Episode 123 Refuse Fascism

Sun, 8/21 5:38PM • 45:03

Leah Litman 00:00

I think it is difficult to overstate the immediate and profound impacts that overruling Roe had. The reality is that the abortion right is inevitably and inextricably connected to many other foundational rights as well. When the Supreme Court basically says: Well, we’re just going to ignore cases we don’t like or we’re going to overrule cases we don’t like, it really makes it difficult for people to know what their rights are. Returning this fundamental right to state legislatures at a time where state legislatures have attempts to insulate themselves from democracy is quite dangerous.

Sam Goldman 00:54

Welcome to Episode 123 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. Thanks to everyone who goes the extra step and rates and reviews the show on Apple podcasts, shares and comments on social media or YouTube. It helps us reach more listeners and we read every one.

Here just a few from the past week from folks who listened to our interview with Henry Giroux. On Twitter @smaystein wrote: “One of the most important interviews you will listen to this fall. I guarantee you.” Well, thank you @smaystein, but don’t rush it. It’s not fall yet. @Vamp56 wrote: “Highly recommended episode of @RefuseFascism podcast. Re: understanding this threat in relation to historical Fascism tactics.” Thanks, @Vamp56. That was also on Twitter. On YouTube, Manuel Davidson wrote: “Really enjoyed this informative and educational interview. Millions need to urgently hear this interview.” Oh, yeah, let’s make that happen. Manuel, did you share it? Make sure you share it. Everybody else, make sure you share it too.

This isn’t a social media or YouTube comment about the show, but an email I received this week from David he wrote, very thoughtfully: “These Republicans are deliberately inciting, whipping up and weaponizing their idiotic base. They are preparing to release their fascist mob on anyone that they see as a threat or who disagrees with them. We really are at that point. These people will have absolutely no compunction about committing acts of violence and or killing and murdering people. That really is how frothing at the mouth out out of touch with reality, dangerous and terrifying they are. They just need the fuse to be lit by Donald Trump. One of these craven and heinous members of the neo-fascist GOP or some cataclysmic event that is real or imagined.

Sometimes I have to ask myself if I’m being hysterical, or if this is all imagined, or hyperbolic, or histrionic because it’s all so surreal, and scary as hell to think about. Statement of the obvious. Is all of this really happening? Yes, it is.” And that was from David. Thanks for writing to me. I share your concern, and I’m so glad that you are part of the Refuse Fascism community. So after listening to today’s episode, you, you listening, go help us find more people who want to refuse fascism by rating and reviewing on Apple podcasts or your listening platform of choice, and encouraging your friends and family who listen to do the same.

Follow and subscribe, so you never miss an episode, and of course, continue all that sharing and commenting on social media and YouTube. And David, the fear is definitely real, but it is not hopeless. It’s not hopeless, because in part of people like yourself and others who are going to work right now sounding the alarm, and mobilizing people to act together to stand against this threat.

In today’s episode, we share a conversation I had a couple weeks ago with Lea Litman, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and co host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast. We spoke about the recent Supreme Court decisions and what they’ll be hearing this fall. Plus, I share remarks from Merle Hoffman, founder and CEO of choices Women’s Medical Center, reflecting on the work of Rise Up for Abortion Rights.

But before that, we need to talk about the extreme danger posed by the fascist threat, which is rapidly accelerating turbocharged, if you will, post the FBI’s lawful search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, where they found and removed classified documents. I want to reiterate a point I made last week, the danger of fascist violence and fascist takeover is crystal clear to anyone remotely paying attention. This doesn’t mean the outcome is already shaped, but the trajectory right now as it stands is towards continued intensification. We posted on our website refusefascism.org, some recommended reading on this danger. Tens of millions of Republi-fascists, those in power and those that support them, have thus far demonstrated complete support for Trump’s lawlessness, including his orchestration of a fascist coup, and the lethal fascist violence that took place during the January 6th insurrection.

For anyone who has been living under a rock since January 7th, 2021, and had any doubts of this, look to the latest exhibit, the complete shellacking of Liz Cheney, who voted with Trump 93% of the time and was the third highest ranking Republican, but opposed the coup attempt. Note of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, only two will make it to the general election this November. The complete transformation of the GOP into a fascist party purged of anyone who doesn’t toe the line of Trumpism 100%, and the big lie. We’ve said this often, but it becomes more and more real every day, this Fascism will not be resolved by voting alone. We voted Trump out, but we can’t simply vote away the fascism.

I wanted to share some additional insight from folks who’ve been studying this closely; the “this” being the intensification off of the Republi-fascist response to the FBI search of Trump’s Mar a Lago. Chauncey DeVega recently wrote an article for Salon.com: “It is abundantly clear that Donald Trump will engage in acts of revenge and retaliation against public officials and others who support the rule of law, democracy and the Constitution if he manages to regain power in 2024. He thought he was a king during his first term. Now he will be a mad king, unleashed and unrestrained.” While this mad king may not be the GOP presidential nominee, his protegees offer no respite from the fascism.

This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stumped for fascist candidates in Pennsylvania and Ohio, a sign of his rise to national importance. Video is circulating from one of his speeches where he shouts: “We must fight the woke in our schools, we must fight the woke in our businesses, we must fight the woke in government agencies. We can never ever surrender to woke ideology. And I’ll tell you this, the state of Florida is where woke goes to die.” There is much in tying in Florida; much at stake in this fascist laboratory. What he said is incredibly dangerous. Neo McCarthyism, whether woke is code for black folks, for what they aim to do to LGBTQ folks, what they are doing to LGBTQ folks in Florida, whether it’s for the left or anyone they deem a threat. He also tweeted a quote from his Ohio speech: “Get ready for battle. Put on the full armor of God.”

In a moment where these fascists are literally trying to shoot up FBI offices, where they are committing mass shootings, where they are preparing to redo January 6th, but this time when it should be clear that he isn’t talking about metaphorical violence. Meanwhile, “election crimes office”, which he established in the service of Trump’s big lie, also came out guns blazing this week. Instead of the ballot harvesting and massive schemes they were supposedly gonna find, they rounded up 20 people who seemingly didn’t know that they hadn’t been eligible to vote when they cast their ballots on 2020.

Nonetheless, they are casting this in the most deadly serious terms riling up their base against “murderers” in the name of a vengeful or like God, Jeff Sharlet wrote this warning that I think is incredibly important to consider: “This primary defeat or that victory or this courtroom maneuver may affect who’s up on the surface, but such changes mostly don’t mean much to the pol beneath. We’re in a season of political violence, we are allowing ourselves to be carried slowly towards civil war.”

Lastly, I want to suggest people will read Sarah Posner’s recent article that was published by Turning Points Memo that is titled: The Christian right plots, how to avenge the FBI raid. In it she writes: “Themes of war, actual and spiritual abounded. A call to arms for Trump’s Christian followers who are being primed to believe that just as law enforcement came after Trump it will come after them.” She goes on to say: “In this upside down world, Trump is sanctified and besieged and everyone else is getting away with unspeakable crimes. Is the past week’s worth of Christian right media coverage of the Mara-a-Lago raid is any indication, we should expect the ongoing escalating attacks on anyone perceived to be an enemy of God’s anointed, persecuted president.”

Before I share the interview, I wanted to talk about Kansas briefly. As you’ll hear Lea mentions in our interview what happened in Kansas. People overwhelmingly voted no on a referendum to institute an abortion ban, should provide hope for people in this moment. This is a great thing in that it will save lives that will give some women and girls and others who can become pregnant significant freedom to chart their future, at least for the time being.

How people understand this matters. The machinery of the Democratic Party and mainstream media, and to be honest, the repro rights movement more generally, are already going into overdrive to train people to understand this win as an excuse for complacency, where in reality, it should be proof of just how much we have going for us in a struggle that is only heating up. The fact that in this rare case, where to some extent the question of abortion rights was put to the people, they answered hell yes, that should be an inspiration to fight harder.

But it must be made clear that this will not be resolved with the ballot box as fascists seize every lever of power by hook or by crook or through brute force, with a mobilized minority ready to die for their hate fueled fascist mission. A majority that opposes them, but stays silent, has not and will not slow them down. Elections will not stop them alone. It’s it’s time for determined struggle, political struggle out in the streets. It’s time to transform a culture of silent passive decency into one of deafening demands for this most fundamental right for women to control their body. Now, here’s my interview with Leah Litman.

I am happy to welcome onto the show Lia Litman. She is an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she teaches and writes on constitutional law, federal courts and federal sentencing. She is also the co host of Strict Scrutiny and co founder of Women know the law. Welcome Leah, thanks so much for joining us.

Leah Litman 12:43

Thanks so much for having me.

Sam Goldman 12:45

I wanted to start with this past session of SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States). It marked the first session of the Trump stacked 6-3 super majority of what I consider to be Christian fascists and right wing extremists. They issued, I think, in full decisions, something like 58 cases, where they moved aggressively to unleash gun violence, moved to break down the separation of church and state, cripple the ability of regulatory agencies, like the EPA and CDC, create a landscape where Miranda rights don’t matter, innocence doesn’t matter — if you’re on death row evidence of innocence doesn’t matter, that is that is that it can be kept from being entered into your appeal — moving to erode tribal sovereignty, and much, much more.

On previous episodes of this show, we’ve touched on particular cases, most notably Dobbs, and the immediate ramifications and how such decisions are greasing a path to what we see as as a theocracy. I wanted to get your perspective on what you feel were the big themes of this last session for people of conscience. What were the overarching lessons that you think that we need to be taking in and understanding in terms of the new worlds that this court is helping usher in?

Leah Litman 14:03

I think one thing that people should understand is that the court is really rapidly ticking through the policy priorities and the platform of the Republican Party and the conservative legal movement. You know, you listed many of the decisions in the areas of law that the Supreme Court touched on this past term. Those, of course, are many of the biggest issues in the Republican party platform: the issue of abortion rights, the issue of gun regulations, the issue of climate regulation, the issue of restraining the federal administrative state, giving states greater power over Native nations, the issue of separation of church and state and greater protections for at least certain expressions of religious liberty. Those are all positions that the 2016 Republican Party platform that was carried and represented by President Trump, who nominated three of the current justices on the court, highlighted and so people should expect that that is where the court is going to continue to go in the near future.

Sam Goldman 14:03

One of the things that stood out to me in your reflection episode that you did on your show, was how precedent was disregarded throughout the whole process. And why does that matter?

Leah Litman 15:16

So in case after case, you know, issue after issue, the Supreme Court limited, overruled or just ignored many of its prior decisions. And, you know, I can go into specific examples, but that matters for any number of reasons. One is, it really undermines the stability that the law can provide. People rely on precedents to give them a sense about where the court will go in the future to give them a sense about what state governments, federal government, administrative agencies can do. They go read a court decision. They ask well, what reasons did it provide what legal test did it adopt? What principles did it espouse? And then they can apply that to a different set of facts and know how that case is supposed to come out.
When the Supreme Court basically says: Well, we’re just going to ignore cases we don’t like, or we’re going to overrule cases we don’t like, or we’re going to limit cases we don’t like it really makes it difficult for people to know what their rights are, what public or private entities can do to protect rights. So it really undermines the stability of the law and the predictability of the law in important respects.

Sam Goldman 16:31

In the joint dissent in the Dobbs case, there was a lot that stood out. One thing that I think you had tweeted a while back about it, and other people have mentioned this one part, so I wanted to read it. For those listening, you can see the full dissent in our show notes written by Bryer, Kagan and Sotomayor, they wrote: “For millions of women, Roe and Casey have been critical to giving them control over their bodies and their lives.

Closing our eyes to the suffering today’s decision will impose will not make that suffering disappear.” So now here we are, it’s over a month later, I’m wondering what have you seen as the impact in terms of the overturning of Roe that you hope people won’t be closing their eyes to and and what do you foresee unfolding in the near future?

Leah Litman 17:17

I think it is difficult to overstate the immediate and profound impacts that overruling Roe had, and we are not even two months, you know, from when the opinion was announced. We can focus on any number of impacts. We can talk about the issue of abortion specifically, you know, in the wake of the decision, some states brought back into effect restrictive abortion laws that effectively ended abortion in those states. Other states, like Indiana, passed new ones. We also saw the effects of these restrictive abortion laws and the extremity of bans; cases that caused 10 year old rape victims to have to travel out of state in order to obtain abortion care.

So we’ve seen the dramatic and profound effects of the decision with respect to the core right you know at issue in Roe, Casey and Dobbs. But the reality is that the abortion right is inevitably connected and inextricably connected to many other foundational rights as well; rights to contraception, rights to marriage equality, rights to same sex sexual intimacy rights to health care, rights including miscarriage management, and rights to family formation, like assisted reproductive technology. Those rights have also taken a hit and been limited, you know, not formally by judicial decisions, but by the practical effect of some of these vague broad restrictive abortion law is in the wake of Dobbs.

We’ve read stories about how people have been turned away from hospitals when they are bleeding because there are doubts about whether the hospital or doctor would face criminal prosecutions if they provide an abortion care. Some people ended up on breathing machines. Other individuals experienced worsening infections. So we’ve already seen how these restrictive abortion laws and overruling Roe have had dramatic effects on health care and miscarriage management in particular.

We’ve also seen stories about this affecting access to contraception with some entities taking the position that certain forms of contraception, they view as abortifacients and therefore they need not provide in this era of restrictive abortion laws. That includes things like the morning after pill or plan B. It also includes IUDs, we’ve also seen calls by some federal and state officials for the Supreme Court to revisit decisions protecting other fundamental rights rights, marriage equality and right to consensual same sex, sexual intimacy. So the immediate effect of that decision has been momentous. And again, that’s just within two months of the decision.

Sam Goldman 19:56

Yeah, I mean, it’s a devastating overview that you provided. I also think that I knew and I you know that gut punch still like was felt, even if you knew it was coming. It didn’t soften the blow that we knew it was coming. Thanks to folks like yourself, I understood the connection between a surveillance state and what would happen — we’re seeing that unfold, and yet, it’s still not less outrageous that girls and mom are being prosecuted based on Facebook messages, or any of the other host of examples that that raises. I was wondering whether you, yourself as someone who has been sounding the alarm about this trajectory for some time, was there anything in regards to this that you did not expect? Or that surprised you whether it was in the decision itself, the effects of it or the response?

Leah Litman 20:48

I don’t think that any of the effects of the decision had by way of hurting miscarriage management care or endangering women’s lives or, you know, exposing pregnancy outcomes or criminalization, like, all of that was completely expected, as were the possible implications for other rights as well. I will say one thing that surprised me was how much the anti choice movement with lean in to the most absolutist and extreme version of the position in the wake of Dobbs we have seen, right to life saying, yes, these abortion restrictions, they do require delaying miscarriage management care, or no, there shouldn’t be any exceptions for health of the pregnant person, or in cases of rape or incest. And that maybe shouldn’t have surprised me, but just watching it play out has been something else entirely. You know, when you see congressional witnesses and says that when a 10 year old rape victim receives an abortion is that an abortion? Like it’s just so ludicrous that it’s difficult to process?

Sam Goldman 21:56

I agree 100% With that, even if you think about the people on the state level, governors and so forth, it shouldn’t surprise me, but it is like you said that out loud. You just said that it’s good for that child to see that pregnancy. Like, how did you just say that?

Leah Litman 22:10

Yeah, exactly.

Sam Goldman 22:11

How did you just say that? I mean, you know it on one level, but like, yes, they are emboldened on another level, that is scary. [LL: Yep] One of the topics that you’ve dug into that I think is really worth people thinking about and exploring more is that the intersection between voting rights and abortion rights and how they intersect and impact each other.

You co-wrote an opinion piece recently in the Washington Post, in which you stated: “It is not a coincidence that the court is making our democracy less democratic at the very moment, it is returning the issue of abortion to the political process in the name of democracy.” In the Alito decision, he waves away concern with a ~”no biggie, ladies, you’re not without electoral or political power”, but are they? So I wanted to get your thoughts more on that that intersection?

Leah Litman 23:07

Yeah, so I think we are seeing this play out in Kansas, Indiana, other states as well, like Wisconsin, we saw it in Kansas that there, the Kansas legislature added a ballot initiative that would have rescinded protections for abortion rights, but the people of Kansas rejected it, and I think that’s a perfect example about how state legislatures in an era of partisan gerrymandering, vote dilution voter suppression, but discrimination and other things are possibly disconnected from the will of the people and not representative in important ways. That makes it an especially dangerous time to return this fundamental right to state legislators who can restrict it even when a majority of the people, or in the case of Kansas, a super majority of people don’t want them to.

We saw Indiana the Indiana legislature called a special session in which it enacted this restrictive abortion law after the high profile reporting about the Indiana doctor who provided abortion care to the 10 year old rape victim. To my mind, like I don’t really imagine that the people of Indiana view the issue of abortion care that differently from the people in Kansas, but the Indiana legislature, because they had control the issue, could do that in a way that the Kansas legislature could not because that issue was pushed to the people.

To take another example Wisconsin — that’s a state that has a pre Roe criminal abortion ban on the books and their the governor is a Democrat, so a majority of voters wanted a Democrat who doesn’t want to ban abortion and all instances in office, but the Wisconsin legislature is one of the most heavily gerrymandered legislatures in the country and so they’re not going to repeal the criminal abortion ban even if a majority of voters want them to. I think that, again, returning this fundamental right to state legislatures at a time where state legislatures have attempts to insulate themselves from democracy is quite dangerous.

Sam Goldman 25:07

How does this connect, or maybe it doesn’t connect, with something like a national ban on abortion.

Leah Litman 25:13

It connects in the sense that at the federal level, the Senate apportionment scheme is skewed in favor of Republicans right now, the Senate’s scheme kids to senators to every state, and that makes it easier for Republicans to obtain control that chamber relatives Democrats. Same is true of the Electoral College, which apportions votes for the president based on particular states rather than the national popular vote. You add to that the issue of gerrymandering, which makes it harder for Democrats to retain and obtain control in the House of Representatives, and that’s how it’s related on the federal level, as well. The undemocratic or less democratic tendencies of our representative democracy are part of what makes returning this fundamental right to the political process so dangerous.

Sam Goldman 26:03

Thanks for clarifying that. I was glad to hear you testify before Congress recently, and you said a lot of things, but one of the things that you said that stood out in particular was that people are rightfully unsure about what their rights are on any given day. Politicians and advocates are claiming broader and broader authority over individuals broadcasting plans to restrict other rights related to autonomy, personhood, family and home that so many people rely on. I was hoping that you could talk some about how you think this feeds into what I see are fascist plans, but if you want to use the framework of right wing, or Federalist fans, or however you view it, to remake society. How do you see it impacting the importance that puts on resistance in various forms right now?

Leah Litman 26:51

Just on the uncertainty of rights in particular, here in Michigan, we’re another state that like Wisconsin has a pre Roe, criminal abortion ban on the books, and that law is being challenged. And we have an upcoming ballot initiative that would add explicit constitutional protections for reproductive freedom to the state constitution. But so long as that hasn’t yet happened, and so long as this criminal abortion ban is nominally on the books, any given day, there’s a new story about this court ruling or that court ruling that potentially allows county or local prosecutors to enforce the law and raises questions about the availability of abortion care, and that necessarily raises questions about access to various forms of contraception as well.

I think that the overruling of Dobbs has really emboldened, as I was saying, the more extreme absolutist elements of this movement; not only with respect to the issue of abortion, but also with respect to the issue of contraception, also with respect to the issue of marriage equality, also, with respect to the issue of consensual sexual intimacy. We’ve seen different senators calling for the courts to return the issue of marriage to the States. We’ve seen statewide elected officials make similar calls. And I don’t know that there would have been all of this fervor and renewed energy at rolling back these rights that people rely on so much, and that are so much a part of who people are as people and affect the most personal aspect of their lives without Dobbs.

Sam Goldman 28:27

Is there space or room for some hope, in this moment in relation to what we can do to stop this roll back?

Leah Litman 28:36

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Kansas is just a wonderful example of reasons to hope that when the issue is actually before the people, the people do not want the government to be able to mandate whether a woman or person must stay pregnant, whether they must give birth to a child. I think that that is a huge reason for hope, but it is a reason to hope as long as people are willing to put in the work of continued and sustained democratic engagement. The reality is, is that it’s not only this upcoming election, but basically every other election that we face in this post Roe post Dobbs world, the issue of abortion rights will be on the ballot. And so building an infrastructure that allows the reproductive freedom movement, the space to stay engaged the space to build on victories, rather than constantly face the prospect of losing them. I think all of those are very important.

Sam Goldman 29:37

Looking ahead, there’s looking ahead at the fall and looking at what the implications will be different states and the abortion landscape and, and that kind of thing, and then there’s also what the next session of a Supreme Court holds, which is equally frightening. In that there’s many cases. I hate ranking importance. There’s affirmative action cases. There’s things that will relate to anti LGBTQ discrimination and things like that. But there’s also Moore vs. Harper, which I think for our show, for Refuse Fascism, it holds extra weight. For our listeners, Moore vs. Harper is a case that could result in empowering state legislators to ignore their state’s popular vote in presidential elections and give the state’s electoral votes to the losing candidate. Lee, are they actually going to hear this case? What are the implications? What do we need to understand?

Leah Litman 30:37

The precise issue in Moore versus Harper is about whether state courts can protect voting rights on the basis of state constitutions. Now, the theory about why they cannot do so is that the Constitution requires state legislatures, and state legislatures alone, to set the rules regarding federal elections. The prospect that the court would say state legislatures are unbound by state constitutions when it comes to voting rights, is dangerous because it would allow state legislatures to engage in partisan gerrymandering, even where a state constitution forbids it, or even where a state constitution would want to allocate the authority to draw districts to, like, an independent redistricting commission. It might also not allow, let’s say a Secretary of State or attorney general, to expand a deadline for receiving absentee ballots in the event that say a global pandemic happens during an election.

But I don’t think that, even if the Supreme Court embraces that theory, which I think there is a good chance that they will, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the legislature could after an election has happened throw out all the votes and just appoint electors to select their favorite candidate. There’s a difference between saying the legislature must be the one to set the rules in the lead up to an election and saying the legislature gets to throw out all the rules after an election has occurred. Now would the Supreme Court, if it embraced the first potentially embrace the second?

Possibly, but I don’t think that this case is going to determine the outcome to that. It’s still extremely important, again, because it could eliminate significant protections for voting rights against partisan gerrymandering or voter discrimination or voter suppression or dilution, you name it. And then the other pair of cases that I would add to Moore vs. Harper are other voting rights cases about what the protections of the Federal Voting Rights Act are, and specifically, when and whether the Federal Voting Rights Act prohibits states from drawing districts in ways that dilute the voting power of racial minorities.

Sam Goldman 32:47

Is my understanding, correct that this past term, there was a couple of similar cases to that.

Leah Litman 32:53

So this past term, what the Supreme Court did is, after lower federal courts had concluded states drew naps in ways that, in violation of the Federal Voting Rights Act, diuted the voting power of racial minorities. The Supreme Court said: You states can use those maps anyways, but they didn’t actually explain why that was. That is, they didn’t issue an opinion that says: Actually, the Voting Rights Act doesn’t really prohibit states from diluting the voting power of racial minorities this way, they are actually going to formally hear argument in those cases next term and will issue an opinion that provides their reasons of why the Voting Rights Act is so limited, that it allows states to draw districts in ways that dilute the voting power of racial minorities.

Sam Goldman 33:42

I appreciate that clarification. I want to thank you so much for coming and sharing your expertise, your perspective and your time with us. And in addition to people listening to Strict Scrutiny, where else can we go to find more from you?

Leah Litman 33:59

I am on Twitter, so you can follow me there. I also sometimes write for different applications. If you follow me on Twitter, I’ll oftentimes share what I write that I’m sometimes reading for places like slate or the Washington Post or New York Times. But that’s usually where to find me.

Sam Goldman 34:14

Well, we will definitely be including some of your latest in the show notes. So thanks so much.

Leah Litman 34:20

Thanks so much for having me.

Sam Goldman 34:21

We learned this past week about the horrific torture of Nancy Davis of Louisiana, who after being given the devastating diagnosis that the fetus she’s carrying had a fatal condition preventing it from forming a skull, she was denied an abortion as the condition wasn’t among the exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. The state is torturing Nancy; punishing women for any pregnancy outcome that isn’t the birth of a healthy infant. This is fucking criminal. My heart goes out to Nancy and all those being forced to give birth against their will. We can’t accept this nightmare.

On Monday, a 16 year old girl who is pregnant and seeking an abortion was told by a Florida court that she was too immature to get an abortion — but just the right age to have a child against her will. These are just two of the gut wrenching stories that show us, yet again, a glimpse of the future that the Christian fascists are fighting for and prepared to lock in with the win of overturning roe as wind on their back. This is why whatever else we do, what is most decisive is this. We must call forward the fury of millions of women and all who love justice to fill the streets and reverse this whole direction; to win legal abortion on demand nationwide.

Next, you’ll hear an excerpt of a presentation given by Merle Hoffman, founder and CEO of Choices Women’s Medical Center, one of the country’s first abortion centers, and CO initiator of rise up for abortion rights. Her presentation was on abortion, love, power and resistance and was given Sunday August 14 at the New York Society of Ethical Culture. The excerpt I’m sharing is Merle reflecting on the work of Rise Up for Abortion Rights. Follow Merle on Twitter WMerleHoffman.

Learn more and get involved with Rise Up for Abortion Rights by visiting RiseUp4AbortionRights.org Or follow @RiseUp4Abortion on Twitter. If you or someone you love is in need of abortion services visit INeedAnA.org for help finding an abortion clinic nearest to you visit AidAccess.org For information on accessing abortion pills for those who do not have the possibility of accessing local abortion services.

Merle Hoffman 36:56

Roe has been overturned. This was not news to me because I saw this happening for many, many years. Actually, the majority of the pro choice movement, put their feet up metaphorically on the desk and said: Well, you know, whatever happens we always have Roe, they could never take this away from [us], never. You know, constitutionally protected, do, you know, doctors are murdered states are restricting more and more but we still have Roe. Well, when we knew and when I knew that they were going to hear the Dobbs decision and decide on it by June, it occurred to me that people should begin to wake up. This in my mind, especially when Trump illegitimately put those three Supreme Court justices on — right wing fundamentalist theocrats — I said to myself: There is no way that Roe was going to stand.

So around January, I took a look around and what I saw and what I heard, was an absolute, deafening, deafening silence. Everybody in movement was getting ready for a “post Roe world”, as if you know this is going to happen, we have to get used to it, so let’s plan how we’re going to accommodate to half of the women of America losing their fundamental human and civil rights. Now, this to me was surrealistic, egregious, and absolutely the wrong strategy. I looked around and I found two people who were thinking the same way. Lori Sokol and Sunsara Taylor. We spoke, we got together, and we initiated what is now called — and thank you so much for that wonderful rise up song — Rise Up for Abortion Rights.

So, what our slogan says, abortion on demand and without apology, and without apology means that whatever the decision is that you make about why you can’t parent at this moment in time, is the right decision; that no man or state can fine judge that or control that. The other thing we say now is: legal abortion on demand nationwide. Now we’re in a situation where 26, and I think another one this morning, 27 states of either banned or are going through making abortion almost impossible, and creating a scenario where women will actually be enslaved by unwanted and forced motherhood. Enslaved, and I definitely use that word because forcing a woman or a little girl — I think you might have read about the 10 year old little girl that was raped and they were going to because she was two or three days more than six weeks according into the Texas law, they were not giving her an abortion, okay — a 10 year old girl.

So, this is using women as chattel. As leaders, we say forced motherhood is female enslavement. We started in January by going to the Supreme Court, January 22nd, where maybe there were 20 people, and we rose up, and we said, our statement, and we made this point, you know, and then the next one, I went back to St. Patrick’s Cathedral 39 years later, or 33 years later, had my hanger and repurposed the speech, women’s rights are in even more of a state of emergency now, even more of a state… maybe 100 people, okay, and we keep going and keep going, and there was something that resonated. So now when you look out or when you read and you see this green wave, and we’ve brought for free these green bandanas, that’s what this is.

We use the green bandana is because we give acknowledgement and recognition to the fact that in Latin America, there were three countries that were extremely Catholic and conservative, and responded to women being out in the street consistently, consistently every day, waving green bandanas, and they have decriminalized and legalized abortion and Catholic conservative countries. So we recognize this, and in our, American huge hubris, we change that to humility, and say teach us now, because we have to get women out into the streets. And this is where I was talking about outposts in our heads. Do you realize how many millions of women have had abortion since legalization? Millions, millions, millions, millions.

Then think of their partners, their lovers, their friends, their family, all of the networks that they have, what a constituency. Imagine them walking and continually marching, and the green wave throughout this country. But it’s not happening yet — yet. I always put yet because there’s always hope with me, okay — yet. So why is that? It’s because of what I said before, the outposts in our head. So I always talk about individuals becoming political to first recognize that they’re there, and then fight them, and then be able to raise your voice. Will this — you know at first we said this can’t stand — we wanted to stop the Supreme Court from even ruling. That didn’t happen. Okay, a girl can dream. We wanted to do it, but it didn’t happen. But what we built and what we continue to build is a very, very powerful movement of resistance.

Sam Goldman 43:15

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