moment. So so indeed, there has to be a real investment in hope in Central America. If not, this will just continue and continue. Yeah, Naglenda, want to thank you so much for being with us. Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council in Washington, D.C. this week. That does it for our show. Democracy Now is produced with Rene Fels, Mike Burke, Dina Guzter, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Sheikh, Maria Teresena, Tammy Warranoff, Trina Nadura, Sam Elkoff, Tame Maria Studio, John Hamilton, Robbie Karen, Honey Massoud, Sanji Lopez and Dennis Moynihan, our executive directors, Julie Crosby, special thanks to Becca Staley and John Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike DeFilippo, Miguel Negara, Hugh Grant, David Prude and Dennis McCormack. If you want to see transcripts of our show and all our past shows, you can get video and audio podcasts. Go to democracynow.org where you can also sign up for our daily digest each day. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.