for girls in the Bay Area, snake All the girls in the bedroom.
All girls with a sharpened back. all girls with a wild Shan all
those on the tail. All of those things.
All girls sitting on. One my one flying to fight.
Be careful how you been. Be careful.
Careful. That's Patty Griffin with her.
On be careful and I'm Michael Moore.
This is Rumble. Said my podcast.
Thank you for listening today. As I'm recording this.
Actually, I noticed on the calendar.
This is the 75th anniversary of the day at Major League,
Baseball allowed, Jackie Robinson to play the game. 75
years ago today. There were no black, baseball
players in the major leagues. There are no black players in
the NFL. The MBA hockey, of course, golf
tennis, and his car, whatever. And there were no women.
There were no major leagues of women or women who played
sports. But this was a white man's game
because it was a white man's world.
And nobody saw anything wrong with that.
Well, I shouldn't say nobody. I think a lot of women saw
something wrong with it and I think people of color saw a lot
of things wrong with that. And then finally, a few white
people who I guess had a conscience or maybe it was just
they decided, you know, we're missing out on some money.
Are folks only playing white people and appealing to white
people. There are other people in this
country and there's money to be made, but whatever the reason in
certainly, in the case of the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers,
they decided enough was enough. And if you've read anything
about that era and this particular day this is like I
don't know maybe seven or eight years before I was born but I
only say that to point out that I as a child and growing up
these attitudes just just didn't go away.
People did not like watching white people I mean watching
black people playing their Sports. and it took some time
for that bigotry to die down. A lot of it.
Never went away, of course, because here we are, here we are
in the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson and we have a
growing movement of white supremacist.
We have all kinds of crap. whether it's the fact that the
Voting Rights Act was abandoned, the one that was enacted in 1965
voter suppression. gerrymandering all the stuff
that still goes on to keep the black woman and man down to this
day. You've seen it on the news in
the last week or two, they're getting ready for the midterms
in November and they want as few black people to vote as
possible. I mean, it's just amazing and it
gives it is an amazing. 75 years later.
We're still having to deal with this crap.
Not so much that everything Americans playing in the Major
League Sports, but look how long it took just to get a WNBA for
the women could have their own leagues and audiences and
whatever. It's a whole bunch of things
that are going on right now. Things were able to deal with
and we've got the November elections coming up and there
are so much energy and money being spent.
And on the other side to make sure that the voices of those
who are not white men are suppressed.
And so that means that the majority, the actual majority of
us that being women, the majority gender people of color,
some white guys, and a lot of young people you put all that
together. That's the majority.
So, will we rule will the majority rule will we get the
Senate, the way we need it. This November will?
We lose the house? Could that actually happen?
You know, I've been fairly optimistic about this but with
the caveat that we will all get involved, we will all
participate. And we will not let the
supremacist in the misogynist. Run this country.
And we have to be bold and brave and active to make sure that
happens because they will not happen on its own.
I mean it just look at this last week.
What has happened on the issue of abortion?
Texas sign their law Kentucky. Oklahoma.
There are three or four states just this week.
That essentially, with the way, the law is written eliminated, a
woman's right to choose what to do with her reproductive organs,
what to do with her body, they're all getting ready.
They're all gearing up for something that's going to
happen. And possibly as soon as six to
nine weeks, possibly the Supreme Court is going to rule I think
we all have a good idea of what's going to happen and then
what are we going to do about it?
We're not going to Peach Trump's people off the Supreme Court in
the next couple of months. I mean they would do that to us
but that's not our style you know.
So so we we have something that we really need to be concerned
about because what they're planning the coup essentially
that they're planning. It's not gonna be going to be
the coup that they tried to pull off on January 6 of 2020.
This is through the way that they are hoping to rigged
elections, count, the elections, etc, etc.
To do all the things they accused Democrats and Biden of
doing. Every time they do that, they're
just signaling what they're going to do, or what they're
going to try to do. And so we need to really be
thinking about what are we going to do about this?
What are we going to do? It won't be easy.
Whatever it is. But I want to talk about this
today. I have a special guest coming on
here in a few minutes. She's written a great book,
entitled policing, the womb invisible women, in the
criminalization of motherhood. It's very powerful.
Her name is dr. Michelle Goodwin.
She's an award-winning author law professor out at the UC
Irvine. She's an executive committee
member of the national ACLU, American civil liberties Union.
She was awarded the 1022 Margaret Brent award from the
American Bar Association this award.
If you don't know what it is, it's given to those who carry
forward the legacy of Margaret, Brent, and it was Margaret
Brent, the first female lawyer in the United States of America
and she has been a tireless Advocate and activist for
Reproductive Justice. And she's going to be my guest
today here on Rumble, and we're going to have an important
discussion about what to do. So dr.
Goodwin will be here with us, but before we speak to her first
off a huge, thank you to wonder IAM.
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Rumble and for helping my voice to be heard
and we are back So dr. Michelle bratcher Goodwin holds
the Chancellor's professorship at the University of California,
Irvine. And is the founder and director
of the center for biotechnology and Global Health policy and its
reproductive Justice initiative. She is also the award-winning
author published in the New York Times, LA Times Politico,
incredible op-eds and essays. And writings in her most recent
book is policing. The womb invisible women, in the
criminalization of motherhood. When you read this book, there
are many books written about subjects and issues regarding
what we're talking about here today.
But this is I think one of the most profound things I've read
in many, many years and I encourage everyone to read it.
Dr. Goodwin is also the host of her own podcast for Ms, magazine
on the issues with Michelle Goodwin.
Before we begin with dr. Goodwin, I just want to read you
just a A little piece here from an essay that she wrote for the
New York Times back around the Thanksgiving weekend here.
This past November open up the times and this was the headline
of the essay by dr. Goodwin I was raped by my father
in abortion. Saved my life.
And it was hard to get through at the time and it was hard,
even earlier today as I was prepping for this podcast to
read it again. Here's a portion of this is dr.
Goodwin speaking. It was the early morning of my
10th birthday the first time that I was raped by my father.
It would not be the last The shock was so severe that I
temporarily went blind before. I began the fifth grade a few
weeks later. By the time, the school year
began, my father had taken me to see a battery of doctors and a
medical explanation by these doctors would paper over.
The fact that the trauma caused by his sexual violence, had
caused my body to shut down. The physiological suffering that
I endured included severe migraines, hair loss, even gray
hair at 10 years old. While other girls may have
longed for puberty. I loathed the idea of it.
My body became a vessel that was not mine.
It had been taken from me, I lived in fear of the night and
the footsteps, outside my bedroom door, Dr. Goodman goes
on to explain out her closet, became her Sanctuary to hide,
and unless you think that her father was just some
ne'er-do-well drunk, whatever, taking advantage of his
daughter. She goes on in the next
paragraph to State, my father's predations were hidden behind
wealth, social status and his acting.
The part of a committed, an attentive parent I attended
Elite schools in New York City, I studied ballet at a.
Renowned Academy took private violin and tennis lessons.
My father, never missed a parent-teacher conference.
However, that veneer of normalcy belied intimate, Family
Violence, it began years before with this physical abuse of my
mother at times, he was so violent that she was
hospitalized. And at age 12, I was pregnant by
him and I had an abortion. And he was able, then I'm just
going to just skip ahead here to convince the doctor that this 12
year old gotten pregnant by her being fast and loose with a
reckless boyfriend. The doctor just just bought it.
And so she's sitting there she explains with these two men
looking at her in this shameful way, and years later thinking
back upon that, she talks about, not just that moment but what it
grew to mean to her as she was a teenager and then I became an
adult. I'm really honored to have with
us here today on Rumble dr. Michelle good one, dr.
Goodwin, thank you so much for being part of this.
Thank you for writing that essay and thank you for writing this
book policing. The womb is the nonfiction
version in some sense of handmaid's tale.
Thank you for what you've done, and thank you for being here.
Thank you very much for lifting up these important issues and
bringing them to your audience. Well, Well, we have to because I
get the sense that we are just months weeks away from our new
Supreme Court 1/3 appointed by Donald Trump of declaring that
the government is going to say what women can do with their
reproductive, organs, with their bodies and that row v Wade, the
Supreme Court case that essentially made it legal for
women to be able to choose whether or not they want to have
a baby that that is possibly going to be overturned.
Or restructured in some other way, to the point where women
are going to lose this, right? Do I have that right?
Or am I? No, I just think you're right.
And that so the case before the United States Supreme Court
comes out of Mississippi, it's the Dobbs case and it's a case
that involves a 15 week. Abortion ban that provides no
exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
This is a modern feature of the anti Abortion campaigning
something that we wouldn't have seen a decade ago.
We wouldn't have seen five years ago, we wouldn't have seen pre
Trump. Now the state with this new
composition on the Supreme Court has fought not only its 15 week
abortion ban because of the current composition of the
Court. It is ask the court to do away
with Roe v-- Wade all together. Is that going to happen.
Many people are saying that we should prepare for that to
happen because the Supreme Court has a very vocal majority that
has articulated both in terms of personal leanings.
And also prior adjudication that they have no sympathy towards
Roe v-- Wade or Reproductive Rights generally and Chief
Justice, John Roberts who very recently.
Bentley has been siding with liberals on the court, his vote
no longer matters to that five Justice majority that has shown
a lack of regard for Roe v-- Wade Planned Parenthood V Casey
and the various laws that have protected Reproductive Rights.
Is there a chance that one of those five will have an epiphany
before June? And the court won't get rid of
Roe v-- Wade? This is a really good question.
So over time there are those of us who've said that it's been a
death by a thousand strikes. This kind of movement that we
saw speed up come 2010. So between 2010 and 2013, there
were more anti-abortion anti contraception laws that were
proposed and enacted than the 30 years prior combined.
And the important point to note there is that this was with the
rise of the Tea Party. And it's important to understand
that this movement is not only one that seeks to trample and
seeks to get rid of, if you will Reproductive Rights.
But this is a movement that is also behind voter suppression
gerrymandering all of that. It's all a part of a narrative
of a kind of America of Jim Crow and America, that was, you know,
pre 13th Amendment as is what these people have the taste for
and to put that in context, Roe v-- Wade. 1973 opinion and it
was 72 to the votes. In that case, five of those
seven justices were Republican appointed, wasn't the opinion,
the actual opinions of written, by one of the Republican
appointed. That's right, you're absolutely
right. Michael by Justice blackmun who
was put on the court by Richard Nixon, right?
The father of George h.w. Bush Prescott Bush was the
treasurer of planned. A hood.
So what we see these days that parades itself as Republican,
it's important to note that it is not the kind of traditional
Republican values. This is more of a kind of tea
party mix with even jealous ISM. That is not part of the
Republican tradition. That at least was the 1950s 60s,
70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000's. But as part of this very me,
Spirit at wave that we've seen, which is not too distant from
seeing children being locked in cages and having the federal
government argue against providing them soap and
toothpaste for the people who are listening to this, what can
they do? What can we all do between now?
And let's say when they release their judgment here in June,
maybe July, maybe May, it's not far off here.
No. And I think, you know, there's
so much going on in the world obviously with the pandemic that
we're still in the middle of the war.
In Ukraine, so many things. And I think that there's a lack
of focus amongst people that maybe we should be talking about
this more and maybe we should get ready and what if anything
can we do to encourage the court to do the right thing?
So there are no more things to do right.
Now, one happens to be supporting funds abortion funds
that help people to be able to have the means to go out of
state and get the health care services that they need because
it's important that people. Are that there are people who
need abortions to save their lives, to manage miscarriages.
And of course, to remember that it is a constitutionally
protected, right? It's important at the state
level to contact state, legislators in states, where
there are trigger laws that may go into effect such that if the
Supreme Court upholds, the Mississippi Law, then there are
over two dozen states that have ready to go similar laws and
it's important that in those States.
They Understand that voters are opposed to those kinds of laws.
And then I think that they really need to be prepared for
what I call the new Jane Crow, which is newer forms of
surveillance of policing of criminalizing women and girls as
they seek reproductive Healthcare and this may have
nothing to do with abortion. I mean, the kind of policing of
people who want to carry pregnancies to term, but who may
be used Marijuana to calm their nerves before Labor or used a
Valium to calm their nerves before Labor, the policing of
those women because we've already begun to see those kind
of arrests taking place. These are just simply not safe
times for anybody who has the potential to become pregnant in
the United States. And it's not just then the
policing one has to be concerned in these states.
That would seek to coerce people into taking pregnancies to term
that the United States has the highest maternal mortality.
Ality rate in the developed World.
These states are the most dangerous places in the
developed world to even be pregnant.
So there's a lot to pay attention to in these spaces,
right? Something you just said that,
people what does she mean by that?
That it's got the highest maternal mortality rate.
You're talking about women who died in childbirth.
That's why you go to the third world.
A mother giving birth in Turkmenistan has a greater
chance of surviving giving birth than a mother in Cleveland.
That's right. Then a mother in California.
That's absolutely right. Yes.
It's an. It's stunning to look at the
data. Yes.
You know, our rates of death are closer to Saudi Arabia than they
are to England. I mean, we rank between 50th and
54th in the world in terms of maternal mortality.
Meaning that it's more dangerous to carry a pregnancy to term in
the United States because of risk of death, and it is in
Bosnia, former war-torn country that experienced genocide.
And when we look at the data black, women are three and a
Five times more, likely nationally to die than their
white counterparts. Carrying a pregnancy to term in
this is not because black women have faulty genes or things like
that, right? It is not that it is systems of
implicit and explicit bias in the delivery of healthcare.
But when we drill down, even more closely in the states that
have enacted, the most Draconian types of abortion bans, we see
that black women are 10 times more likely than their white
counterparts. On our parts to die in some of
those counties 15 times more likely than their white
counterparts to die in those counties.
And so we have to keep that in mind when we hear this rhetoric
about, we care about women. And we're enacting these laws
because we care about pregnant women or because we care about
the babies in these very states that refused to expand Medicaid
coverage that refused to provide adequate care for people who are
on assistance. Or who are receiving food
stamps. Mean, this is real kind of harsh
and cruelty. That is life and death for many
women who were coerced and States like Texas and
Mississippi and Alabama to carry pregnancies to term that they do
not want. This is forced birth, you have
your forgiving benefits it is and that's why I referenced
earlier. The handmaid's tale, which is
where the women who are chosen, who are still fertile are held
down first. Being raped by the commanders
and then held down and forced to give birth to carry that
pregnancy to term and then forced birth and coupled with
what we just were talking about. The only way I can figure out
how to call this. We just described about the
maternal mortality rate. Certainly more so amongst black
and brown women is that? This is death by motherhood.
Well, it is, that's not an exaggeration.
I know I'm trying to find a different way to say it, but I'm
just where it snowed. I think that part of the
struggle Michael with finding the right words, is that this is
staring Us in the face and, and it's dumbfounding, right?
People who are elected to protect to serve the people of
their state and community and that they would show such
disregard for the women for the girls for the people in their
state who have the capacity for pregnancy is just mind-boggling.
It is Absolutely cruel and let me help to set the stage a
little bit more with data that we know.
So a person is 14, times 1 is 14 times more likely to die by
carrying a pregnancy to term the World Health Organization.
For decades has deemed an abortion as safe as a penicillin
shot. We know that pregnancy isn't
that, you know, no matter how passionate one is about their
anti-abortion stance, we will never get over.
Over the fact that a pregnancy can be dangerous and is
dangerous. And this data that we have at
stares Us in the face in the United States, that you would
think in any other context, if we knew that a person was 14
times more likely to die by the state pushing its hand and
forcing them to do that. Well, we would see intervention
from Congress. We'd see intervention from the
Supreme Court. We'd say no, you can't do that.
You just simply We can't put people to a death sentence and
that is a essentially what it is when one has that kind of data
and the state says, we're going to force the hand in this
domain. Now it's one thing for a person
to say, I want to be pregnant and I want to have multiple
kids. I'm a mom, you know?
I mean, and I wanted to be a mom, but that was really my
decision to take that on when I did and I happily took that on,
but I fear and I grieve for For the women in the state of Texas
or those who already are in the state of Mississippi where there
is only one, abortion clinic that remains and I have
interviewed staff at that clinic.
And here's what I can tell you. There are people who show up
with machine guns outside of that clinic.
They show up with bull horns. They take down people's license
plate. Numbers, the clinic regularly
receives threats. Since row v Wade in 1973.
This has not been a peaceful movement despite what Senator
Marsha Blackburn mentioned in the confirmation hearings of
Judge Jackson. Instead, what we know is that
over the last 50 years, there have been nearly 50 bombings of
clinics that perform this constitutionally permissible
service. There have been mass shootings
and killings of doctors. There has been arson.
There have been threats made on people's lives and the lives of
their family members and that this continues.
And I think that's also an important part of this narrative
as well. There's this kind of backdrop of
that. This is about peace.
It's about love, it's about protecting life.
It's hard to see that in the wake of so much Carnage and
death caused by people who In any other context, we would say
would be terrorists, right? Or a movement that has been
bounded and terrorism. Any, if we said that there's a
movement that identifies itself associated with the bombings of
50 clinics, we'd say that's terrorism.
Hmm, if you name a specific group and you said that that was
carried about out about X group, that happened to be non-white.
We would say, well that's terrorism.
And it is within this space that we have to begin to articulate
and name. Just what it is, that doctors
nurses Clinic, staff patients, their friends and family members
have had to endure just by exercising a constitutional,
right? It's then we need to really do
just are calling it. What it is?
I'm just so afraid of what the court may do here.
And if they do, if they just get rid of Roe v-- Wade entirely, I
can't a man. And I say this to one comedian
refers to Men of men of my own gender.
I say to them. Can you imagine that there would
be a law or something that would prohibit us just because we're
men to do anything, to do anything with our bodies with
our whatever, we would never tolerate.
First of all, such a law I would never exist.
But the fact that we think that we can impose this on the
majority gender, that's right. And women 51, 52 percent of the
population majority gender where the minority us men.
And when I say us, I'm talking about as I point out, often 75%
of Congress is still made up of men men.
Hold the vast majority of CEO positions in the Fortune. 500
you go down any Titus, disparate power.
Yes. Any piece of our society, men
have their hands on the steering wheel and the throttle of power.
And imagine a world where if, if the majority gender had the
power and they said to us, That you can't do x with your
reproductive organs. You it would just I mean just
saying it out loud. People are listening this in
their life, the Supreme Court case that address is that to
your point Michael. And it's one that has in some
ways Fallen away about it. There's Supreme Court precedent.
So in 1942, there was a case called Skinner V Oklahoma, the
state of Oklahoma had enacted a law that provided for the cash.
Raishin sterilization of people who are Petty criminals, it was
targeted at men and the person who became the subject of this
law sued because the law applied only to people who were Petty
thieves and he had stolen a chicken, but it did not apply to
people who commit white-collar crimes explicitly written within
the law. When the Supreme Court reviewed
the case, the Supreme Court was adamant about About how this
case, how the law itself represented the worst of
lawmaking that the law was not only unconstitutional but the
law itself was a violation of Human Rights and human dignity,
and that such a law should never be an enacted and would never be
upheld in the United States. I mean, it's a very strong case
and it's actually a case that third, you know, it's 30 years
prior to Roe v-- Wade and really sets the stage for Reproductive
privacy autonomy. And so And it comes in that
case. So to your point about if
they're being a very rigorous defense of male autonomy and
with regard to reproductive health and rights, there it is
1942 and a case that remains good law where the Supreme
Court, very clearly very clearly says that laws like this shall
not be upheld. And, you know, there are ways in
which I like in the times that were in to the draft, right?
And Congress got rid of the draft, we understand that the
state cannot push one to put its body.
Even for the sake of defending the nation, you cannot be
coerced to do that, right? Forced to do that by the state.
The draft is over and done. We pay people, if they want to
fight on behalf of the United States because we understand
that the state cannot have control of people's bodies that
people deserve their own autonomy and privacy.
Regard to their bodies and especially when it is something
that can threaten their health and safety.
And I see that as an analogy here, except that it's one.
In which the state says, we will draft, you know, women and girls
bodies. And people are the capacity to
be pregnant, will draft your bodies into this service that
you don't want. And we will pay no attention
essentially, if you die in the literal labor of Of that and
that I think is what is so disheartening for people who
realize, what's really at risk and what's really at stake with
laws, such as those being enacted today?
Yeah, that's a great analogy. You comparing it to the draft
because that's exactly what it is that if you get pregnant.
We as a society we the United States government will declare
you drafted into motherhood, you will give birth.
You will birth that child even If it's against your will,
that's going to be the new law of the land.
Here's what I'm afraid of with this Mississippi case that we
started talking about the beginning that possibly they may
not have the the strong 5 that they need to go all out and all
in on on taking way women's Reproductive Rights.
What if they come back and say okay, yeah we do.
We don't like Roe v-- Wade and abortion blah blah blah but we
cannot Force a teenager, a child, an adult woman to give
birth after they've been the victim of rape or incest.
And so they come up with a new law that says abortion is
illegal with the exception of rape and incest.
You don't really believe that you don't believe it's a human
being. You don't believe any of that.
What is it really about them? Michelle, what is behind this
passion? Because I don't think it's any
of the things that they say, I think that a lot of it has to do
with power and control. It's just like a cases of rape
where the justifications, you know, I do it out of, you know,
I love her so much. I'm so sorry I beat my wife
because I just get blinded by love know.
These are really expressions of control.
And of power, and when we try to seek some logic out of it, other
than that, it becomes, deeply confusing.
If you look at the Arc of how this plays out, not just in this
moment but across a kind of historical art of politics
associated with reproduction in this country, you see it, right?
So the earliest vestiges of it were laws that were enacted when
there were just colonies after colonizing lands that Are, you
know, indigenous lands laws, that protected white men after
the raping of black women. Those laws were matrilineal T
laws. And basically what that means is
that the children born of enslaved, women would take on
the status of their mothers. Well, so there we have one of
our first Reproductive Rights kinds of laws that explicitly
protects white men in cases of rape and they don't have to
worry about their offspring being able.
How to claim that they are their fathers and therefore Elevate
themselves out of the confines and bowels of slavery.
And there are a number of other laws that were similar to that
out of the colonies, very earliest laws and 1600s in the
United States. We could fast-forward a few
centuries. And we see at the turn of the
20th century, the strong appetite that the United States
had for eugenics upholding, a law that provided for the
compulsory sterilization. They ssion of people who are
considered to be unfit. Now that was just a proxy for
your poor and your white and we believe at the turn of the
century and the early, you know, early 1900's that the United
States can be a country that practices whiteness and white
supremacy. That's really what the law was
about. But of a particular kind of
whiteness. There was this thought that the
United States could cleanse itself from poor white people.
Carrie Buck herself had been In a poor white girl, 16 years old,
had been raped. Had a baby out of wedlock.
The state of Virginia, rounded her up and her mom for, you
know, coercive sterilization. And Carries case was a test case
before the United States. Supreme Court, the person who
represented her was a eugenicist himself.
And so it was really about, let's go and get this done
before the United States Supreme Court such that other states can
pass these Eugenics laws and the United States Supreme Court
upheld. Virginia law and Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes, said, three generations of imbeciles are
enough. He said that better than to let
them starve for their imbecility Society can prevent those who
are manifestly unfit from continuing, their kind and he
closed out the decision. That said that the power that
the state has to impose inoculation is Broad enough to
cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.
After this thousands of poor white women and girls as young
as 10 and 11 years old were coercively sterilized and then
Germany He literally directly borrow the language of the
Virginia law imposing. Its own Eugenics, law and Nazi
Germany. Alright?
And u.s. lawmaker said that the Nazis are beating us at our own
game speed it up, how do you make sense of that?
You know. It's so we've seen these waves
and none of it is consistent. But what we do know is that all
of it has been about power and control and it has been the
power and control over people who Are vulnerable and people
whose civil rights and civil liberties have been trampled
over time. Poor people, people of color,
this has been part of a thread that is really never been broken
Michael in so many ways. Is there nothing we can do
before the next month or so to try to put pressure on the
Supreme Court. I don't believe that there's you
know, a time where it's ever Thing that we can do, and I do
believe that in state, you know, all across the country and
States like Missouri and Oklahoma, where the governor has
just signed a law saying, that abortions are banned there and
taxes and Mississippi and Georgia, and all of those States
people can support voting rights because it's also the case that
in these states, there are legislators who are seeking to
basically gerrymander their way into keeping those seats that
they have. And suppressing voting rights
and the way in which folks across the country who care
about these issues will be able to Center.
These issues is through electing people that will fully represent
all of the people in those States and not simply just sort
of see these patterns as you mentioned of white men, being
re-elected and the holding on these kind of monopolies if you
will of power. And I want to be clear here.
Hi, this is not Justice is not attack on white males.
But the reality is that, as you mentioned, the overwhelming
majority of people who hold power in Congress, happened to
be white men, and Texas, overwhelmingly that legislature
happens to be white male comprised.
And it is not because there aren't people seeking to run for
office in those states that are women.
It is true though that voter suppression efforts have made it
very difficult. Called for people to be able to
win campaigns. And so, I would say voting is
Central to all of this and supporting people who are
running for office, who care about these issues.
And that includes a lot of white guys, as well, who are trying to
fight back against these kinds of laws.
So, if we do lose, and they get rid of, or most of get rid of
Roe v-- Wade, you mentioned earlier that there is something
we can do, because they probably won't take away a States, right?
To decide whether or not a state wants to make abortion legal in
before Roe v-- Wade. As I recall having lived in that
era as a teenager, it was legal to get an abortion in
California. It was legal in New York, couple
other places. And and I told the story here on
the podcast before about when I was in high school friend of
mine, she got pregnant and she and her boyfriend and myself as
You know 17 year olds, we were trying to figure out how to get
the Buffalo so that she could get an abortion, couldn't get
the Buffalo, didn't have a way couldn't afford it, she ended up
in what is referred to as a back alley.
Abortion in Detroit nearly died ended up in the hospital and for
us at 16 or 17 years old, it was quite a traumatic.
I'm sure that was traumatic and horrific type of an expandable
obviously for her because she had to go through it.
It's a traumatic experience. But I also say Michael that in
Congress, there has been the effort to codify Roe v-- Wade.
And now when you say codify, in other words, if Congress, if we
actually had a law that said that this is legal, that's
right. That's why the Supreme Court has
this wiggle room to step in and and essentially make the law or
get rid of the law or whatever because it's fine because our
own Congress hasn't had the courage to do the right thing.
So, where where is that at? Is there a bill is there
something people can support? That's the Women's Health
protection act. It would certainly be a start.
It is actually passed through the House of Representatives but
the votes haven't been in the Senate yet and so that's another
place for people to let their lawmakers know that they want,
the Women's Health protection act to be enacted and passed and
basically what that would be is that there would be a federal
law that would protect the right to be able to terminate a
pregnancy and to be able To have an abortion.
The legislation is hadn't the most support ever.
There have been several years in which there's been an effort to
try to get this legislation passed and this is an urgent
Time for getting this enacted and one could say, you know, why
not after 1973. And I think it easily could have
passed after 1973, but it is worth noting that I think that
you know after Roe v-- Wade. There wasn't this thought that
we would be in 2020 to seeing what we see right now.
Yeah, there's a part of your book.
I think it's in chapter 10 where you talk about how we need, like
a reproductive Bill of Rights, or a new deal when it comes to.
Yes. Such an amazing forward-thinking
idea. Could you explain this to the
people of thing? So I propose a reproductive
Justice, New Deal and the book. And the reason why I do is that
we stand on this precipice right now where there are high rates
of maternal mortality T. Infant mortality sex, education
has been got it from our schools.
The US has not only the highest rates of maternal mortality of
the developed World. It also has the highest rates of
infant mortality. It has a highest rates of teen
pregnancy as a, highest rates of teens who have contracted
sexually transmitted diseases, which we Now understand.
And know cause cancers later in life that cause death, these are
alarming and glaring statistics that we get from State and
federal data is through, this is not something that people on the
left are making up. This is from data that is
generated in each state. And so given this, this is a
time to protect through federal law through the Constitution
reproductive health and it's important to understand this as
Beyond just abortion. One of the points that is
important for me. And that is made through this
book. Is that we Understand that the
attacks that we see now within the space of reproductive Health
happens to be on everything, right?
It's this surveillance and the criminalization of people who
are carrying pregnancies to term, but not doing so perfectly
in some states where you see, women have been arrested for
falling down steps, while pregnant threatened with arrest,
for refusing, C-section and arrested, for refusing
C-section. And You that know, we've seen
cases of women being prosecuted for attempting suicide.
During pregnancy, there are more than 30 states that have
enacted, what are called pregnancy exclusion laws, which
deny pregnant women, the ability to control what happens to them
at death such as do not resuscitate orders States, just
take that away. If you happen to be pregnant.
I mean, it's across all of this space where the alarm Bells
should be ringing. And so I propose this
reproductive Justice, new Dill to help reset that so that we
protect this space so that people can make sound
independent judgment and be protected from civil incursion
and criminal charges for what they do during the space of
pregnancy and before, right? Right, have you discussed this
with any lawmakers or what kind of movement could be started to?
Something like this and how sad that we need even need to do
that? Well, I think the people who are
part of your listening, audience can be part of articulating this
at the state level and also at the federal level because we can
have reproductive Justice, new deals at state level as well as
at the federal level. And we see some of that right in
the state of California, with the efforts to make California,
a sanctuary State, and even protect people who are coming
from out. Of town to be able to have the
reproductive health care that they need with dignity and
compassion. And so this is where the rubber
really meets the road and needs it for everybody.
I think it's a shame, Michael when we could have, in the 1970s
young people knowing and growing up having a better sense about
their bodies about what a pregnancy is.
How do people become pregnant and in 2022.
It's got it from schools or there's abstinence-only
teaching. And in those red states where
that is occurring, the higher rate of teen pregnancies, it
doesn't work. Hmm.
And can I say something about what that represents?
Yes, you know, where the rubber meets the road?
What we know through empirical studies is that when a person
when a girl has had a pregnancy and birth before 18, only 2% of
those girls will even have graduated from college.
And by the time that they are 30, it really sets your life.
In a particular course that makes it even harder to be able
to reach that American dream when you have no idea about your
body become pregnant. Because you didn't think that,
you know, what sex is creates pregnancies.
And then in those states where it's difficult for you to be
able to then terminate a pregnancy.
Chances are that by 30 will not have graduated from college and
then chances are, you're going to be Be in a low-wage job as
well and it's going to be intergenerational cycles of
poverty. That are a part of that.
And this is what we know, this is what the data shows us.
And so the way for us to be able to interrupt that at the very
least is to be able to inform kids young people at age
appropriate stages and especially in high school About
what sex is and about their bodies.
And it is a part of a, it is part of biology.
And the fact that kids in high school will learn about the
biology of frogs, and pigs and toads, and everything else, and
not themselves is absolutely absurdist.
And we are the only country in the developed world that has
that kind that's doing that right?
No, I know, I know friends in other countries, they shake
their heads, they Laughs. They don't they do not
understand us. I want to ask you something.
Before we go about the essay that I read at the beginning of
this that you wrote for the New York Times and how powerful it
was and how devastating and how hard it was to get through re
reading it. Yeah, that's just the reading of
it, you lived it. I think the way that we would
think those who have a we have an edge experiences with would
just think, well, that would be the end of me, my life would be
over. And yet, I've also seen so many
people victims of incredible cruelty.
Violence discrimination etcetera.
Etc. Not only in a sense won out over
it but went on to have a good life and a life that made the
world a better place and you are such a prime example of doing
this and and maybe it's just naive on my part to even ask How
how did you get to that that place and if you don't mind,
just for the people who are listening and for those who
maybe have gone through their own Terror and their own trauma
that even in the worst of situations that there's possibly
a way out. It's a very good question.
And I think that the framing about the people who are
listening, who are wondering about, how they make a way out,
I want to First acknowledge the tremendous pain.
Pain and Devastation. That one goes through, not just
on the individual level. But how this is internalized
with thinking about other family members for people who are
victims of abuse, who survived abuse, worry about how other
family members will cope with them, coming out about their
abuse. So it's multiple layers of fear
and of trauma, and shaming, and guilt that can come about for
Who seeking to just break the ties, I and to be able to seek
some Independence and support. So I want to express that there
is light. There can be light at the other
end and that one can find wholeness and find happiness and
love and support from people that you make your family and
maybe even from some People who are biologically connected to
you, but I would say that the first thing to do is to
Galvanize oneself. I left home at the age of 15 at
the age of 12, I began thinking about.
Well what does it take to be independent?
What does it take to take care of yourself?
I began thinking about that because the trauma was so
significant and so severe. And, you know, there is a will
to survive. That is endemic in all of us and
I had that will to survive and at 12 I was thinking what just
what in the world does it take? Because it was so painful what I
was experiencing and by the time that I was 15, I was just
through with it all and what the plane ticket and ten bucks in my
pocket. I left home.
And I know that that's not something that a lot of people
feel that they can do. But I will say that there's
light at the end of the tunnel and I think being able to
confide finding the people that you can confide in makes a
difference. And then beginning to chart,
one's way of leaving abuse and I don't want to make that seem
simple. I know that it's not, I know
what that's like from having watched my mother be abused by
my father. So I know that those things are
not easy and I know from Own personal experience that it's
not easy. And I know that even after
people leave traumatic abusive circumstances, they can be
haunted by that abuse and it can follow them in the form of
nightmares every night. It can.
But I will say, you know, the first is finding our own
Redemption within to be able to recognize our own Humanity, our
own dignity, and our own worth, and that's an important step.
With then carrying out what comes next communicating with
others leaving that dangerous situation and more and I would
strongly suggest that we include information at the end of this
podcast about where people can get help, we will do that and in
anyone who's listening, who needs that help.
If you're a teenager right now, I know a lot of young people,
listen to this. There are adults who will help
you out and who will help you find the way out.
And you are not alone. You are not alone.
I think that that's also really important as well.
Michael is that with the way in which domestic violence takes
place and sexual abuse, is that people who are abusers isolate
people that they abuse such that it's possible to feel as if you
know, you're the only one who's experiencing this trauma, by the
person abusing you and such that, you feel really isolated
from the rest of your community in the rest of the world.
But you really aren't alone. And as part of writing, the
piece that I did in the New York Times is that I really felt the
need to express this for the sake of so many others, who
suffered as I did, you experienced what I did and the
importance that the people who are legislating in this domain,
the people who are Judges the, the everyday folk who you feel
as if these are stories that they've not heard, they don't
know people who are affected by by this, I figured that I could
stand such that they could understand.
This is what that kind of pain looks like, and it's possible to
make one's way out, but it's not easy and there.
Lots of traps along the way. Well, you got out and you went
on to do some wonderful things for all of us, and I'm grateful
for that. I encourage people to read your
book. It's so powerful that link here
on my podcast page where you can go to get Michelle's book.
It's called policing the womb invisible women in the
criminalization of motherhood. Thank you for writing this and
thank you for the inspiration to all of us.
We All know that we've got our work cut out for us here in the
next few months. And then after that, to make
sure abortion is legal in as many states as possible.
Whatever support we all can give to that, we I think have a moral
responsibility to do that, dr. Michelle, good one, thank you so
much for coming on my podcast. Thank you for having a podcast
yourself. I encourage people to listen to
it. We're all in this together.
Thank you for having me on your show means a lot.
Well, that's it for today here on Rumble.
My thanks to our executive producer, bezel Hamden, the
producer and editor of this wonderful episode.
Angel of Argos, and everyone here on the rumble team.
Nick was Donald Bornstein and all who have helped me out over
the past two years with Rumble much, much appreciation.
And most of all thanks to all of you who listen, and who share
this with your friends family. Neighbors.
I will sign off. Now I'm Michael Moore and this
is Rumble. Begin
Begin.