A governor, a state official, a member of Congress, and a US Senator walk in to a classroom - well, four classrooms - to talk about abortion. We'll take them in that order.Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves talked with Jake Tapper in the State of the Union classroom. Mississippi has a 'trigger law' that will make all abortions illegal, except in cases of rape or where the mother's life is at risk; currently around 3500 abortions are performed annually.
Reeves said that his state has "started doing the hard work of what a post-Roe-Mississippi will look like," and that if a majority of the SCOTUS justices are going to overturn Roe
we must understand
that, while this is a great victory for the pro-life movement, it is not the
end. In fact, it is just the beginning. And the beginning is we must
show that being pro-life is not just about being anti-abortion. And so, in our
state, that -- the work that is being done goes in two directions.
He said they have to do whatever they can to "make it easier on those moms who may be in unwanted pregnancies" and so,
...I have signed
legislation to provide help and resources and money to the 37 pregnancy
resource centers that are located in every region of our state. We want
to make sure that we get those individuals, ladies and women and expectant
mothers, the help that they need from a health care standpoint, but it's not
just about the health care. It's about other resources that are available to
those moms.
And, the other piece of making things better while forcing women to bear unwanted children is about "the next phase of the pro-life movement."
And what we're trying to do is focus on
making adoption easier in Mississippi. We're focusing on improving our foster
care system... we're investing in that system over $100 million to improve
technology at the Department of Human Services and at our Child Protection
Service (CPS).
Tapper gave some grim Mississippi stats: the highest rates of infant mortality and child poverty in the country; no guaranteed paid maternity leave; a rejection of extended paid post-partum care through Medicaid; and a "long-running federal lawsuit" against CPS. He asked why anyone should believe Reeves saying he's concerned about taking care of these babies, or the women. Reeves said he didn't want to hide his state's problem, he wanted to fix them.
It's due
in large part to poverty. And so we are focusing every day on fixing the
challenges that are before us... when you talk
about these young ladies, the best thing we can do for them is to
provide and improve educational opportunities for them... We have got to continue to
work to provide workforce opportunities, jobs for these individuals. But to do that, they
have got to improve the quality of their skills. And we as a state are
investing heavily in that.
In 2012, Mississippi was 47th in spending on education; in 2022, the state is ranked 46th; it plans on investing $49M in American Rescue Plan funding in education over the next couple of years. And, the state has only the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Notably,
The 2019 Mississippi Minimum Wage Act, or Senate Bill 2150, aimed to gradually increase the Mississippi minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2022, but this proposal died in committee. In 2021, Mississippi lawmakers continue to debate if and how the state should go about increasing the minimum wage. With Mississippi being the last state to not have a law requiring equal pay for women and men, there is still much discussion to be had.
Seems there's a tough row to hoe there... Maybe taking care of those other things first would make sense?
Down the hall in the Meet the Press classroom, Michigan's AG Dana Nessel talked with What's-his-name. Her state also has had an abortion ban on the books since 1931; the ban would go into effect when Roe is overturned. Nessel has said she won't enforce that law, but she can't prevent the 83 prosecutors in the state from doing so. She called the law "incredibly draconian and strict," saying it has "virtually no exceptions - no
exception for rape, for incest, no exception for medical emergencies."
Not only that, but there's also a law against selling any drug or combination of drugs "designed expressly for the use of females for the purpose of procuring an abortion," with misdemeanor penalties in play. There's a registry requirement (name of purchaser, date of sale, and the name - and residence - of the prescribing physician.) Nessel also agreed with What's-his-name that even when a woman has a miscarriage, doctors may not want to perform the standards procedures to remove the fetus for fear they could end up in prison.
To protect female Michiganders of child-bearing age,
... I think each and every eligible
voter in the state should be signing on to the you know, Reproductive Rights
for All petition, and then coming to the polls and voting on it in November and
voting for every pro-choice Democrat up and down the ticket, whether it's for
federal office or for state office.
She'll also fully support lawsuits going to her state's Supreme Court arguing that the right to an abortion is a fundamental right in the Michigan Constitution "under our equal protection clause, under our due process clause...even if the US Supreme Court decides otherwise.
She'd like to see both a constitutional amendment and a favorable decision from the state Supreme Court.
Let's be clear: women in my state, and in states
all over America are going to die because of this position. And I heard the
Mississippi governor when you interviewed him, he refused to answer the
question of whether or not he would sign a bill completely outlawing the use of
birth control. That is not in line at all with how Americans see their rights.
And politicians do not belong in our doctor's offices. They don't belong in our
bedrooms. And they should not be making these kinds of decisions on behalf of
the American public and on behalf of women across America.
Moving south down the hall we meet Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who talked at length with Margaret Brennan in the Face the Nation classroom. Grace has been outspoken about being molested at 14 and raped at 16, and that she's pro-life, with exceptions for rape victims. Mace said the fetal heartbeat bill that South Carolina passed has exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, in part because she told her story.
I felt it was really -- a really important story. A
story that's often missed and not told because women are afraid. And you can
even see in public comments and on social media when I talk about it, the ways
in which that I get attacked for telling that story. And one of the things that
I think, you know, partially that's missing in this conversation is that, when
you have victims... And it's important for -- for some of us to step
forward and tell those stories that are often missed in all of this as well.
She said she would support Congress passing a bill with those protections, but that what people are missing is that if Roe is overturned,
it's not an all-out federal ban on abortion, but it puts it back into state
legislators and into Congress. You saw Congress a couple of years
ago ban late- term abortions, for example. And so, what this does is it puts it
back to the states, it puts it back into Congress to deal with and figure out.
They talked about polling; Brennan noted national polling shows "a majority of Americans want to kind of keep the status qu0, but "more than two-thirds of
Republicans say abortion should be generally available or available with
stricter limits" and wondered if it's a mistake to "just paint this as pro-life,
pro-choice?"
Mace (correctly, I believe), pointed out that "some of the polling is murky, too." It depends on "how you ask the question and who's paying for the polling." And, she gave examples of where we're more liberal on this than they are in Europe, and that it seems, based on some polls, that only 25% - 30% of Americans support abortion without restriction.
Finally, we turn to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who stopped by the This Week with George Stephanopoulos classroom to talk with Martha Raddatz about some of the political aspects of the Alito Draft. You know, things like "Do you believe there should be a litmus test? The Democrats have several candidates who do not support abortion rights." Klobuchar didn't gasp, which is more than I can say for myself.
Instead, she talked about the Dems being a party where people recognize the difference between their personal beliefs and the rights of women to make their own personal choice. And, she added,
I think what you see in our party, is a party that is clearly
pro-choice. It believes that a woman should have a right to make her own
reproductive health decision when it comes to abortion. That is a position of
our party and I think you see it in primary (after) primary. That matters to our
voters, certainly now more than ever.
Next question? Senate Dems are going to push for a vote to codify abortion rights, "but it's almost certainly going to be blocked..." That being the case, Raddatz wondered about the options abortion rights advocates - and Democrats - have. Klobuchar said
If we are not
successful, then we go to the ballot box. We march straight to the ballot box.
And the women of this country and the men who stand with them will vote like
they've never voted before because this is 50 years of rights in a leaked
opinion where Justice Alito is literally not just taking us back to the 1950s,
he's taking us back to the 1850s. He actually cites the fact that abortion was
criminalized back when the 14th Amendment was adopted. And so this is a really
extreme thought.
And, Raddatz asked if abortion rights should be "the principal issue for Democrats at the ballot box." The senator said "it will not be the only issue." She mentioned the economy, the president's leadership vis-Ã -vis Ukraine, preserving our democracy, and the extremism the Rs are showing as issues that matter to voters.
But, clearly, when... especially a new generation of women are looking at this and saying, wait a
minute, my mom and my grandma are going to have more rights than I'm going to
have going forward? I'm going to have to look at a patchwork of states laws
with 15 of them already looking to ban medication abortion, which is what
people do online and things like that. They're going to look at this and say,
what world do I live in?
So, yes, "it's going to be a major issue going into the fall."
And the final question from Raddatz: in states where abortion would "almost immediately be banned" if Roe is overturned, polling shows most adults "believe abortion should be
illegal in most or all cases." Doesn't that mean the laws reflect what the people want?
Klobuchar said, like many people, she thinks
why should a woman in Texas have different rights and a different future and a different ability to make decisions about
her body and her reproductive choices than a woman in Minnesota?
She asked, rhetorically, about putting yourself in someone else's shoes, no matter how hard it might be, and thinking about "a waitress in the middle of Texas who has to make a decision...she's going to quit her job to get on a bus and go 250 miles" to have an abortion.
Those are the
kinds of things that are going to be happening. It's especially going to fall
on the backs of poor women, women of color. This is just wrong. And that is
part of why Justice Blackmun, who is a Republican-appointed justice no less,
made that thoughtful decision, looked at the Constitution and said, the right
to privacy includes the right for women to make a choice like this.
Four people, all coming from different places, talking about one of the most contention issues we have.
See you around campus.
