Abortion, Birth Control and What’s Next with Roxy Szal + Commentary From Coco Das

Abortion, Birth Control and What’s Next with Roxy Szal + Commentary From Coco Das

Refuse Fascism Episode 173

Sun, Oct 01, 2023 1:58PM • 50:20

Coco Das 00:00

We’re likely going to be getting a bombshell mifepristone abortion ruling right before the 2024 elections. A ruling against mifepristone will affect the entire country, including blue states. We have to see that fight for what it is: a nationwide restriction of mifepristone access, which would be devastating. It has to be all hands on deck, all types of groups coming together as well; civil rights groups, LGBTQ groups, racial groups voting rights groups — the people pushing the lawmakers and that’s what we need to continue to do.

Welcome to episode 173 of the Refuse Fascism podcast. This podcast is brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Coco Das, one of those volunteers, guest hosting this week’s episode. Refuse Fascism exposes, analyzes and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the U.S. In today’s episode, I’ll be sharing a conversation that our regular host, Sam Goldman, did with Roxy Szal, a feminist journalist based in Austin, Texas. She is the managing digital editor at Ms. and a producer on the Ms. podcast, On the Issues With Michele Goodwin. But first, let’s talk about some developments this past week as it relates to the QUICKLY ACCELERATING fascist threat. Of course, in this commentary I’m speaking for myself, not for everyone in Refuse Fascism.

Houston, we have a problem. This country and all of its institutions from the top levels of power to local school boards is either full of fascists or is polarized between the fascist section of the ruling class, the Republican Party, with increasingly lunatic, violent and genocidal, and enslaving ambitions to eliminate any challenge from all the people they hate – and the mainstream Democrats who want things to return to a “normal” that has not only been torn apart by Trumpism, but is also responsible for great crimes against humanity – for wars of empire, the exploitation of millions here and around the planet, for pushing the climate towards catastrophe, for rampant white supremacy and misogyny and homophobia – based on a constitution written by slaveowners and capitalist exploiters.

This past week saw Trump escalating his violent rhetoric. He accused the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, of treason – alleging that he discussed Trump’s state of mind with China and calling this “an act so egregious that in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”

The actual exchange with Milley’s counterpart in China is as revealing of the danger we so closely averted if Trump were to remain in power – by a coup or by winning the 2020 election. Two days after the January 6th coup attempt, Milley had to quell fears that Trump had plans to attack China. He told the Senate Armed Services committee that this phone call was part of his duties to “deconflict military actions, manage crisis and prevent war between great powers armed with nuclear weapons.” With Trump’s leadership, fascists in the government have declared war on Milley and the military as a whole for being too woke.

Representative Paul Gosar, in his newsletter last week, said: “In a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.” And it continues: That unreconstructed southerner and Christian fascist Tommy Tuberville has been blocking the appointments of hundreds of Pentagon officials and voted against the appointment of Air Force general Charles Q Brown Jr., a Black man. “We are not looking for different groups, social justice groups, we don’t want to single-handedly destroy our military from within,” said Tuberville.

The House Republicans voted to reduce the salary of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, also a black man, to $1. Lauren Boebert proposed reducing the salary of another Pentagon official, Sean Kelley, also to $1, simply for being transgender. While this bigotry is at the heart of the MAGA movement and their nightmare vision of society, there’s more to it. Trump has promised retribution; to purge the government of all of these “deep state bureaucrats”.

On MSNBC, Chris Hayes shared an astute observation. He said, “Here we unlock a mystery: Why are Republicans waging war against the military top brass? January 6th, more than anything else…is the original sin. I believe the bigotry is sincere…but this garbage about the military being too woke is mostly a smoke screen to hide their disdain for the fact that in their view, the upper echelon of the U.S. armed forces were insufficiently loyal to Trump’s coup.” In other words, this war on the military is revenge for them refusing to be the “armed tip of the spear” to end the peaceful transfer of power.

We could also say more about how the most lunatic fascist fringe of the Republican House continued to wreak havoc, forcing house speaker Kevin McCarthy into a “compromise” with Democrats to pass a stopgap spending bill and avoid a government shutdown. Immediately, Matt Gaetz filed a motion to remove McCarthy as house speaker. And then, Trump, despite his multiple indictments, is still the leading front runner in the GOP. In a speech in California he said, “No way we lose this state in a real election. If we had a real election…we would win this state by a lot.”

We should take these threats very seriously, and it should be clear that Biden’s ambition to unite the country has been failing miserably – because there can be no uniting with these fascists except on their terms. Biden felt compelled to address this at a speech in Arizona on September 28th. He said, “Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep Americans safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans.

This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. It’s also a threat to the character of our nation.” But this is a nation built on genocide and slavery and its military has slaughtered and terrorized people all over the world. Right now, Biden is escalating a proxy war with Russia and threats against China. The threat of nuclear Armageddon – his words – is close at hand, and he has opened up more drilling for fossil fuels at a time when we are careening toward an uninhabitable Earth.

The Democrats have no real answer to the fascist threat, which is not an anomaly, but born out of the history of this country, and are no answer to the crises humanity faces. It is time for the decent people to forge our own path of resistance — not to unite the two sides of the divide (an impossible and undesirable task) but to bring into being a whole new world fit for humanity. With that, let’s hear Sam’s interview with Roxy Szal.

Sam Goldman 08:20

There are so many questions on my mind: Mifepristone headed back to the Supreme Court? Efforts to ban travel for abortion care as abortion trafficking? Criminalizing care? And what else is going on in this post roe hellscape? What was with the Paxton impeachment sham and acquittal? And how does this connect with the accelerating aggression of Christian fascism? In SB8, bounty hunter cruelty? What are sisters in Texas experiencing? What are the art and resistance we can look to for hope?

To get into this and much more, I am so glad to welcome onto the show. Roxy Szal. Roxy is a feminist journalist based in Austin, Texas. She is the managing digital editor at Ms. and a producer on the Ms. podcast, On the Issues with Michelle Goodwin. Before becoming a journalist. She was a Texas public school English teacher. Welcome Roxy. Thanks for coming on.

Roxy Szal 09:18

Thank you so much, Sam. I’m really excited.

Sam Goldman 09:21

The Christian fascists are ramping up their fight on countless fronts after their victory and overturning Roe: From GOP candidates campaigning for nationwide bans on abortion with birth control clearly in their sights, to Republi-fascists using anti abortion tactics to eviscerate trans health care. We’re still seeing just the beginning of the effects that abortion bans are having in the United States. Although, let’s be clear, this suffering happening now is horrific alone.

I’m wondering what is standing out to you right now, in this post Roe hellscape that you think folks need to be aware of or paying attention to, given that news cycle and the lack of, often, coverage of abortion rights in mainstream news? What might be getting lost?

Roxy Szal 10:10

First of all, I wish I could whisper this in the ear of every single American, the following: Medication abortion is a safe and accessible option, regardless of the state you are in, and regardless of whether or not you are actually pregnant. So again, I will say: Medication abortion is available in any state, regardless of whether you are pregnant or not.

I say this because living in an authoritarian state like Texas, having advanced provision abortion pills in my medicine cabinet, is what helps me stay in this state. It is what helps me sleep at night. We know that anti abortion groups are now coming for birth control. There is dark money, pay to play groups that are flooding money to groups that are run by the Koch network. I’m thinking about Students for Life, Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America. These groups are extremist groups, plain and simple. They act like they’re friends to women.

We just have to consider ourselves warned that birth control is next, period. This pisses me off, and I’m sure it pisses a lot of Americans off. I worry that media is not quite seeing the power of this anger; women’s anger, feminist anger, our allies’ anger. I think it’s really amazing how we’ve seen just in the last few elections, the midterm elections last year and some of these special elections that have happened, some of our pro abortion lawmakers who are on our side are able to channel this anger into codifying rights in a huge way.

We saw in 2022, ahead of the midterm elections, mainstream media downplaying the power of women’s anger and the abortion debate is over and people aren’t mad about it anymore. Then we got six wins under our belt when it came to putting abortion right in front of voters. Obviously, I’m talking about ballot initiatives here. We first had Kansas in the special election, and then we had Vermont and California and Michigan and Montana and Kentucky. These are states that run the gamut in terms of blue states, red states, purple states, and their voters sided with abortion.

People in blue states have to know they are coming for you too. I mean, these restrictions on mifepristone that will 99% of chance be in front of the Supreme Court this term — as we know, the makeup of the Supreme Court is not friendly to abortion, and several of them we’re learning are involved directly in the efforts of anti abortion groups — I’m looking at you Clarence Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett. We have to sort of see that fight for what it is, which is a nationwide restriction of mifepristone access, which would be devastating.

We cannot also sleep on the fact that if they are given the chance Republicans in Congress will pass a federal ban. They are counting on the fact that a large number of Americans do not understand what causes someone to choose an abortion past 15 weeks. We know largely it’s poor people, it’s people that were diagnosed with fatal fetal diagnoses or their lives are at risk. So Republicans are going to hope that this 15 week ban, that they can get it through.

We also have to talk about crisis pregnancy centers, which are all over the U.S.; blue states, red states. They outnumber real abortion clinics three to one, and many of them, as we know, are getting state funding. Now that abortion is banned across most of the South and most of the Midwest, including Texas, where I live, many crisis pregnancy centers are stepping into that void and taking on this larger role as this go to place for “helping” women: Come get your ultrasound; Come get your pregnancy tests; Come talk to us about abortion.

By the time patients get into this “clinic” they are being tricked. In Texas, there are zero abortion clinics, but we have many crisis pregnancy centers that unknowing women and patients are walking into and becoming trapped. I’m worried about a bunch of things. I’m inspired by a bunch of things. I could talk about this for hours.

Sam Goldman 14:37

Likewise, and I think that a lot of those things, they’re all intertwined, even some of these, what should feel as a victory are tainted by the horrific aspirations of those who seek the total subordination of women. That’s just part of reality. There was so much that you spoke to that I could talk about for a really long time.

One of the things that I really appreciate was encouraging people to look at the whole country. Even if you feel like you’re in your blue bubble, you’re not. A) It’s morally bankrupt to not consider the lives/future fate of our siblings in red states, but also: (B) This war, you are not going to be safe from. They were never going to accept a patchwork. They were never going to accept some free states and some states where you weren’t free.

We’ll get more into that through this conversation, but to me, that connects to the issue of medication abortion, which is the top method for abortion used by people seeking abortions in this country. As safe as effective as it is, it is because of those things that it is the total enemy, if you will, of the Christian fascists: How dare you, woman, have access in your cabinet to control your own future not mediated by anything but your own desire to control your future.

We’re seeing the way in which it’s being criminalized just — I don’t want to get the date wrong, but — it was last week that the mother of a Nebraskan teenager to help her daughter use abortion pills was just sentenced to something like [RS: Two years] in jail for giving her abortion meds. I’m sorry, but why the fuck are we not in the streets demanding that Jessica and Celeste have all the charges dropped and that these fuckers that are going after them are the ones that should be in jail?

I would also say that as much as I’m saying that I’m pro pill — I am incredibly — I do think that all women and all people seeking abortions should get to choose the method of abortion care they receive. [RS: Of course.] Yes to the people that are traveling — yes, they should have an option — and yes, they shouldn’t have to travel because they should be able to go down town and get an abortion right there.

The ballot initiative stuff, the main thing I think that it shows is that it shows the anger. It shows this vast anger and this vast reservoir, if you will, of untapped, unchanneled fury at the way that on a daily basis, through bans like SB8 and through Dobbs, that women are being pissed on — your body is not your own, and your future isn’t yours. I think that is tremendously powerful and I do think it matters how we exert that power. For what we’re fighting for, I think that given the fact that the GOP — or as I call them, the Republi-fascists — are so hell bent on suppressing the vote, are ignoring the will of the people, gerrymandering if they have to, and all these other things, including just saying that the election was a fraud.

I want us to be real in that sense, and to demand it in constant un-ignorable fashion, and not just aspire to, but actually see it through, to follow the lead of our sisters in Mexico — not accepting the rules of their game when their game is rigged.

Roxy Szal 18:12

I’m glad that you took it global because I think one of the U.S.-isms of news is the idea that our news is very U.S. centric, it is really important to put the U.S. authoritarian backlash in context of the growing authoritarian movement worldwide. I’m talking about places like Poland, Hungary, Russia, Uganda, Iran, Afghanistan. These are places where right wing evangelicals are doing their case studies and then bringing them back home and saying: Hey, this works, this doesn’t work. This is what you say when the people start saying this. When LGBTQ acceptance becomes really strong, single out the trans groups.

It’s all studied. It’s so pathetic when you kind of look at it in a large scale — though, I guess pathetic is the wrong word, because it is also quite effective. But when you can see the game for what it is — DeSantis is copying authoritarians in Poland, in Hungary. Book banning is nothing new. We have to challenge our media to talk about the U.S. movement in a worldwide sense, and also compare it to countries that are similar to the U.S. You mentioned Mexico and Latin America has a very strong Catholic, Christian through line in their history, and yet, many Latin American countries are loosening their abortion laws, increasing access and decriminalizing the practice.

It’s really embarrassing to be an American and to see how we are getting left behind. Women’s rights, as my coworker Jennifer Weiss Wolf says, they are the canary in the coal mine. When you start to see diminishing women’s rights, you can assume that democracy is officially in decline, which The U.S. was designated in declining democracy as you know, in 2021. Before the fall of Roe.

Sam Goldman 20:05

I wanted to touch more on mifepristone because you brought it up, and you brought up the stakes. As I said before medication abortion accounts for more than half of all U.S. abortions. The Department of Justice and a manufacturer of the widely used abortion drug, mifepristone, has asked the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that, if it’s allowed to go into effect, would restrict access to the drug.

The likelihood, as you said, of it coming before the Supreme Court this session is high. It’s very confusing terrain. This has gone on for a while for people and to follow this story is a little bit tricky, so I just was wondering if you could give us an update on what’s at stake here and kind of how you see this playing out in terms of its potentially far reaching implications.

Roxy Szal 20:55

We can be almost sure that the Supreme Court will rule on mifepristone. DOJ and Danko, who makes mifepristone, have asked the Supreme Court to weigh in. This means that we’re likely going to be getting a bombshell mifepristone abortion ruling right before the 2024 elections; right before we decide who’s going to be our president, who’s going to represent us in Congress. Part of me is worried. This court is clearly not sympathetic to abortion.

And as I mentioned before, a ruling against mifepristone deauthorizing the FDA authorization of mifepristone will affect the entire country including blue states. So if SCOTUS says that mifepristone was unlawfully authorized, good luck. That will be a national decision. At the same time, we saw how the overturning of Roe mobilized voters, and my professional opinion is nothing would mobilize voters more than a decision from SCOTUS that is blatantly anti abortion.

As we know, the Supreme Court saves their most testy, controversial decisions till the end of the term so that they can give us all the bad news and walk away for the summer. So they will likely save the mifepristone ruling till June, the end of the term. With an election ramping up at that time, it’s going to be a bombshell.

Sam Goldman 22:20

My understanding is that they could potentially go with what the Fifth Circuit — correct me if I’m wrong — said, which was to go back to the 2016 [questioningly] provisions that allow the drug to be on the market, but had much more restricted use in terms of how people could get it, and who could prescribe it, and reduce the number of weeks that you could get it. So all of those things — while yes, it’s still there — you’re talking about millions of people still not being able to access it at a time where, as you said, it’s needed more often now, because abortion is banned in so many states.

Roxy Szal 23:02

Yes, and I hear within your question, confusion on the rulings. Yeah, part of the challenge of covering mifepristone is that there are dueling courts ruling on this decision all at the same time. In April of this year, there was a flurry of activity. There was this much awaited decision that this federal judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, who’s in my state, up north in Texas — he ruled that the FDA improperly approved mifepristone, and this set off a chain reaction. An hour later, a different federal judge in Washington, blocked the FDA from altering the status quo. So now we have, within an hour of each other, two dueling federal court rulings.

The following week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on mifepristone that limits its use only up to seven weeks of pregnancy, which would severely impair access to abortion. That Fifth Circuit ruling is the ruling in question that now Danko and the DOJ are suing to the Supreme Court. They are trying to get the Supreme Court to block that ruling, which has not taken effect yet until the Supreme Court rules.

I just want to make that clear; there is no change to mifepristone availability as we speak. It is as available as it was last year as it was the year before as it was the year before. Mifepristone is available in all 50 states on websites like PlanCPills.org, that will help ship it to you. But, again, if the Supreme Court ends up allowing that Fifth Circuit ruling to take effect, it will be a bombshell. You will only be able to use it up to seven weeks.

A change from 2016 allowed you to use it up to 10 weeks — that would be gone. It would increase the number of appointments required to prescribe mifepristone, so you would no longer be able to order it online, you’d have to go in person. So if I’m living in Texas, where would I go in person? I’d have to drive to New Mexico, Colorado, I’d have to fly to my parents who live in California. That’s the ruling — that Fifth Circuit ruling is the ruling in question here, and it’s what the Supreme Court is being asked to rule upon.

Sam Goldman 25:13

Related to our conversation about travel and getting pills or going to a provider’s, one of the many ominous directions some fascist areas have been going in is to propose bans on travel out of state to receive abortion care. Correct me if I’m wrong, please, but there are efforts in parts of Texas utilizing the same bounty hunter enforcement mechanism as the SB8 vigilante abortion ban.

Roxy Szal 25:43

The anti abortion movement is working very hard to prevent abortion seekers from leaving their home state. I would say it’s concentrated here in Texas, or the movement is thriving in Texas, let’s say. We have this sanctuary cities initiative, and their goal is to, “protect our cities by outlawing abortion, one city at a time”. These are very much citizen led initiatives. Texas right now is home to about 50 sanctuary cities.

This movement has expanded into six other states. It has this kind of unique bounty hunter provision that we first saw in Senate Bill Eight in Texas in 2021; two years ago, this month. Anti abortion movement saw that and they were like: Wow, genius. How creative. It goes through every legal loophole that exists to make it a civil crime, not a criminal provision, and to deputize just your average run of the mill, Texas citizen, or any citizen — you don’t have to just be in Texas to bring one of these lawsuits.

These sanctuary cities initiatives, they incentivize individuals to become bounty hunters, and to bring lawsuits against abortion providers, as well as anyone who “aids or abets abortion”. I think this movement is terrifying and interesting, because I think it shows the ability for authoritarian regimes to pivot when necessary; they get really creative. We did not hear about this bounty hunter provision until a couple years ago and now we’re seeing it a lot more places.

I am worried about the rise of technology and what that means for the anti abortion movement, and the eventual possibility of a total surveillance state. I almost hesitated saying that because I don’t want people to think that telehealth is dangerous or that you are automatically going to get in trouble. I am a big supporter of telehealth, as our writers and staff members that work at Ms., but you have to protect yourself. We have to remember that these abortion pill provider websites are not hack proof and we really do need to up our game when it comes to patient privacy, and we need tech companies to follow suit.

In the meantime, my advice is if you are going to use the internet to search for abortion, use an incognito browser, clear your browsing history, clear the cookies that are being saved on this web site. I would also consider using a burner phone, or at least a secondary phone number through Google. I am worried about the proliferation of technology and how it is going to empower and enable very creative and very well funded anti abortion extremists. It’s a space to keep an eye on for sure.

Sam Goldman 28:28

It is so disturbing. These travel that and that Texas is doing — but also Alabama and other places are being inspired by — I think that it really does open up the door to extraordinary levels of surveillance and control over women and so much more. This is, in a way, different than pre Roe in terms of the level of surveillance because of technology.

Roxy Szal 28:55

They’re feeling empowered. It was a huge win, and they’re like: What else can we do? What else can we take down? Abortion pills? They’re on it. Birth control? They’re on it. [SG: No fault divorce!] They’re on it. I am afraid at the new pathways that I see extremists coming up with to keep women in their homes and to keep women out of the public space and at home raising their children. I am scared, for sure. But I’m also inspired.

Sam Goldman 29:24

That makes sense. My feeling, all the time — for those who listen regularly, I’m sorry — is just seething outrage. And so much of it is outrage at the lack of outrage. If free speech, for example, was infringed upon by the government, and you were only told that in some states you had the right to speak, you had the right to protest your their freedom of expression, but only in some places, there’d be an uproar.

If people were told, straight up: You can vote in this state but you can’t vote in that state, people would be like… [RS: I know] Abortion rights as a federally protected right are gone in this country and people have accepted that. Even if they don’t like it, they’ve mainly at this point swallowed it and limited their outrage and, in my opinion, limited our possibility of getting out of this.

Roxy Szal 30:17

I’m sure you’re familiar with the lawsuit in Texas a month or two ago, it’s called Zurawski versus Texas. It was this landmark lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive rights. It was the first time in U.S. history that patients directly affected by abortion laws sought to reform them through the courts. I was in the courtroom listening to these arguments and listening to the women share their stories, it was harrowing. Seasoned reporters were crying. One of the women plaintiffs threw up on the stand. It was stories of women who desperately wanted to be pregnant, but they had fetal anomalies, or they had twins, and one of them was not going to make it and actually the life of that twin that was non viable, was going to bring down the life of the viable twin.

Yes, it was a fight, and it was very painful even just to listen. I can’t even imagine what it was like for the women sharing their stories. In a way the case was successful. The judge ruled in the women’s favor. Jessica Mangrum, the judge, ruled in favor of the 15 women suing Texas. She said this SB8, or Senate Bill Eight, is unconstitutional, and doctors need to be able to use their good faith judgment. It was a win. It was a huge deal. And yet abortion is still not accessible in Texas, and that’s because our lovely state legislators — we’re talking about Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, just in the news just survived a sham impeachment trial — they immediately appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court, and according to our state law, as soon as appeals are filed, a ruling is stayed.

We celebrate the decision, and the amazing part is that the Center for Reproductive Rights is bringing this kind of lawsuit to now Idaho, Tennessee and Oklahoma, because they do consider it a win, even though while we wait for this to continue to get battled out in court, women and people are being forced to give birth because, for what it is, the law is still in effect, even though we had a judge say the law is unconstitutional. These are our pro life Texas elected officials, seeing women give birth to babies who die four hours after birth — and this is pro life. It’s just infuriating.

But again, out of this horror comes good things because it is forcing Texans who previously said: I’m anti abortion and the exceptions are working. Well, look at these women who wanted to be pregnant and this anti abortion law is hurting their family and their husbands and the wives are crying in court. You just see the horror of it, and I think stories like that are becoming more and more common. We’re seeing celebrities and elected officials come out and share their abortion stories.

Removing some of that stigma is crucial. It is slow. It is slower than we’d like. It is a life and death fight where people are dying in the interim. You can’t discount that, but it is chugging along. I’d like to see it go faster. I’d like abortion to become legal in Texas right at this minute. It’s going to take longer. I do have faith that it’s going to come.

Sam Goldman 33:33

At the beginning of September, the anniversary of SB8, you wrote: “Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the long standing precedent of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest load of women’s constitutional rights in history. In Texas, this has been part of women’s reality for years. Two years ago, Texas SB8 became law; the six week ban, with a bounty hunter provision. At the same time as SB8 took effect, it was considered the most restrictive abortion ban to ever take effect in the U.S., post Roe.” What has been the state of access to abortion for Texas for the past couple of years? For those who aren’t as familiar as you are living in the state, what’s the situation there?

Roxy Szal 34:22

It’s bleak. I’m not gonna lie. For two years, abortion has essentially been banned in Texas. First SB8, which was a six week ban. Most people don’t know that they’re pregnant at six weeks. I certainly wouldn’t because I skip my periods on my birth control pills. So I would have no idea except if I took a pregnancy test. After Roe fell, the trigger ban took effect. It’s called the human life Protection Act. And so now abortion has been totally banned, more or less, in Texas for two years.

What we’re seeing on the ground? We are only seeing, first of all, what people share publicly with the media, and there is a lot of fear on the ground here with sharing your story and what that’s going to mean. But we are seeing death or serious injury of pregnant women. We are seeing extreme mental anguish. We are seeing permanent health concerns.

I mentioned before this Zurawski versus Texas case, which was a lawsuit that argued that Texas abortion bans violate women’s constitutional rights under the Texas Constitution, which does have an equal rights amendment, interestingly enough. It was one of the things that the Center for Reproductive Rights cited in their arguments as to why SB8 should be overturned was that it violated the Texas Equal Rights Amendment, which is pretty exciting.

Some of these women are sharing stories about developing sepsis and nearly dying and suffering permanent reproductive damage — this is Amanda Zurawski, who was the lead plaintiff, she’s the one that’s named on the lawsuit. The state of Texas had the audacity to try to say that she did not have standing to sue the state because now her fertility is compromised due to being denied an abortion, and so she no longer needs to worry about abortion bans because she’s not likely to become pregnant again and she doesn’t have grounds to sue.

We have this other woman Ashley Brandt, who spoke who was pregnant with twins. One of her twins had a fatal condition and one of her twins did not. Her doctor took a risk and said “I hear Colorado is a really nice place to visit this time of year,” so that she and her family could get the standard of care which is a selective fetal reduction, which is an abortion. It is one abortion so she could give birth to her second twin, and she did. Hers is a success story because she had the means to travel out of state, she got the selective fetal reduction, she came back to Texas and she said on the stand: I got to give birth to my healthy daughter. Instead of crying tears of heartbreak, I was crying tears of relief.

I mean, this is the reality. Some women were not lucky enough to be able to travel out of state because they don’t have the means, they have a family, they have a job. I’m thinking specifically of Samantha Casiano, who testified on the stand. She was forced to carry a non viable pregnancy to term because her doctor was understandably afraid to give her an abortion. Her daughter was born with anencephaly — so, no brain, no skull — and Samantha said on the stand: “For four hours, I had to watch my baby suffer. I kept telling myself and my baby: ‘I’m so sorry, this happened to you’, there was no mercy for her.

These are just the stories that people are brave enough to share with members of the media and with lawyers, knowing that these stories are going to go public. We have no idea what’s happening in teeny tiny towns or to undocumented students or women or people in tough situations that have no idea of the landscape and the laws because they’re changing a lot, and because the cruelty and the confusion is the point. I can also tell you though, that Texans are pissed. I just went to the Texas Tribune Festival this weekend and I I hate watched a session with Ted Cruz and he was being heckled, screamed at about abortion, about gun control.

People are waking up. These individual stories that are being told, I really do think, are what’s going to turn the tide for people, because people do not want this to happen to members of their family. When it’s a hypothetical woman and there’s all these tropes — misogyny runs so deep in our culture — the idea of this mythical woman who’s just waiting till 26 weeks to go around and get her abortion, it’s just not reality. I think people are coming to see the ripple effect of abortion bans and how they’re impacting families and women who want to be pregnant and doctors who are terrified to administer what they know is the best practice of care.

I’m not gonna lie, it is scary here. When I go to the gynecologist, I know that my gynecologist cannot give me all the information that a gynecologist in New York or California or Connecticut can. That is a travesty. But publications like Ms. And like really a lot of mainstream media that has picked up the baton; sisters in arms. We just have some really good reporting that’s coming out and explaining how you can get abortion pills and how you can access care in the absence of state lawmakers who have our best interests at heart, because they do not.

Sam Goldman 39:31

I wanted to move into this 50 year anniversary you mentioned; Ms. and the role that they play in sharing information. Ms. Has a book, ’50 Years of Ms.: The best of the pathfinding magazine that ignited a revolution.’ I’m just wondering, like 50 years of Ms., what’s changed? What hasn’t?

Roxy Szal 39:56

I would say, five decades of feminist reporting, some of the things that haven’t changed: We cover abortion practically daily and we are unabashed in the way that we cover abortion. We practice something called movement journalism, which is journalism in desire of social, political or economic change. So when we are covering issues like abortion, we don’t ask anti abortion advocates their opinion because it is authoritarian, it is anti democratic. We don’t care what they think because abortion is healthcare and that’s the lens that we come to our reporting with.

What has changed, of course, is the way that we present the news. I’m the managing digital editor at Ms. We have several digital channels that we use to get the information out to readers. The website, MsMagazine.com, is about 11, 12 years old right now — I’ve been in this role for about four years — we publish two to eight stories a day on issues affecting women and people of color and LGBTQ people. So, we have the website, MsMagazine.com. We have a podcast, On the Issues with Michelle Goodwin, you should watch this space because it [SG: She’s a total icon, you should listen to it, she’s amazing.] She is amazing. I’m honored to even just be in her orbit.

Watch this space, because Michelle has launched Ms. studios, and she has several podcasts that are in the works: Some on the First Amendment, some on menstrual equity, some on racial equity, and book talks. We just have a lot of really cool stuff happening in the podcast space because we were pleasantly surprised that how people took two on the issues which is a every other week podcast out from Ms. We also have active social media, which I have to say it is a bleak time to work in social media with Elan Musk taking over and limiting what what we can share.

We also really rely on our own personal channels. We have email newsletters that we send out every day. You can sign up for those on MsMagazine.com. We’d love to be in your inbox keeping you up to date on some of the most important stories of the day. And then what else has changed, as you mentioned, Sam, we have a book, ’50 Years of Ms.’, and I am so floored at the way it’s being received publicly.

We have a book tour going on right now that you can come in person. If you go to MsMagazine.com/book, you can check out our book tour and you can meet me or some other Ms. staffers in person, other MS contributors in person. We’re gonna be all throughout the country. We were just in Austin this past weekend, DC, LA, New York, but then we’re going to be in Georgia, we’re going to be in Northern California, we’re going to be in Virginia. Definitely, if you are able to come to an in person event, we’d love to have you. Zooming out in terms of covering feminist issues, what’s changed in the last 50 years?

I’ll admit on many issues, it feels like we’ve gone backwards. It feels like we have less rights than our grandmothers and moms had when we were growing up, and that’s probably true. But you can also see, kind of, the silver lining of these cataclysmic events like the overturning of Roe. More Americans and particular Democrats and young people identify as pro choice than ever before.

In the first issue of Ms., 1972 — so this is before Roe v. Wade, this is one year before Roe v Wade — Ms. published this pretty iconic petition, it’s called ‘We Have Had Abortions’. Really famous women, 53 women, signed it; Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Judy Collins. They publicly said, before abortion was even legal, we have had abortions, and invited people to sign it. We’ve relaunched it a few times over the last couple of years and decades when abortion rights have been in parallel again. Society has kind of caught up finally to speaking about abortion publicly, and de-stigmatizing it, and I do think that the overturning of Roe sped that along a lot.

Just like we saw in Mexico and in Colombia and other states were the country where the green wave was so powerful, that was the people pushing the lawmakers and that’s what we need to continue to do is come at it, like I said, from the streets, through voting, through the courts, at the state level, at the national level, at the local level, in your city, in your Commonwealth, in your municipality. It has to be all hands on deck, all types of groups coming together as well; civil rights groups, LGBTQ groups, racial groups, voting rights groups are all kind of coalescing around this idea.

I am really inspired by young people in particular who are seeing how you connect the dots, how attacks on trans rights are connected to attacks on abortion rights, are connected to attacks on what’s allowed to be discussed in the classroom. I’m glad that publications like MS exist because we keep screaming about issues and making the mainstream media pay attention. You just have to keep in mind to remember that it’s working even though it is is bleak.

I can’t emphasize enough just how bleak and how life and death it feels on the ground in Texas, but also just how many wins we’ve secured and how many wins we have yet to secure.

Sam Goldman 45:12

I want to thank you Roxy, so much for coming on and sharing your expertise, your perspective and your time with us. We’re gonna put a link obviously to Ms. in the show notes. If people want to hear more from you read more from you, where do you want to direct them to?

Roxy Szal 45:34

I would probably direct them to subscribe directly to Ms. newsletters. I write for Ms. very often, but we have a huge cadre of just incredible writers. I know Carrie Baker has been on the show before. She is like our go to, but we just have so many incredible writers that are sounding alarms for readers. So, if I were you, I would go to MsMagazine.com and subscribe to our newsletters. That will keep you up to date with the things I’m writing, but just the things that feminists are writing, and it will really plug you into the feminist space.

I would also highly recommend getting the ’50 Years of Ms.’ book. It is truly incredible. Even if I did not work at Ms., the reviews are really speaking for themselves. It is a powerful collection of 10 years of feminist thinking and feminist thought and it shows you really how far along we have come, but also what we have left to cover. So I would say email newsletters and buy the book, that would be great.

Coco Das 46:28

I want to close this podcast by talking a little about optimism and resistance. This fascism can be stopped, and there are reasons to hope for something better to be wrenched out of this terrible situation if we act in a way that is commensurate with the danger. But our optimism should be based on reality.

The fact is that voting and ballot measures or in general elections has not transformed into increased protection, let alone nationwide restoration of abortion rights. Here in Texas, the Christian fascist Mark Lee Dixon has been on a tear across rural counties to further enforce, with vigilante and state violence, the enslaving provisions of SB8, which effectively banned abortions in Texas even before the overturning of Roe.

Just a few days ago, this headline appeared in the Texas Tribune: With no opposition in the room, a rural Texas County makes traveling for an abortion on its roads illegal”, and Dixon was quoted in the article as saying: This ordinance would close some of the loopholes that exist in this fight. It’s saying the roads and the airport could not be used for abortion trafficking into New Mexico.

Now, all the decent people have to ask themselves: What is it going to take to stop this nightmare? Why was there no opposition in the room? And even more than that, where’s the opposition in every sphere of society and especially in the streets? If abortion rights are more popular than ever, why is the other side winning? Yes, winning. Thousands of women every month are being forced right now to give birth against their will. This is a form of female enslavement that should galvanize a powerful movement from below.

A movement in the streets that brings a society to a halt and causes a crisis of legitimacy for these Christian fascist forces and their enablers and everyone in the halls of power. If we don’t get angry about what these fascists are doing to everyone they hate, if we don’t put something on the line, if we aren’t willing to sacrifice something to put up a real fight, those sacrifices we avoid now are nothing compared to the millions of lives that will be foreclosed and lost as fascism consolidates. We should take inspiration from the green wave in Latin America, where women and allies filled the streets year after year after year, refusing to back down until they won.

Thanks for listening to the Refuse Fascism podcast. We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, ideas for topics or guests or lend a skill. Tweet me @Coco_Das, for our regular host @SamBGoldman. Or you can drop her line at [email protected].

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Thanks to Sam Goldman, Richie Marini, Mark Tinkleman and Lina Thorne for helping produce this episode. Thanks to our incredible volunteers, we have transcripts available for each episode. So be sure to visit RefuseFascism.org and sign up to get them in your inbox each week. We’ll be back next Sunday. Until then, in the name of humanity I refuse to accept a fascist America!