Legal AF by MeidasTouch - GOP Plan SUDDENLY STOPPED by Judge in…Wyoming?!!

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

In breaking news, a Wyoming state court judge just restored women there to first-class citizenship by blocking Wyoming’s near-total ban on abortion and first-ever ban on medication abortion pills, and she used a Republican anti-Obamacare law on their books to do it! Michael Popok reports on Judge Melissa Owens and her profile in courage to protect women. Levels is offering my listeners an additional 2 free months of the Levels annual Membership when you use my link, https://levels.link/LEGALAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Republicans in order to try to undermine Obamacare. Yes, you heard it all. This is the Cosmic Justice episode of Legal AF and on the Midas Dutch Network let's talk about the profile and courage that is Melissa Owens. Look, there are many ways that we're going to have to work around the fact that the MAGA right wing of the Supreme Court took away the federally constitutionally protected right of a woman to bodily autonomy. Some of it's going to have to be in the state houses. Some of it's going to have to be with ballot initiatives to amend state constitutions to give a woman a right to choose. Some of it's going to have to rely on progressive and

free-thinking federal and state court judges who are going to try to find somewhere in the law or in the constitution of their state a woman's right to choose. That's what we have with Judge Melissa Owens. Now here's how it came down. Right after the Dobbs decision, ripping away a woman's right to choose by the Supreme Court, states like Wyoming and usually a lot of white men in their legislature got together and decided now is a good time to ban abortion outright. So in Wyoming, except for the health of the life of the mother or in the cases of incest, but not rape apparently, there is a ban on abortion. And even that life of the mother part usually is an exception without application because doctors are so worried about being prosecuted and they're so confused about the application of the law,

they just throw up their hands and don't do anything. And so women are jeopardized, and the life of the mother is jeopardized. So they passed it. But they didn't anticipate that one day somebody would point out that in 2012, in order to oppose the insurance mandate of Obamacare, Wyoming's would go to the polls and the legislature would put on the books, the only people that have the right to make healthcare decisions is the person themselves. In other words, it was an amendment to give women the right to make healthcare decisions. This is because at that time, just to bring us back to old timey times of 2012 and the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, there were these hard, disgusting rumors going around to try to

kill Obamacare that there would be murder boards that would vote to kill grandma. That was out there, that women wouldn't have the right to choose and there'd be forced abortions on them and forced health care on them. And so they put this on the books and the judge took a look at it and said, right, exactly. These fundamental health care decisions include abortion and you're telling women that they have to worry only about the life of the fetus and not make their own health care worry only about the life of the fetus and not make their own health care decisions is violating that part of the statute. Now the state had a very disgusting and interesting I guess retort to that. They

told the judge, well abortion is not health care. She said, excuse me? No, no abortion is not health care. It's something else. And the judge said, no, abortion and the right to make a decision about it is fundamentally a healthcare decision. Here's what the judge had to say. The healthcare amendment, that's the amendment allowing women to make their own choice about healthcare decisions after Obamacare was passed, does not, the judge wrote, prohibit a person from making their own healthcare decision if their decision impacts any other person. The any other person there is the nod to the fetus as a life being within the woman. As the plaintiffs argued, this is the state,

I'm sorry, the plaintiffs there are abortion clinics and OBGYN doctors. As the plaintiffs argued, only a pregnant woman can make a decision to have an abortion. No other person can make that decision for a competent pregnant woman. To adopt defendants' argument, the court would have to rewrite the healthcare amendment. She went on to say that defendants, that's the state, have not established a compelling governmental interest to exclude pregnant women from fully realizing the protections afforded by the Wyoming Constitution during the entire term of their pregnancies, nor have the defendants established that the abortion statutes accomplish their interests. The court concludes that the abortion statutes, that's the

near total ban and the ban on medication abortions, suspend a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions during the entire term of a pregnancy and are not reasonable or necessary to protect the health and general welfare of the people. But the cosmic justice part is obvious. They used a provision by proto-MAGA Republicans back in 2012 to empower women about health care decisions and then now that's being used against them to support blocking the ban on abortion and on the use of methapristone and medication abortion. Now what's going to happen to this? This is the fourth time Judge Owens has ruled on this particular issue.

This is now fourth time Judge Owens has ruled on this particular issue. This is now her final decision. It is appealable because of the nature of it directly to the Wyoming Supreme Court. And the MAGA governor, of course, and the attorney general in Wyoming, also MAGA, the governor Mark Gordon, have already said they're filing their appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court, which of course leans all the way to the right. One of the single biggest predictors of how long you live and how good you feel while living is your metabolic health. Now I strongly believe that you can't manage what you don't measure and metabolic health

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And this is what we have to do. I mean, the good news is that the only silver lining really from two Tuesdays ago on the election day is that abortion rights were supported in at least four states, five if you count Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, and Montana, all now enshrined in their constitutions a woman's right to choose. That's four more than there were last the Tuesday before that. Nevada is a two-step process. They voted to add it to their next ballot for a consideration. Thirteen states have an outright ban. One-third of American women as of this taping cannot exercise bodily autonomy. What has developed instead is a type of underground railroad. There's no other way to put it.

Where women in red states who can't get abortion have to travel to blue states or the nearest blue states with the help of friends getting money for travel in order to exercise bodily autonomy about them deciding to carry or not carry a fetus to term. Colorado has become a major transit hub as a free thinking state, allowing women the right to choose, taking in women in this underground railroad, if you will, from all over the West and the Midwest. On the East Coast, of course, you've got New York and Maryland and other places like that that are doing the exact same thing in this underground railroad for women and to protect women. And they have to do

it. Look at the incoming Trump administration. You've got the nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, a right-wing Christian nationalist who believes in male hegemony, that only males should be in the positions of power, that he's even said out loud that women should not be in combat roles in the military, stealing their valor all the women that have died and been injured in combat roles. He completely craps all over their honor. He also is about to pass if he gets confirmed. You know, it's a little bit touch and go right now because of his own sex assault allegations against him. He's also said as it relates to abortion that he's going to end the reimbursement for

travel for women in the military who were in red states in bases to travel to blue states in order to get abortions and other health care, he's not going to reimburse them any longer. And if you think that's outrageous, Donald Trump has already announced today that he's going to implement what's called the Mexico City rule. It's a global gag order, but it's not just a gag order. It's a cutoff of over $600 million in funding for non-government organizations, what's called NGOs. They're the ones providing aid around the world, including in developing countries like Africa, developing continents, and they will

no longer get any of their money if they promote, advise, provide abortion services worldwide with American dollars. off $600 million worldwide and gags these organizations from providing critical reproductive and healthcare advice and counsel to women around the world, which only increases the amount of abortions and unwanted pregnancies, not diminishes it. But that's the heartlessness of this administration. That's why it's a profile in courage for Melissa Owens, the judge in Jackson, Wyoming to stand up to it and stand up to her own United States Supreme Court, and her own Wyoming Supreme Court.

So we got to follow all of it. I've been doing a lot of coverage over the last four years about reproductive rights of women. It's personal to me, not directly, but of course, I've had not only close family members that have had to make this momentous decision, but I had to make this decision along with my high school girlfriend when I was 16 and 17. So I have empathy for the thought process and I'm a person who supports women who want to make this decision for themselves. Always have been, always will be right here on the Midas Touch Network and

on Legal AF. If you like what we're doing at the intersection of law and politics, that all important thoroughfare now since the election, hit the subscribe button for the Midas Touch Network and our new channel. We formed it right before the election. We're up to 330,000 subscribers. It's called, what else? Legal AF. Join me there, along with lots of other contributors around the universe at the intersection of law and politics for this analysis and commentary, I think like no other on YouTube. So until my next hot take, my next Legal AF, I'm Michael Popak and I am reporting. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network,

we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at LegalAFMTN. That's at LegalAFMTN.