The trickle-down effects of the Dobbs abortion decision

Make Me Smart March 25, 2024 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

There’s a bright, golden haze on the meadow. There’s a bright, golden haze on the meadow. The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. Did I ever participate in school musicals? Bridget, I was the school musical guy. I was in Brigadoon. I was in Guys and Dolls. I was the whole smash.

Kimberly Adams 

I was going to say, you actually have a really lovely voice. You should sing more often.

Kai Ryssdal 

I should not sing more often. I’m not as good as I used to be. All right. Juan Carlos, hook us up.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, Mondays. I am recording on my end. All the buttons have been pushed that I can push. Hello everyone, I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m Kai Ryssdal. Thanks for joining us. It is Monday 25 March, the year 2024.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes. Today we are going to do some news and some smiles starting with the news. Kai, what caught your attention today?

Kai Ryssdal 

So, there’s a really interesting article and it’s more zeitgeisty than it is actual news. But you know, I figured it’s worth people just giving a quick read. We’ll put it on the show page. An article from The Wall Street Journal today about Lina Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, who has been criticized at length by many Republicans for her stance on taking on corporate America, which goes from technology to many other parts of this economy. Great piece on how some Republicans, including Matt Gaetz of Florida, are now kind of in her corner, and they are in favor of what she is trying to do, which is take on, as I said, big business in a way that sort of aligned with parts of what the Republican Party is now trying to be, which is a friend of the worker. Credit Donald Trump and many other parts of how the very right wing of the Republican Party are going about things nowadays. But it’s totally fascinating and Khan’s like, you know what, I will take allies wherever I can find them. And it’s just, you ought to read it. It’s kind of, it’s kind of wild.

Kimberly Adams 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s exactly right. Good for you. Good for you.

Kimberly Adams 

There it is. I was looking at that, and just the photo of her with Matt Gaetz is just like, wow. Yeah, um, so I’ve got two things. First, a quick follow up. And then the bigger news. So, the quick follow up is I think it was last week or the week before I had as my make me smile that the federal judges kind of got together and decided that the thing about judge shopping to do your case to try to overturn federal regulations was not a good thing. And perhaps they should do something about it. And they did, and they’re trying to limit the practice. So, Politico originally reported that story. Politico also had in Morning Money today, how this is playing out in real time, which is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a new rule that would cap credit card late fees at $8 compared to $32. Lots of businesses do not like it. And so, they are suing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to try and say this is unconstitutional and unfair and all the things. They brought this case in Texas, with tenuous connections to Texas, and even the judge is like, come on. And so, I’m just going to read a little bit. It says, “In a stunning move, Pittman [who’s the judge] last week rejected a request by the banking trade groups to quickly pause the rule before it takes effect on May 14. Pittman was unmoved. In a two-page order, he all but scolded the business groups for their ‘efforts to educate the court on what they believe the court does and does not need.’ He also gave a nod to concerns about his Texas district becoming a magnet for litigation, noting it saw more than 7,000 filings last year, compared to nearly 4,500 in the District of Columbia. ‘Given these statistics, the court does not have the luxury to give increased attention to certain cases just because a party to the case thinks their case is more important than the rest,’ he wrote.” Wow.

Kai Ryssdal

Yeah, right.

Kimberly Adams

And so, also since that Politico story, the Congressional Research Service also has a paper out talking about the effect of forum shopping or judge shopping, which has a lot more information on it. I think this is very fascinating, especially if they can really get this under control because this has become kind of ridiculous.

Kai Ryssdal

Totally has.

Kimberly Adams

So, that was my not as quick as I thought it was going to be follow up. The actual news is tomorrow, the latest case in the abortion struggle is going to be in its hearing at the Supreme Court. This is about the FDA’s attempts to make it easier to get Mifepristone. And The New York Times has a really good article looking at how use of the abortion pill has changed since overturning Roe v. Wade. Right? So, “A study, published on Monday in the medical journal JAMA, found that the number of abortions using pills obtained outside the formal health system soared in the six months after the national right to abortion was overturned. Before Roe was overturned, these avenues, [a lot of these outside online vendors] provided abortion pills to about 1,400 women per month, but in the six months afterward, the average jumped to about 5,900 per month.” And then there was a separate study that looked at how much, from the Guttmacher Institute, and it says that “medication abortion now accounts for 63% of all abortions in the United States in 2023, up from 53% in 2020.” It’s a big jump. So, these are sort of some of the conditions at play as this hearing starts tomorrow. And last thing I’ll do is flag a piece in the 19th News about the Comstock Act, which is something I had not heard of before this. It’s an 1873 anti-obscenity law that was written to curtail “‘material intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use.’ This included birth control, pornography and anything related to sexual health.” The Comstock Act obviously, has not been enforced since like the 1960s when Roe v. Wade came in, and “Congress has overturned the law’s prohibition on mailing birth control, it has not acted to undo the full act.” And so now, and “in December 2022, the Department of Justice,” I’m reading here from the 19th, “issued a legal opinion arguing that the Comstock Act does not apply to mailing mifepristone or the other drug used in medication abortions, because they have uses beyond abortion.” But as you can imagine, and this is me not reading anymore, this act is coming into play in this case with the anti-abortion advocates saying that this is a law. It is still a law in the books. And the current, you know, way things are going runs afoul of it, so no good. And it’ll be interesting to hear how the court interprets that.

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally will. Also one of the really interesting things about the trickle-down effect of the Dobbs decision, which is the one that overturned Roe v. Wade, of course, is uncovering how many states have not necessarily archaic, but like mid-19th century laws that are kind of clicking into effect. It has happened in Michigan, although that one’s been overturned. It happened in some other places, restricting the right to abortion. And now obviously, the Comstock Act, which for some reason, the date 1876 sticks in my mind, but anybody can Google that and prove me wrong, but it’s been a long time. That has been on the books. And we’re now discovering, you know how, I mean, you pass a law, it’s a law and that stuff kind of matters, you know?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. Yeah. A long and variable lag almost.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Oh, very nicely done. Very nicely done.

Kimberly Adams

Thank you. Thank you.

Kai Ryssdal

Thank you very much. Yes. All right. Do you have more or should we more on?

Kimberly Adams 

No, let’s move to the smiles.

Kai Ryssdal

All right, what do you got?

Kimberly Adams 

I often find myself sort of like, dredging the bottom of the barrel for make me smiles. And there’s a website called GoodNewsNetwork.org, and I go there sometimes, and often find happy news because they, you know, have good news. It’s funny at the bottom of the page, it says “Do you know a pessimist? Tell them to subscribe to our newsletter.” And I thought of you, Kai.

Kai Ryssdal

Of course, you did. Thank you very much. Love you too.

Kimberly Adams

But this story grabbed my attention. It says, “Optimist Pollster Finds Americans Are Far More Alike Than Different, With Shared Value Bridging Political Divides.” And this is actually the Harris Poll, and it says, “dubbed the most optimistic pollster in the country, the Harris Poll’s chief executive Will Johnson says the suppose divides disappear when you consider values, points of views, and experiences beyond politics.” A couple of stats they highlighted here. “76% of Americans see the good in those they disagree with. 71% have a friend who doesn’t share their views. 57% think the ‘culture wars’ are overblown in terms of how important the issue of those debates are to daily life. 57% think most Americans get along with each other, and 56% believe that opportunities exist for nearly all to attain the American dream.” So, you know, there’s that.

Kai Ryssdal 

Okay, I’m actually going to read that now because I find that very interesting. Also, I’m going to want to see the crosstabs. Right?

Kimberly Adams 

I don’t want to see the crosstabs. I just want to believe it. I just want to believe it.

Kai Ryssdal 

Crosstabs for those who don’t follow polling are breaking down by race, age, ethnicity, where you live, political affiliation, all those kinds of things.

Kimberly Adams 

With the hint here, that certain groups, probably white American men may feel a little bit more positively about things than others, given that they’re more comfortable in this economy and in life, but who knows? Who knows?

Kai Ryssdal 

I’ll dig out the crosstabs. All right. So, mine. I fancy myself a trail runner, and I did my standard five miles this morning and felt pretty good about it. It was super chilly and crisp up in the hills of Los Angeles County this morning, but it was great. There was a piece there was a race last week. And the piece that we’re going to put on the show page is from Friday’s New York Times. It’s about this, you can only call it a collective and quirky trail race that happens in Tennessee. It’s called the Barkley Marathons. It’s basically a 100-mile race. You have to do five laps of a 20-mile course. It’s all kinds of convoluted rules and all that jazz, but that’s not the thing that I want to point out. You have to finish all 100-miles with crazy elevation gain in less than 60 hours. And this past week, a woman by the name of Jasmin Paris. She’s from Midlothian, Scotland. She’s a veterinarian there. She finished it with 99 seconds to spare. So, she came in at 58 minutes and change after sprinting up a hill. After running for 60 hours, sprinting up hill to finish this thing with 99 seconds to spare. It’s unbelievable. I am not a trail runner. I’m a weenie. She is unreal. It’s crazy.

Kimberly Adams 

This race came across like my Instagram Reels, feed, or whatever over the weekend because people were talking about how hard it is to even be able to run the race. You have to write an essay. There’s no website that tells you where to go. You have to like, know somebody who can tell you how to apply. And then there’s like all of these rules for making sure that you run the race a certain way. Absolutely intense. It’s so intense, but good for Jasmine.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Oh, totally. And there’s video of her sprinting that last you know, 100 yards up the hill to finish in 99 seconds short of 60 hours. It’s crazy. It’s just so great. It’s so cool. Very cool. Very inspiring.

Kai Ryssdal 

All right. And with that we’re out of here. Back tomorrow. Tuesday. Till then, send us your comments, your questions, you know how to do that. Email is makemesmart@marketplace.org, or you can leave us a message at 508-U-B-SMART.

Kimberly Adams 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s program was engineered by Juan Carlos Torrado. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. And our intern is Thalia Menchaca.

Kai Ryssdal 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and for today, On-Demand.

Kimberly Adams 

All right, let me see if I can fix my technology.