War on Women

That while a federal judge said that the band was unconstitutional and does not allow women to be able to make the choices that are necessary right to determine their own life outcomes, and that it goes against Rovie Wade, which is law of the land, we knew that this was going to be kicked down to another quarter of appeals where they are conservatives that have been stacked because unlike, let's say, what you know we've been doing Democrats, which

is not talking about the courts, not talking about how important they are, not talking about attorney generals, state attorneys, like why all of this matters? We never focus on the courts as Democrats ever, we never talk about it. Maybe we talk about the Supreme Court, but not really.

And so because of this, we are right now living in a state where we have a conservative Supreme Court, where we have three hundred some odd Trump justices across the country, and what we know to be true is that all of our most important issues do not get solved by Congress. I mean, right now, Congress can't even pass a fucking bill. Right they can't even pass the

infrastructure bill. They can't do anything that actually matters. Why because you have two fucking Democrats and I use air quotes with this, two Democrats that have decided that they don't actually give a fuck about this country. Kirsen Cinema had the audacity to fucking tell people that I don't even talk to other members of Congress. I'm only talking to the President of the United States, Like, bitch, who

do you think that you are? Right? I want people to continue attacking her in public, and I don't mean physically, but I mean asking her right about whether or not she's going to talk to her constituents, whether or not she gives a shit about them. But nonetheless, let me not digress and go back to Texas. The reality is, and what has been reported since this band took effect is that women all over Texas are now overwhelming the states around them and the abortion clinics that are there.

Just recently, I saw a report on MSNBC done by a former guest and our friend, Yasmin Vesusan. She's down in Louisiana right now at Hope Clinic, right a clinic where the director has said that now currently seventy five percent, close to seventy five percent of the cases that are coming in are women from Texas. And we are learning that all of the abortion clinics in states around Texas are being pushed to their brink. That the parking lot

is full of cars, all with Texas license plates. So what is it actually that Governor Abbott thinks that he's doing. Does he think that he is miraculously saving all of these embryos, saving these cells, and that women of Texas are going to learn their lesson and be forced into parenthood. No, He's just making what is already for some a very difficult choice, and for others it's not a difficult choice.

It is a necessity. It is a necessity. It is something that they do in order to determine the outcome of their lives. So what does he think that this piece of bullshit legislation is doing. It isn't doing anything other than what it's intended to do, folks, which is punish women. This is what we don't talk about enough, right. We don't talk about the fact that these pieces of legislation, they are not intended to promote pro life or intended to do anything really except for one thing, and one

thing alone, and that is to hurt women. That is to punish women for having the audacity, I guess what, to have sex in the first place. Right. The thing that frustrates me about the current predicament of abortion rights in this country, which, by the way, if you're thinking to yourself that you live in a blue state and everything is going to be okay because of where you currently are, it's not. It's not. What we know to be true is that we're not safe. We're not safe

from white Christian supremacy in this country. We're not. It doesn't matter if you are safely in New York like I am, or you think that you're safely in California. They are coming for all of our rights. I spoke about this on Twitter. I tweeted months ago that first right, they come for facts, then they come for science right, then they come for LGBTQ rights, then they come for women's rights, then they come for voting rights, and they

are receiving no pushback. Sure, there are court cases that are going to be pending, that are currently pending to take down the law, but the law was written in such a way that it's really hard to take it to court because it hasn't been activated. Right, So you will give people the right to be bounty hunters, to be abortion bounty hunters, but until an action is actually taken, there isn't really anything to take down. But what the intention was was to punish women, force them into parenthood,

force them into miles hundreds of miles long journeys. You know. One of the things that I learned right about the clinic, the Hope Clinic in Louisiana that was covered is that Louisiana, this state has its own abortion laws, right obviously, as do all of the states, but in Louisiana, you have to what go in for an initial appointment, which is days off of work, a day off of work, not to mention the travel time that it takes to get there. So you're talking about maybe two days off to work.

When you go into the clinic, you have your first initial appointment, Louisiana requires that you wait an additional twenty four hours before having the procedure. So now you're talking about multiple more than one, more than two, maybe three four days that you're missing from work. Well, what about hourly wage workers who don't have vacation time? What about

the poor? What about women who don't have cars, who don't have access to the resources necessary to just hop on a flight and go to where they need to go to. So not only is this legislation about punishing women, but it's about punishing a particular woman, poor women, women of color. Right. And what's funny is that you know, one of the questions that I ask are have we changed, Oh, I don't know the laws to make sure that these women are actually taken care of? Have we expanded welfare programs?

Have we expanded social safety nets? Have we has Governor Abbott, on top of banning abortions, has he made childcare free? Right? Has he made it so that the men who are a part of this scenario are financially liable to support this child? Right? That you're being forced to carry. Is a state of Texas going to help you raise this child? Are they providing you with any resources? No, they're not. So there is nothing that has been done to help

women who are being forced into motherhood. They're not providing you with any care, any help, any resources, nothing. So whose life do you actually give a shit about? Because it certainly is not the life of the child. Because if it was really about wanting to protect quote unquote life, then you would before expanding social safety nets to make sure that these low income, right oftentimes black and brown women then are able to do the best that they can in order to care for this child that they

are being forced to have by the governor. But no, So the real question is what is the endgame? Because just so you know, Governor Abbott once again spoke the quiet part out loud when asked about birth control. You see, they're not just going after abortion, they're also coming or birth control as well. You see, they want to control every single fucking aspect of what it means to conceive. Right, we've already had cases about this right hobby lobby, the

religious fucking craft store. They didn't want to pay for birth control for their employees. They cover viagra, they cover allergy medicine, they cover a whole host of things. But it was against their religion to want to cover a birth control So what do you think that Governor Abbott is up to next? He's going to make it so that probably businesses don't have to cover birth control. Do you know how expensive birth control is if you don't have insurance? Right? So again, what is the endgame here?

Because they're not adding anything to help growing families, They're not adding anything into the law to help raise these children. No, they're just making it so that women who live in Texas, right, I guess, won't have sex at all or bear the consequences on their own. It's so disgusting because you see, it isn't just going to be in Texas. And that's why I am saying be prepared. This is a fight, this is a battle, This is a war, the next Christian crusade that is being waged in this country. And

you're going to have coffeecats. We are already seeing the Texas coffeecats that are happening in Florida, in another state. The case going before the Supreme Court Mississippi fifteen week abortion ban again, these bands coming into place before women even know that they're pregnant. But you see, the point isn't about being pro life because on the same on the same vein, in the same vein, these people are against everything. They're against healthcare right, They're against protecting your

kids in schools because they are banning vaccinations. So is the endgame for Republicans just death and misery and despair and cruelty and punishment. Like this is why I don't understand how Democrats are so fucking bad at messaging, because this is all that you would have to say to me, write any sane person. So what are you offering? Ask the fucking questions, dear reporters that are in Abbott's face with microphones. What's your endgame here? Governor? How do you

actually plan to help these women and these families? Right? What kind of legislation are you going to be putting together to ensure the health and the well being of these children that you say we need to protect, But you see they don't. It's about power and control. And I wish that the questions would be asked so that we can hear it directly from the horse's mouth. But we all keep fucking pretending that we don't know what they're up to. This is their large plan. Let me

break it down for you. You see, you create a fucking system where women don't have access to birth controls and they don't have access to abortion, forcing many of them right into what motherhood, forcing them out of the workplace because they're not going to be able to do both right, Like, they're not going to be able to dictate their economic wellbeing, and because now they're having kids that they didn't fucking want and could not take care of,

they're going to be forced out of the workplace. As we saw during COVID. We're still in COVID. I don't know why I just said during COVID, but in twenty twenty at the height, you know how many women left the workforce, were forced out of the workforce because they're

the primary caregivers over two million. So then what happens, Oh, they believe that what all of these empty positions will then go back to what only white men so that they can make America great again, pushing women back into the household, chaining them to children that they don't want, and then freeing up what it's just it's so fucking ridiculous that it's so clear. The goal is cruelty, the goal is punishment, The goal is white male domination. And how do you do that You get women out of

the way. And how do you get women out of the way, You chain them, right, two families that they don't want. I can't imagine the fear that these women have right leaving and going traveling for hundreds of miles, most of them doing so alone, hoping to be seen at clinics that are being overrun right now, hoping that they have this life saving procedure. And I say life saving because abortion saves women's lives. It allows them to have choices, whether or not they can take a job,

go to school. No one should be forced into motherhood. No one should be forced into that. What kind of life if you care really about kids, what kind of fucking life is that? It isn't one. But they don't care, folks, they don't care. And that is the message, right, That is the overarching message to women is that they don't care. Republicans don't give a fuck. And so it's amazing to me that we think that these people are going to take over the House and take over the Senate again

on what platform? What fucking policy right? What are they? What are they? What the fuck are they offering to the American people. But you see by Biden not being able to get any of his agenda done, they can just point to and say, well, he hasn't done anything for you. But they won't tell you why. They won't say that it's because of their obstructionism, and Democrats won't call it out because they're too fucking scared and chicken shit to do so, because they're always worried about the

reaction instead of worried about the present fucking moment. I don't give a fuck about what Republicans may do when they take back power. The goal should be that they never get power again. Because this slow moving, fucking coup is fucking moving and they are winning and they have they don't have Congress and they don't have the White House,

but they got everything else. It is so fucking troubling to me, so troubling that it's like I see this, I see the you see the comet coming, and you're pointing in the sky and you're screaming, and you're telling people get out of the way, get out of the way the comment is coming, but it's like there's no voice coming out and no one is moving. That's how I feel about our democracy. It's going right like it is on its way out. Fascism, authoritarianism, cruelty, punishment is

going to be the law of the land. We see it. We are seeing it happen slowly, state by state by state, and we're taking no urgent action. We're doing nothing, nothing to stop this. Most days I am I feel utterly hopeless. I do because I'm just like, how do you stop it? What can be done? And the thing is is that we need legislation. We need to end the filibuster, we need to protect voting rights, we need to protect women, we need to protect lgbtqp bull and instead Democrats are

deciding right now to do absolutely fucking nothing. Coming up next, friends, is my conversation with Crystal little John talking about reproductive rights and where she thinks that things are headed. It ain't great, so stay tuned, folks. I am so happy to be joined on woke f Daily for the first time by doctor Crystal E. Little John, who is the author of the new book Just Get on the Pill.

I want to just get on the pill, the uneven burden of reproductive politics, and you're also an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. We are living in some crazy times right now as it as we look at reproductive rights, as we look at the fact that something that we thought was cemented Rov Wade is not, and it's essentially what Republicans have been waiting for the last thirty years to reverse, and they are finally in

a position to do so. What was your reaction to this week's position by a federal judge in Texas to put a halt to what they referred to as a significant, significant healthcare concern to women, to put a stop to this band. I was absolutely elated. I think we know how much people need abortion, we know how important abortion is as healthcare for people who get pregnant in this country.

We know that this band shouldn't have happened in the first place, and so I felt incredibly grateful and elated that this is the news that I could go to sleep too last night. And I'm delighted to be able to talk with you about things today. You know, So for me, I will say this, I am not thrilled by what is happening with the Texas judge. The only reason I say that is because the decision is going to be kicked to the Fifth Circuit. The decision is going to make its way up to the Supreme Court.

The Fifth Circuit is stacked with Trump and Mitch McConnell appointees, as is the Supreme Court. So what is your hope in terms of what this temporary hold will do in terms of galvanizing people to recognize that we are at risk, that those that are able to birth are at risk right now, and that this is just a pause on this longer horror show. I am hopeful that this is the moment that people realize that needs to be action.

For folks that have not been on the front lines trying to be involved, I hope that they don't take this as a signal that they can slow down, that they can continue to not be active if they're if they're not doing things. I think that people involved in trying to agitate recognize that this action has been needed for a long time, because as you've as you mentioned, this is not new. These assaults are not new. Their folks are just trying to find different ways to continue

to erode people's reproductive rights and abortion rights. And so my hope is that this signals to people that there is something to be done, that folks who have not been active realize that they have a role to play in getting elected representatives to hear their voices, to hear the voices of people that are out there on the streets marching for protection of people's rights. And I think most of all, I just hope that it doesn't signal

to people that it's okay to slow down. I think, as you mentioned, to recognize that this is a pause is crucial, but to understand that we need to keep fighting and we need to be out there making sure that something happens. This is not the time to slow down. It's the time to wake up and to make sure that if folks have been complacent and have been feeling like other people are out there doing the work, that they recognize that we all have a role to play.

You know, you bring up the marches. Last weekend, we saw right over six hundred marches happen across the country in Washington, d C. In New York City and other areas, with you know, thousands of women and allies getting out into the streets to protest against Texas against this distinct move by the Supreme Court, because not moving was their move right like intervening was the biggest, you know, show of their hand and the direction that this is going

to add. How effective, though, do you think that getting into the streets is at this moment when we know that the decisions are being made in the courts. I think, as you're I absolutely agree with you that we don't have as much power obviously over what's going on in the courts. We have little to do with that. But I do think that that civil action is crucial. I think that it's it's crucial that people know that folks in the United States are not going to be complacent.

We're not going to sit back while people's rights are being violated. And I think we can see in the history of our country and the history of civil action in this country that even as the power has resided in the courts, people being out there and marching for their rights, marching for their freedom, marching for the freedom

of others. When we talk about allies, that has been instrumental in signaling right, in communicating the social discourse that's out there that suggests that people will not be okay with with having their rights violated. And I think even though we know that the action has to take place at the courts, I think courts recognizing where people stand is incredibly important for understanding what the what the people want, and what people are going to be willing to stand for.

You know, um in your piece in the Time magazine, piece which you know coincides with your book, Just Get on the Pill, The uneven Burden of reproductive politics. Your time piece in Time magazine was why access to birth control is no substitute for abortion rights. Talk to us about that, because that seems to be right the fault,

the failsafe. It's once again putting the burden right back on women um or back on people that are able to give birth to say, well, it's your responsibility to get an IUD or to be on a pill every single day and never miss it. Talk to us about why this cannot be a substitute and also why there are why large swaths of people are not on birth control. People absolutely need act to both abortion and contraception. That's

full stop. For I think what challenges with for me as a researcher was seeing calls for people who get pregnant to get on prescription birth control. When we first heard news of the Supreme Court not dreading and I immediately a lot about the women I talked to in my book. I immediately thought about the research that exists showing the challenges that people who can conregnant and give

birth have using prescription birth control methods. And I think it's really important that we keep in mind the needs of people acts see abortion, and those needs are to have abortion available, to have prescription birth control available to them. We can't have a reproductive freedom without having both of

those vital healthcare services available for people. And so when it comes to reasons why people don't use don't use prescription birth control, so we're talking about methods like the pill, the IUD, the implant, there are lots of reasons why they don't. My research shows that dissatisfaction with prescription birth control methods is rampant with use of the methods, for reasons of side effects, for reasons of how accessing the methods.

One of the things that is really important to keep in mind is that the average person who can get pregnant is looking at trying to prevent pregnancy for upwards to thirty years. So when you're talking about trying to for over thirty years, obviously or gonne birth prescription birth control to do that, but they're also going to need abortion to do that. And when you have these calls for people to get on in birth control, it is

not based in considering people's needs around abortion access. It is based in this gendered understanding that people who can get pregnant are the ones who need to be doing the work to prevent pregnancy, and not based in they actually need Because if we think about what they actually want to need that's been communicated to us, they need abortion, right, people want and need abortion, and prescription birth control use

is no substitute for that. How crazy is it, Crystal, that as we are battling in this country to hold on to abortion, that Mexico, a very religious, you know, steeped in Catholicism country, has just granted abortion access across the Country's credibly disheartening that we continue to see us birth I think, like the broader issues with control of people's bodies, we know that come up with all kinds of excuses and rationales for their efforts to ban abortion. Um,

but when it cut. When it boils down to it, these are continued efforts to restrict a vital healthcare service that people deserve access to. UM. I have no words to describe what is happening and the ways that we see other countries doing what the United States should should should be doing, but we're you know, just going backward in these continue these these continuous efforts to enact new restrictions,

increasingly restrictive restrictions bands. It's just it's mind boll going UM that we continue to see this happening when we know how important abortion access is for people in the United States and elsewhere, as we're seeing in country around the world. Right, we know it's vital service for people all over the place. It just continues to frustrate at me, is that we see this unfolded moving forward. You know,

I'm only shocked right now. I talked about this on WOKF before All In Together put out a poll looking at the lack of enthusiasm in the eighteen to twenty nine year old range to vote right and then looking at the issues, breaking them down by gender, women and men on what is most important to them. Outside of COVID nineteen. They are saying for women, thirteen percent of the eighteen to twenty nine range care about abortion. Abortion

is their number one issue, that is for women. Why is it but the number is half that of it being import to men? Why do we always like why we know that, like it takes two to be able to you know, to get pregnant, So why is it always that it is the bigger issue for women and not men. This is a reflection of the continued tendency

to gender reproduction in the United States. Right to gender the process of having children, to gender the process of taking care of children, and it is incredibly frustrating that

we continue to see it gendered in this way. Right when we talk about telling women to get on prescription birth control because of abortion bands, telling people in this country that affordable access to birth control is a woman's issue, versus recognizing that while it is the person who can birth who's taking a prescription racial method, at this point, it is absolutely beneficial to couples when a person can prevent pregnancy using those methods, and so to see, I'm

not surprised that we have this data. In my experience talking with people about using birth control to prevent using prescription birth control to prevent pregnancy. You hear similar things where they think of it as being beneficial for women, versus recognizing that while it is the person who that person who takes the method, the partner is benefiting from their use of that method to prevent pregnancy. They're benefiting from not wearing condoms while the person is using birth

control prescription birth control prevent pregnancy. And so abortion, to me is just one more of those issues where we believe that having children is a woman's issue, we believe that caring for children is a woman's issue, and we reinforce these ideas about gender that are not natural there. It's absolutely social. There's there's no reason why it has

to be understood this way. And I think more go even more important than that, to recognize that protecting everybody's rights should not be a gender based issue in the first place, right that that in itself should not have to depend on a person's gender. We should just be willing and able and enthusiastic about protecting people's rights. But for whatever reason, it continues to be understood in gender terms and then makes people feel like they don't have

to care about the violation of people's rights. When it occurs. You know, one of the things that you brought up in in your Time magazine article too, was the decline in use, or at least the admission by men surveyed that they're not using condoms regularly. Was that shocking to you? It wasn't shocking to me that men don't use its regularly. It's shocking to me that we accept that men regularly. That is that is the shocking thing, to be right.

The fact that men are resistant to using condoms comes up in my in my interview data that I use in my research all the time. So I wasn't shocked that men were resistant to using condoms, but I was particularly astonished that we accept that that is the quote unquote natural order of things, and that that's the way that it's just going to be, versus having social efforts

and accountability to get partners to use condoms. Because the reality is that they're important for preventing pregnancy, yes, but they're also incredibly important for preventing STI right, And it's under this assumption that pregnancy prevention is the only thing that people are thinking about is incredibly shortsighted, and doesn't It does a disservice to people who are trying to fight for bodily autonomy and have their rights respected when

they want their partners to use condoms. So I wish that there was more conversation about the importance of having partners wear condoms, not just to protect people from STIs, but to also support partner's efforts to protect pregnancy and think more more than anything, to simply respect people's rights to bodily autonomy. In my research, the key that if people want their condoms for whatever reason they want them

to do so, that should be respected. It should not be something that they should have to try and convince a partner to do. It should be the norm they expected rule for the relationship and for the sexual encounter. But it's it's unfortunate that it isn't. And I think that's why we have such low rates of male participation in condom use, in part because we that it's okay that they don't do it. You know, Republicans have always had a crusade against abortion, and they are now winning

right like that. There's no way, no other way to look at the predicament that we're in right now except to say that their thirty year plan is coming into fruition with the owning of the courts and knowing that most of our social issues and ills are solved through the courts and not just through voting. That being said, do you believe that reproduct that the pill and other contraceptions are going to be next up on the chopping

block for Republicans? That you know we have December first right will be the Supreme Court hearing on the Mississippi fifteen week ban. We know that this Texas law will go through the Fifth Circuit and more like more so go to the Supreme chord as well. Are they going to be done when they're able with just abortion or do you think that they're coming for the pill and other contraception's lap next and that we're not prepared for that.

This is a long standing battle and the pill and other forms of prescription contraception are on the chopping block. I think we need to be concerned for abortion rights. People that are concerned about abortion rights but don't necessarily think that we have to be concerned about prescription birth control I think should change their minds about that. I think that people that are are not concerned about abortion but are may not even be thinking about prescription birth control.

They might just be taking for granted that prescription birth control is there's to use via the Affordable Care Act. I think that everybody should be really paying attention to what's going on right now. We know that promoting abstinence has also been a component of the Republican strategy and also disastrous, which is exactly which is also disastrous and

does not reflect people's real world experiences. And so when we're when that's the strategy right, it makes perfect sense then to go after contraception, because the ideas that you need to promote abstinence for people, you need to encourage them not to have sex, and we know that doesn't work right, Even people who plan to abstain can end up and do end up having sex. And so we people need prescription birth control and other forms of birth

control methods that are available to them. They need to make sure they have access to them. And taking this approach that suggests that there is anything other than unfettered access to these methods as a coherent strategy for helping people in this country and for protecting their needs to me is implausible, nonsensical um And I do think unfortunately that contraceptives are going to be under attack, and in

fact are under attack. It's it's something that when it comes to thinking about reproductive rights and as I mentioned, people's autonomy to control their bodies, there's just so many reasons to be to be disheartened. It's it's it's unfortunate. Where do you think that we're headed and what do you think that we should we should be preparing for right now in this reproductive rights battle resurgence, what should

we be doing? I think that we are headed for increasing attacks on abortion rights, and as we were just talking about on contraceptive access m I think that the Texas band is just kind of set the stage for other states to follow suit, and we've seen signals that

that's what people are going to do. And I think that what needs to be done is that people need to be demanding action of elected representatives to make clearer that their constituents do not support these efforts, and to make clearer that they are for protection of people's rights to abortion and contraception. I think that in my work

right I find that reproductive justice is incredibly important. I think that people need to contribute to efforts to support local reproductive justice organizations who are on the ground doing the work. I think when it comes to people knowing what to do, I think that can that's oftentimes a

sticking point, right. I think in part they just don't know what they can do, and so I think thinking about what local organizations need and how to support those organizations is a key strategy that people can use to become an evolved And I also think donating to abortion

funds um not. You know, people might start thinking about starting abortion funds right, but the key is to donate to the organizations that are doing the work to protect abortion rights for people who need access to them and who in this time right now, are especially in need of support. I can't thank you enough for the work that you're doing and for spending a little bit of time with us to understand where we are folks. The book is Just Get on the Pill, The Uneven Burden

of Reproductive Politics. Doctor Krystal little John, thank you so much for joining Woke a f and as this fight continues, I hope that we can call on you to come back on and and help us navigate what is becoming a precarious field for reproductive rights. Thank you so much for having me and I'd love to be on a talks for Thanks so much, appreciate you. That is it for me today on Woke af AS always power to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.