Life Uncut - PART 1: Get your politics off women's bodies. The overturning of Roe vs Wade

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

Welcome to part 1 of our 2 parter today.Content warning: today's episode will discuss pregnancy and abortion and if that's a triggering subject for you, please move on to part 2 of today's episodes. We kick things off by having our Britt back and covid free! *Spoiler, her laugh has also returned.*Laura has taken a huge step in her wedding planning and FOUND THE DRESS!! We are then joined by Sam Koslowski, co-founder of The Daily Aus, to unpack how and why the US supreme court has ended the constitutional right for a woman in America to have an abortion. Sam explains how the legal system in the US works, which states it will be legal and illegal to have a termination of pregnancy and how this ruling will largely impact minority groups and people of lower socioeconomic status.Our hearts are breaking for the women that will be affected by this decision. It is truly baffling that this is happening in 2022.Part 2 of this episode is with Dr Hannah Korrel and we discuss navigating friendships throughout different stages of your life.Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because we love love!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded on Gadigal land of the Aurora Nation. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. And I'm Brittany and I am officially back in the game.

She's risen from the dead everybody. And I'm super, super pumped to announce there were 8% of you that will be disappointed by this. But my laugh has come back. It has made it back. I did a poll. guys what happens if i lose my laugh obviously i have been sick with covid influenza i completely lost my voice there for oh i don't know you're drinking eight days laura well yeah you would just be like hello sound like darth vader how was the poll that's what i want to know you put

a poll okay eight percent said no i mean where are you you eight percent but a few people did a few people wrote to me saying oh my god i accidentally just pressed no but i didn't mean Do I have meant to press yes, but my fingers are fat. And I'm like, likely story, Betty. I'm going to say that I reckon even if there were one or two people who accidentally voted the wrong way, there's probably some people who just are against the laugh. A hundred percent.

Who were just against a bit of fun. That one person who once upon a time wrote a review and said that you sounded like a kookaburra. It was that person. I think about that every day. I have lost sleep. Well, do you know who else is happy that you have your voice back? It is me, and it is certainly not Maddie J.

Matt joined us, or he joined me, on last week's episode. He was a ring-in. Some of you loved it. Some of you hated it. But he's gone. And now Brittany Hockley is back, full swinging, in action. And I'm very glad that you don't have COVID anymore, especially because I'm sitting very close to your face.

Do you know what is crazy? I mean, and we know this. We know how different COVID and influenza hit people. But I've had friends that are like, oh, had COVID last week, didn't even know they had it. They didn't touch the sides. Like, they only knew because they had to test. They're like, oh, what do you know?

I've got COVID. I was crawling on hands and knees around the house. It was like, I didn't get dramatic Brittany. And that's what I felt dramatic. I went to the hospital and they said, okay, like what brings you here? What are you here for? And I was slumped over the counter and I looked up at her and I was like, I thought, you know, this is my dramatic scene moment. I said, I think I'm dying. She said, what do you mean? I was like, I'm pretty sure this is what death feels like. You're like, I've seen the light. I saw angels. I think I've got flu. I was like levitating over my own body but isn't it crazy I don't go to hospital unless I'm very very ill I think this is actually the first time I've ever taken myself to the hospital but I felt like I needed to

explain that to her like I almost felt guilty for utilizing the hospital I got there and I was like look I've got the flu but it's so bad but I just want you to know I've not once in my life taken myself to hospital like this is how bad it is and I felt like this this explanation of why I was there which I'm like this is crazy I think a lot of people feel like that I mean I definitely know that there's been times where I've taken the girls to hospital and then I found myself in the waiting room of the hospital doing the triage bit kind of apologizing for maybe overreacting by bringing them to hospital I think that because it's conditioned in us that we don't like to be a bother that's like that's part of like the very human psyche of what it is to be Australian so

no one wants to be no one wants to be an inconvenience no one wants to be a bother so you're like am I dying enough to go to hospital that's the question but the the thing that I once one time when I had to take Lola and we ended up spending a couple of days in because she was quite unwell a nurse said to me and I think it was just like the most perfect justification it was if you're not sure go because it's not up to you to try and figure out whether you're sick enough to be at hospital if you think you're sick enough to go to hospital just go to hospital and let somebody else tell you whether you need to be there or you don't need to be there if in doubt hospital out that's it this is why you come to life on cut for the really hard-hitting information

but no it's good it's good to be back I did miss it there's a little bit of FOMO everyone on the outside having a good time but you know I'm back we're back in action I'm feeling 98 percent well do you know what you did miss it has me actually trying to think of the answer I'm like this is a trick question the fact that you don't remember what you missed I don't remember my wedding dress shopping that's something that you did miss I was really cut deep I missed Laura's and I haven't seen it yet but I know she's picked a dress we're going to talk about it but part of having the COVID influenza meant I couldn't go to Melbourne with Laura to go dress shopping. Do you know what we can do? I could never take that back, Laura. We're never going to get that moment back. So

you would think that we're three and a half years to organize a wedding. We would be a lot closer to having it organized than what we were, but it is in November and I hadn't organized or like even been to a dress fitting, like nothing. I mean, I hope you're telling the people this, not me, because you're preaching here. I made Laura get a wedding planner because I know how disorganized both of us are but I know how disorganized Laura is and she's like no no no no no no no no we'll be fine we'll be fine we're fine and it kept getting closer and closer and I ended up sending her a wedding plan I was like I can't watch this happen anymore you were going to crash and burn I was like you need someone to help you so I can completely believe that a few months out you

haven't got your wedding dress except that we have a wedding planner and we still don't have anything planned that's the real because you still gotta tell her what you want that's the really frightening thing okay but so I organized I put it up on my socials and said that I hadn't yet started the dress shopping part and then all of you who have been wedded before all of you people who have been brides in the past i cannot tell you the hundreds of people who messaged me and told me that i needed to pull my finger out of my ass and actually go and do some wedding dress shopping otherwise i wasn't going to have one in time because everybody says unless you literally go and buy it off a rack even if you do buy it off a rack usually they need to send it

six months people say minimum well we have four that's what we're working with i know but here this is the dress oh my god that's the dress yeah guys I just saw I just saw the dress for the first time Laura I am like it doesn't happen often I'm speechless I'm glad that you cried nobody else cried at the day I felt like tears in my eye you know if I was there I would have cry i'm an emotional little girl girl i'm emotional a bitch you got i'm like speechless you are like a supermodel though you put a paper bag on and you're a supermodel this is exactly what i saw so it is okay i know i feel terrible because this is probably a very awkward thing to listen to because i can't give too much away but i'm just gonna tell you this guys it's

very different to what i thought i would wear it's what i see in fact it is the complete opposite to what I thought I would wear half of it is different to what I thought yes yeah exactly but it's it's phenomenal so I have picked my wedding dress it is now underway and I feel really good about it you look like this Victoria's Secret model I can't wait to share it with you all okay but moving on to more important things let's tell you what to before that no like let's not scoot over this moment what was the what was it like doing the wedding dress shopping trying stuff on was this like did you see this dress and just say that's 100% it or did you try a bunch on and you were like having a moment where you're like I'm never gonna find anything like what kind of a dress shop

do you know what to be honest I think because I'd had such a disappointing experience during COVID and I think a lot of brides who did their wedding last year can probably can probably attest to this like I went and tried on some dresses last year during the whole COVID pandemic or like the year before actually and I had to be by myself I had a mask on I was only allowed to try on two dresses in the place because I needed to get in and get out and it just felt really unspecial like this is not it yeah it felt really and I think that that almost kind of made me feel less it sounds so dumb but it made me feel less excited about the day because I it felt very transactional and it had lost that special moment where I always envisaged that if I was going to

get married I'd probably do it with my mom and have my friends there and you know be able to like have a moment and then I went down to Melbourne and I went to Kaya Studios I was so lucky because Kaya I got to wear one of her dresses when I went to the Logies a couple years ago and she contacted me and she was like calm down I remember she's she was like calm down we can you know you can book a hotel stay with you I stay with my mom and my sister and one of my girlfriends we stayed in a hotel we left all our kids at home with their fathers so it wasn't like they're on their own but she just made the whole process really special and I sent her a list of photos of dresses that I liked from the website and she just put them all into a dressing room

and we went through them one by one and we went through the bits that we liked and the bits that we didn't like and it was a really like there was a real moment there where I stood in my dress and I was like I am I have two children I've been engaged for so long but I'm actually getting married we're actually doing this felt like a million dollars and it felt real and I know that the dress shouldn't be the thing that makes it feel real but I guess maybe it had lost a bit of the sparkliness because so much time has passed yeah but I think don't underestimate the power of I mean think of how good you feel when you could be feeling really shitty we've said this on the podcast too you put a nice dress on you put a nice outfit on like brush your hair it can

it can do a world of good for how you feel I'll tell you this I do wish that I hadn't worn like my daggiest ugliest bonds undies that I put on inside out when I left the house for the day because it was dark and I didn't want to wake the kids up so there I am taking off my dress and I have a hole in the middle of the crutch of my g-string gray undies that I had access that I had on inside out and I was like from glamour to real life this is where we're sitting well if there's anything more that screams I am Laura Byrne it's a hole in your old bun right and is when you're wearing dress shopping. Right, in the crotch. But let me tell you guys what today's episode's about. We get into some pretty big things today and we've got two different topics

that we're tackling. Now, we wanted to talk about what everybody in Australia, in the United States, potentially the world is talking about at the moment, and that is the Roe versus Wade overturning in the States and how abortion is being banned throughout many 26 states of the US. We are speaking to Sam Kozlowski, who is from the Daily Oz. And the reason why we wanted to speak to Sam is because he comes from not only a journalistic background, but he also has a law background. So this is a space that he very much understands. And being part of the Daily Oz, they have done so much research into what this ruling means. Now, there are so many personal views on this topic, personal views that both Britt and I have. And I think that as we saw social media, absolutely

just the uproar, the hurt, the pain, what this means for women in taking a step back in terms of having agency over our own bodies. And I know this isn't happening here in Australia, but I think the reason why so many people have really taken it personally across the world is because the thought is if this can happen in the States, potentially it could happen anywhere. What is the flow on effect? What is going to happen around the world after this or the trickle effect they're calling in. Yeah. And also I think for anybody who has had an abortion, understanding the reasons why they made that choice. Now, something I want to be really transparent about before we get into this episode is the fact that I have had an abortion before in my twenties. And I know that

there will be people who will have opinions on that. And I'm okay with that because truthfully, it was absolutely the best decision for myself that I made at that time. I was not emotionally, mentally financially in any way did I had the capacity to bring a child into the world and my life would have been substantially different had I made that choice then so I think we're not going to get into my story we can do that at another time when we have more time but what we really wanted to talk about was the process the legality how did we get to this point how did America come to this decision because I think a lot of us have our own emotional feelings around what this means and what this looks like but I don't necessarily know if we all have a

really great grasp and I know I certainly don't have a great grasp as to how this could possibly fucking happen obviously Laura I know this about you I know that you had an abortion in your 20s and had your reasons that you haven't shared it yet and we will share it at a later date yeah and I guess one thing I just want to jump in on say on that we will talk about this more I haven't not shared this because I have been worried about people's opinions of me like I said I made the best decision for myself and it is even as a mother of two children it is not a decision that I have ever come to regret I definitely have felt sadness around it at different times especially at the time but regret is not a feeling that I had like I said we'll have

a greater conversation around it but the reason why I wanted to at least acknowledge it and put it into the atmosphere put it out there into the world right now is because I think it's so important that women who have had abortions who have had that access who have had that agency who have been able to make decisions that were best for them emotionally financially like I said socially for their bodies that they all come forward now and say well I had this access and it changed my life and it was a decision I made with my doctor and it was something that was incredibly important to me and the thing is I haven't had an abortion I'll put my hand up and say that but I know many many women close to me that have and I don't know there'll be that many women that don't know

someone that have been in that position and had to go down and seek that for whatever reason this is something that might not affect somebody personally right now at this time but it could in the future and like Laura said before we did just want to obviously there are so many emotions in this and we're listening to we're listening to so many people be very emotional about it we are also very emotional about it but we wanted to put it really baseline for you we want to break down the legal jargon so that we can all understand how this has happened. We want to talk about the Supreme Court and what that is. We want to talk about how this has happened under Joe Biden when he doesn't agree with it. These are all things that I think a lot of us probably aren't really

aware of or don't have our head around and that's what we wanted to do today. So that's why we've got Sam on. That is going to be our first part of the chat and I'm really excited to speak to Sam. So the second half of the episode that we had already planned, we have Dr. Hannah Correll on. She's a neuropsychologist. She did write a book all around how to break up with friends. And we did a really amazing interview with her then. Well, we spoke so much then about toxic friendships and like how to one, identify if you've got a toxic friendship in your life and how to remove yourself from those friendships or to navigate friendship breakdowns as well. Following on from that, we're doing a different kind of navigation of friendships on today's episode. And that is

navigating friendships when you're at different stages of life. For example, Laura and myself are a prime example. Laura's getting married. Laura's got two kids. Laura has a crazy busy family life with businesses. I'm obviously running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I'm single. I don't have children. So we are at really different points of life. And I think at our age, or not even at our age, but as you get into your late 20s, 30s and on, this happens more and more. People are settling down. People are finding their way. Other people are moving overseas, starting new businesses. You do sort of hit a crossroads where you can go different directions. We wanted to talk a little bit about what that looks like and how

you do navigate a friendship like that. I guess when you think about it, when you're going through school, everyone is kind of on the same page. We're all on the same path. School finishes, some people go to uni, some people might travel a little bit, but usually most people are still enjoying going out partying, going out and enjoying their life in their early 20s. There's usually those common things that connect you still to your friendship groups. And then as you get a bit older. And as you move into your thirties, maybe even into your forties, that's when life really starts to take some very significant different paths. And I think like when we talk about relationships, we often talk about romantic relationships on this podcast,

but easily one of the biggest relationships in our life that we have to navigate is that of our friendships. And is it even possible to stay incredibly close friends with someone if when you do get into your thirties, if your lives are polar opposites? And that was what we wanted to unpack. Obviously, like Britt said, our lives are very different. We're in different stages and we navigate this in our own friendship. We're just tied together for this. But we also, yeah, we also have the podcast and that's what brings us together. But so many of you have friends in your life who, you know, and sometimes it can feel like, okay, are they pulling away from me? Is it because they don't love me anymore or they don't love our friendship or is it that they're time poor or-

Why are they being so selfish? Why don't they give me any of their time anymore? When you don't necessarily know what the other person has going on behind closed doors. Yeah. And I think one of the things I really loved about this chat with Dr. Hannah which we're going to get into is this whole conversation around changing circumstances can fundamentally change a friendship but it doesn't have to change the love that's there in a friendship and it might mean that that friendship looks very different from the outset and you might not see each other as often and you might tap into each other less frequently but it's about being really intentional with that relationship. I think Dr. Hannah is just the most like wonderful, warm, incredibly like hyper smart person that she just

brings such an unusual and really deep perspective on how to navigate friendships to the table. She's an extremely educated breath of fresh air. That's how I would describe her. And then you've just got us. Okay. Well, before we get into that, we're going to give you our favorite Accidentally Unfiltered. All right. I'm going to kick it off. And now Accidentally Unfiltered, for anyone who doesn't know, it is basically just you guys write in your most embarrassing stories. We read them out and everybody laughs together and here we go everybody laughs at you and with you oh we have a good old chuckle in the old studio also if you have one can you please send it into at life uncut podcast

because we need some crackers yeah we do all right here we go i'm currently away for work and they've put me up in a share accommodation now i'm staying in these what's called a nursing quarter with six other people in the one house it often has a high turnover of staff and people are coming and going constantly. So when people leave, cleaners come in to clean the vacant rooms. Now, yesterday, the cleaners came in to clean those vacant rooms like they always do. However, God knows for what reason, but they decided to come into my room, which is very clearly occupied. They stripped down my bed and sheets, which means they took my sheets and my linen away. They made my bed again, and then they moved all my personal things around in the bedroom. On first inspection,

I didn't think that they had taken anything. Then I realised I had not one but two vibrators in my bed that night. I'm a single girl. Get it, girl. And, you know, they just generally lay around in my bed with me. One I had only just recently bought and I haven't even gotten a chance to use it properly. I like that she just opened it and then had it laying around in the bed.

In case she needs quick access. Or, like, you just wake up, you're half asleep and you're like, that one will do. Just throw it in. All right, so they've taken the sheets, they've made my bed and then they've also taken my vibrators. I rang the after hours accommodation people straight away and told them and she couldn't stop laughing.

Neither could my housemates. It's definitely a laugh or cry situation. But the thing is, the vibrators are really, really expensive and I want them back. Or if not, I just want to be reimbursed for them. So now I've had to tell my manager that both my vibrators were taken in the sheets this morning. I'm so embarrassed.

My manager has said that I have to log the items that have been taken. And I'm thinking that I might just say it was a massage gun or a personal massager. Both are correct. it was a personal massage gun for my clitoris i thought this story i thought you're just gonna say you know when you go out your hotel room's cleaned when you've left for the day or something you come back and everything's folded on this is her house no but they actually um look i have

spent many many months in nursing quarters around the world like i know this setup i have lived in the nursing quarters i don't understand why they took it usually they just clean so obviously they've stripped the bed and they've like folded all the bed sheets together not realizing that there's two vibrators in the sheets and then just dump them into the dirty basket of washing she's like bingo this is like 500 worth of vibrators i'm gonna take it well how funny is that i was just thinking as you're reading that story how embarrassing is it this always happens to me because you know how you don't know when you're seen in a hotel or something you don't know if they're going to clean it that day because sometimes it's not every day so when you go

out for the day you come back you you're you were not expecting anyone in your room and all of a sudden everything's made immaculate your dirty little g-string undies are like folded on your bit and you're like I can't believe you touched that yes I can't I'm mortified I will never forget when I was in New York and it was they would it was not nice it was underwear that you should not touch it was it was not for other people to touch nobody not even the washing machine look it was not having a good time and neither was I and they had cleaned the whole room and then they had picked up my underwear and they had laid my underwear upwards on the bed in the middle of the bed just put it there and I think they put it there to be like hey you're fucking disgusting

but why would you touch it what is wrong with them and it's been scarred and now everybody else is scarred they probably have to they probably will lose their job if they go and half clean a room and just like clean around the dirty undies why is the word discharge so like why does it make everyone go a little bit i prefer discharge to moist oh sorry to everybody who just turned off right then or was eating their breakfast if anything they were turned on uh okay so i'm bringing one in this is this is a pretty unfortunate funny innocent i would say innocent my partner is away on a ski weekend with his two mates and forgot to pack toothpaste so last night he asked one of them michael if he could borrow his all right michael yeah no worries

it's in my bag just go grab it anyway he starts brushing his teeth the other guy that with eric he comes in he also brushes his teeth mike is still in the other room at this point so my partner and eric are standing in front of the mirror brushing for a good couple of minutes before eric says this toothpaste tastes like crap my partner nodded in agreement and yells out hey mike what brand is this it's gross he goes what it's colgate whitening why is that gross it's standard. They immediately looked down, realized that they most certainly do not have Colgate whitening toothpaste. They have Michael's pharmacy grade anti-chafing cream. Is that like anti-chafing for his balls? This is the cream he puts on his balls to avoid chasing any snow gear. My partner

isn't the best at looking things properly. He has a quick skim over, learned his lesson the very hard way. They had to wash their teeth with ball cream. Do you know what the best part of that is? There are so many good parts the best part is that like usually you would double apply right so he's definitely touched his balls then retouched the the seal of that and then his friends put it in his mouth i just think you can just i could picture this when i was reading it that realization when they're like michael what toothpaste is like colgate why is colgate gross and you know that moment you look down you look at each other you're like oh fuck like we literally have his ass in our mouth his ball cream is circulating my teeth right now a great potato control all right well with all

of that out of the way, let's get into a very important chat with Sam. Sam, thank you for coming back on Life Uncut today. For anyone that hasn't met Sam, Sam is from the Daily Oz. We have had Sam on before, actually. We did an episode on the overwhelm and Sam jumped on board and talked about the overwhelm that we can feel with the excessive amount of not only news, but really negative and depressing and hard news the last couple of years. So you are a bit of a Life Uncut veteran now, Sam. So thanks for coming back on today to talk about something that is very, very important and something that I want to say most of the world is up in arms about. It's pretty funny that the two times I've come on this podcast have been to talk about some really heavy stuff, but I'm glad we can

kind of work through this together because I think with the weekend that we've just had and what we've heard from the US, there needs to be a bit of kind of deconstruction of what we've read in the news to really understand what's happening here. And that was one of the things that Britt and I spoke about, we were like, there are so many emotions that are surrounding these decisions and the change in legislation. Can you explain to us firstly, what Roe v. Wade is? Okay. So we're kind of starting here now at 1973. So we're going all the way back and then we can kind of work our way through the timeline to where we got to this weekend. So Roe v. Wade was the case in the Supreme Court in 1973 that says that the right to an abortion was a constitutional

right for all Americans. Now, in America, you have to remember that abortion laws are set by the states. And so this didn't necessarily make every state change their laws to be that abortion could happen at any time, at any point to anyone. But what it did say was that a state couldn't outlaw abortion, because if you were to fully ban abortion, you would be impeding on somebody's constitutional right to an abortion. And it was about kind of freedom to make choices over your own body and all of those kind of principles. It was a really big landmark case. It's kind of one of the big four landmark cases in this space for the Supreme Court. And at the time, it was really celebrated as this big moment for women's rights and for kind of progressive thought

as to sexual freedom and choice. So you mentioned in the Supreme Court there, Sam, for those that may be not so politically inclined, I'll put my hand up, guilty. What is the Supreme Court and who is a part of the Supreme Court? So the Supreme Court is the highest court in America. So it's kind of like our high court here. It's a little bit different. It's a bit more political. And what I mean by that is that the way that you get on the Supreme Court to be a judge

is you're appointed by the president. So whoever the president is and a seat becomes available, there's nine seats on the Supreme Court bench. And that's obviously designed so that it can't be a split decision. It can't be four, four. It has to be five, four. So whoever's the president at the time there's a vacancy gets to appoint a judge. Now, how do you get off the court when you're on the court as a judge?

There's kind of two options. You either die, I'm legit, like you literally have the job for life and you die and your seat is vacant, or in some rare cases, you retire. And the cases where a judge would retire, they normally do that because they're either very unwell or losing their cognitive ability. They don't just retire because they've had enough. It's very uncommon for that to happen. So you can't just say, oh, I don't want to be part of the Supreme Court anymore.

This is too stressful. This is too much. I want to take a vacation. Like if you're assigned to that, you're locked and loaded for life. Absolutely. But also more frightening than that is, I guess, the bigger conversation, which we'll get to is in how do Americans then vote in terms to change this policy now that it's in place?

So I've read quite a bit in the last couple of days, and I guess one of the things that I've been seeing a lot of outcry and so many conversations surrounding is that one that Joe Biden, who's the current president of the United States, is against this overturning of Roe v. Wade. However, Donald Trump was very much in support of it. What processes were put in place, I guess, during Donald Trump's presidency that we are seeing coming into effect? And how has that impacted this decision making? So to understand the role of Trump in this, and I get it, right? It's weird that we're talking a lot about Trump, but he's not the president right now. So how on earth is he having influence over this decision that was made on the

weekend. But to understand Trump, you have to go back to that thing I just talked about, about the vacancies point. Now, when Trump was president for four years, he got to appoint three judges. And that honestly is not his doing. It's just luck. I mean, luck in a kind of, I don't want to put an emotion on that word, but it's just fortune that he got to appoint three. Other presidents like President Obama only gets to appoint one, and he was in office for eight years. It's just a little bit kind of unlucky, I guess, for those who wanted to protect the rights to an abortion that President Trump got to appoint three. There were six judges that said that the Roe v. Wade should be overturned. President Trump is responsible for three of

those six judges. And so they're all males? They're actually not. One of the judges that he appointed was Amy Coney Barrett, and she voted that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. So no, they're not all male judges from the former president. There's one judge that's about to retire. He was one of the judges that dissented, which means disagreed with the opinion. And President Biden has already named his replacement. And his replacement is going to be Contagi Brown Jackson, who's going to be the first African-American woman on the Supreme Court. So it's kind of like a straight swap. But then you had not a straight swap when somebody like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away during the Trump presidency, she was a progressive judge.

She almost definitely, in fact, she would have voted not to overturn Roe v. Wade. She was disappointed by somebody who was conservative. And I guess that is why people feel like this is something that was set up, that this is something that had years of preparation put into it to come into play. Now, in terms of this ruling being overturned, if you say that the Supreme Court can only be nominated in by a president and it can only be nominated in when somebody dies, then what chance do the American people have to be able to revert Roe v. Wade? For the Supreme Court to say that Americans have a constitutional right to an abortion, we're genuinely looking at like two to three decades until that's even a remote possibility. And the things that I think about when making that sort of call is like the ages of the judges on the Supreme Court now, they're relatively young. And I really don't expect the Supreme Court to change that much in its makeup in the next two or three decades. What's happening now in America is that abortion is now fully, and this was the whole reasoning

of the court, it's fully a state issue. And so what that means is that in a weird way, American people actually have a little bit more of a say as to what the abortion policy in their state is going to be because they can vote a party in or out. So you've got a state like California or Oregon or Washington who have really, really strong abortion support networks and systems, and it's going to be a permanent fixture of living in those states is you're going to have an access to an abortion. Then you've got other states that, if not for this federal Supreme Court guarantee through the constitution, they pretty much struck

out the right to an abortion straight away. I was listening to CNN during their live coverage, and there was a doctor being interviewed from Arkansas. Now, Arkansas is one of these states that had something called a trigger law. And what that meant was that there was a law in the state that said, as soon as Roe v. Wade is overturned, the right to an abortion will be taken away. So it was kind of like a, if this, then that system of law. And this doctor said that she literally had to go up to people in the waiting rooms of the abortion clinic and say, you have to leave right now because this has just become illegal. And that's, I think that's a really important story to capture how quickly this decision impacted women. It was immediate.

it it makes me like i'm legitimately holding back tears i'm so it's so unfair that people can don't have the autonomy over their body anymore and that we know the flow-on effects of what is going to happen that people that are forced to have a child that they're not ready for for whatever means maybe that's their situation at home maybe it's a it's a bad domestic violence situation maybe it's financial for whatever reason the reason is irrelevant we should have the right to choose and to know the position that a lot of these women are going to be put in now because of this is it's very upsetting and it's even more upsetting to hear you say this is decades away from there being a even the remote option of a reversal it's hard to believe we've

just gone backwards as a society in 2022 and it just seems like it's something we continue to do i saw a meme over the weekend that was like it's incredible how time zones work you know it can be 9 a.m in sydney it can be 8 p.m in london and it can be 1942 in the u.s and i think that is like Perfectly accurate. And then the one thing that comes up a lot is, you know, Americans will say, well, if people really want an abortion, they can travel to a state that will provide them with an abortion. Now, that assumes so much privilege and so much the financial benefit of being able to

move, the freedom to be able to move, you know, the type of relationship that would allow you to be at a distance to get this sort of procedure. So I don't really buy that argument. The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, came out and said that Canada will always welcome americans who want to get an abortion across the border again that's fantastic if you have the resources to do so but a lot of women we know in america don't so and i think that's big to kind of it's important to outline that when they talk about abortion they're not just talking about going in for a dnt they're talking about all kinds of abortions you can take a tablet now

which will terminate a pregnancy within a certain time frame all of these types of access to abortion have been limited within certain states within united states can you let us know sam how many states so far have ruled out abortion that have made it illegal this is kind of a live tally so there were basically 13 states that had these trigger laws that i was talking about before so i can't remember what time it was in the u.s that the decision came out but let's say it was 10 a.m you know by 10 30 a.m 13 states that had previously not been able to outlaw abortion had outlawed abortion there's an institute called the good marker institute and they do a lot of work in the reproductive rights space, and they estimate 26 states by the end of this week or next week.

26 states, so half of America, will have abortion as an illegal practice. And what do you think is going to happen to the other half? Do we know that the other half are going to allow abortions in the future, or is that still up in the air? What are we expecting to see over the next 12 months? So there are some states, like I mentioned before, California, Oregon, that are really, really progressive. They're kind of like states that will always vote Democrat. It's really never going to happen that you'll see a Republican in somewhere like California. So they've come out. California, Oregon, and Washington released a joint statement, the three states, saying they're going to fight for reproductive rights and they're

going to lead the way. Then we had a statement from the governor of Missouri who said that he will guarantee the safe passage of anybody who wants to come to his state for an abortion. And he passed an executive order saying that people need to be protected on the roads to actually get to the abortion clinics. But again, all of this relies on now who the people of those states vote in. So if, for example, Texas, which is the most Republican state or one of the most Republican states in the country, if hypothetically they were to vote in a Democrat, which is just extremely rare, but let's say that did happen, then that Democratic governor could reverse the abortion law. And so that's why this case is so significant. That safety net that all Americans could enjoy of

a constitutional right to an abortion has been removed. So also in terms of something you just touched on and you said that there is this conversation around saying, well, if somebody wants to have an abortion, they can travel to another state to have one. One thing, that being an incredible case of privilege, as you pointed out, but also would it be possible for someone who say lives in Texas, travels to New York to have an abortion and travels back? Could they be convicted or criminalized for something that they have done in another state? It's very unlikely. It's very unlikely that they would do that. It would really have to be a situation where it happens within the borders of the state. I think the whole point of traveling

for an abortion and why so many companies have actually come out and said, if you're one of our employees, we will pay for you to go and get an abortion in another state because we believe in this. I think the whole point of that is to try and get outside the jurisdiction of the rules of that state. Yeah, you're right. And on that, Sam, what is the general consensus in terms of companies what have they come out and said because i know that there is an australian company for example atlassian the complete software giant here you know he's an australian billionaire basically but he came out and said for any american employee that wants to go and get an abortion literally come let me know we will we will fly you somewhere to make sure you have safe

access to that and that gave me all the feels i just thought what an amazing thing for a company to publicly stand up go against the grain and say we will make sure that you get what you need what's the consensus like generally with a lot of companies coming out in America do we know that so the companies that have taken the social media over the weekends to kind of provide their platform have generally said we will fly you to anywhere you need to go to get an abortion they tend to be as you said Brit like these big tech giants these quite progressive companies noticeably we haven't heard I think from the major American giants like the Walmarts and the you know, the big people that employ tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people,

Amazon, we haven't heard from. So I'm more interested in what kind of like the working class companies have to say. But there are some companies really leading the way. The one that grabbed my attention was actually Patagonia or Pataguchi, as we like to call it in fashion circles. They not only said, we're going to fly you to wherever you want to go in the country for an abortion and we'll also pay for a support person, which a lot of these companies are saying. but they also said if you protest these laws and get arrested we will pay for your bail huge and i thought that was pretty badass yeah the problem then with this is and i mean this could open so many other kettles of fishes this is great that a company is coming out and saying

come to me if you have trouble we'll fly you somewhere we'll make this okay for you this takes away a whole nother level of privacy that even if you wanted to keep this to yourself and like most like most people do most people might have a support person someone close to a family member whatever all of a sudden now you have to go and bear something that i can't imagine what that is like on the inside to your boss that you might have never met in your life so these tech firms there's a 99.9 chance you're never going to meet these people the head of amazon you're never going to meet him you've got to go and tell one of your most valuable moments share that with someone you don't know and then what happens after that then do you need an extra

level of therapy and care after that because you feel so exposed and vulnerable i think that ties into this whole conversation and that being that it's been taken away from being a private conversation that you have with a healthcare professional, i.e. your doctor, to being something that has been politicized. And there has been a lot of conversation online about how this ruling has been weaponized within politics. What political advantage has been made by overturning this ruling? It's really a long-term project from the conservative side of American politics to restore what they say is the original reading of the constitution so let's kind of like break that down a bit because it's a bit kind of legal talk this constitution this old document

written in 1787 that is so fucking long ago i can't even begin to tell you how many years ago that is which also ties into why there's so many problematic gun laws in the states oh yeah yeah exactly and and this what i'm about to say ties into gun control totally as well there's kind of two ways to read a document like that. You can either read it in its original form as the founders wanted it to be interpreted, or you can apply it to a modern context. And the way that the constitution is applied to law in America changes with every judge. But generally, you get conservative judges wanting to stick with its original interpretation. If it says the right to bear arms, you can then bear arms. If it says there is a right to life, that means that from

the point of fertilization that you're not allowed to abort a baby. Then you've got those who apply Right. In a modern context, yes, the right to bear arms meant that when you were a cattle farmer protecting your land from invading Europeans, that you were allowed to have a gun, but you can't go shoot up a school. And then, yes, there's a right to life, but that should also not interfere with a woman's right to control her body. So the two interpretations of the constitution just go head to head in America all the time. And it depends on the makeup of the court. And at the moment, we have a stacked, which means that there's more conservatives than liberals. We have a stacked court. I guess one of the big things, and one of the things I think has been the most alarming to

read about is with a flat out ban across abortion, meaning that not if there is a genetic reason why you may want to have an abortion, whether it's financial, whether it's emotional, whether it's mental health, whatever the reason is behind the wanting to have an abortion, that there simply is no reason good enough, seems to be the outcome from this. What if there is an instance, for example, an ectopic pregnancy or a pregnancy that is going to put the woman's life at grave risk, a pregnancy that is completely non-viable for life, what are the options in those circumstances? The short answer is that it's going to depend on where you are in the country. And so some states that have outlawed abortion have caveats to the laws. So that means like

exceptions to the laws that says that if the mother's life is in danger or if they're a victim of sexual violence, and there's particular kind of carve-outs where you are allowed an abortion. It does look like there are some states where there are no carve-outs at all, but on the whole, most of the states that have outlawed abortion do have some sort of exclusions to it. And I think the big thing to like, and I know so many people already know this, but regardless of whether abortion is outlawed or whether it's a criminalized offense, abortion will still happen. It's always happened all over the world. It just will now happen unsafely, and it will mean so many more women suffering and more deaths because people will not have safe and easy and private and

compassionate care for their own health and their own choices. I couldn't agree more and that's just going to drive the practice underground and there's going to be less safety. It's going to put more lives in danger. If there's Americans who think this is just going to stop it altogether, that's just not quite what's going to happen. I think that for me is the most tragic thing. In the same sense there are statistics Laura and I were just reading about this this morning but there are statistics to say that if if you forced a woman to keep a child that she went and tried to abort for whatever reason she's more likely to go back to an abusive relationship that she's in because at the end of the day we know what America is like with financial rebates they don't

health care is non-existent child care is non-existent so all of a sudden a woman that couldn't afford it she's going to go back to an abusive relationship because she's like well what are my options do I go and sleep on the street with my child because I can't afford it or do I go and risk putting myself back under under this roof there are so many repercussions from this well I thought it was interesting the statistics that we were reading were in terms of like women who who are denied the right to an abortion are more at risk of obviously a financial risk they're at more risk of their health they're at more risk of it basically every single risk factor increases but the reason as well why it intensifies is because usually that's the reason why that

person has sought out an abortion in the first place that person has sought out an abortion because maybe they are under financial distress, maybe they are in an abusive relationship, maybe their physical situation is not conducive to bringing children into that environment. So therefore everything else becomes harder after they do bring a child into that situation. So it's kind of a chicken and the egg situation.

Of course, people who are forced into having children that they do not want, that they cannot care for, are going to have the most severe outcomes out of this. And the other thing that the stats show us is the massive racial inequality. If you look at the group of people who get abortions in America, it's heavily weighted towards African-American, Hispanic communities, other minority communities. It's heavily weighted towards women in low socioeconomic areas with, as you say, guys, unstable housing. This is a particular cohort of people. There was something that happened at a

Trump rally on the weekend that the Republicans are saying was a slip of the tongue. But I think that every slip of the tongue has a little bit of truth behind it. A woman got up to introduce Donald Trump and said, this is a magnificent win for white life. And I think that there was something to that and that sent shudders through my spine. People who are from a low socioeconomic background who haven't had the same privilege, haven't had the same level of access to education, they haven't had the same level of access to say contraception, to sex education, to all the things that may sort of contribute to abortion being not just the last resort but less common you know there's so many other indicating factors as to why abortion is higher within these communities and

yeah that's just it's a it's so i mean i know that there's so many people who are listening to this podcast who are absolutely devastated when they heard the news over the weekend as were we it's truly outrageous to think that that could be happening especially in a country that talks about being so great, that talks about being so progressive. It's absolutely fucking frightening is what it is. Yeah. And perhaps it would be helpful for me to highlight one particular line in the judgment that gives us a little bit of a clue as to what is going to happen next. There was one judge, so Justice Thomas, he wrote a kind of extra paragraph, a bonus section, if you want to kind of give it that sort of phrase. And he basically said, well, if we're

going to reconsider Roe v. Wade, then we should also reconsider these three other big cases in America and have a listen to the cases that he thinks the court should reconsider. It's the case of Griswold, which is the right of married couples to use contraception. It's the case of Lawrence, which is the right to same-sex romantic relationships. And it's the case of Obergefell, which is the right to same-sex marriage. So those are some unbelievably important social pillars that the court themselves, the Supreme Court of America said, we're now going to bring these under the microscope. So is there really a chance that they could reverse the legal right to be married if you

were in a gay relationship? There's a chance that the court will remove the constitutional right to marry whoever you want. And that in the same way with abortion, they'll return the right to decide that to the states and the states themselves can ban gay marriage. I mean, if you asked me that last week, I would have said, there's not really a chance. Now that we're talking about it here, there's totally a chance. And also, doesn't it just feel like we're all living in an episode of The Handmaid's Tale when you hear shit like that? It's just absolutely frightening. It's like a setback for humanity. Yeah. Margaret Atwood came out over the weekend and she said,

I wrote this as fiction, but it's happening in real life. I mean, literally the author of The Handmaid's Tale saying that we're here. So Sam, just to, I guess, wrap this up, we could talk about this for so long. There's obviously so many avenues we could go down. What, if anything, can the everyday person do in response to this? What can the everyday person be doing? Well, I think the first thing that everybody needs to do is to read up and to get informed. I think not being informed on this issue is a privilege, and I think that it's a sign of immense luck to not have to think about this.

So my first recommendation would be everybody needs to become literate in abortion. and even absolute floodgates of knowledge that have happened on TikTok and Instagram and over on our page, over the weekend of the different reasons why people would get an abortion and all that kind of stuff shows that we have a lot to learn. The second thing that you can do is that every state pretty much has charities that will pay for women who can't get an abortion now in their state to travel. There's lots of ways you can use your money to help. If you search for anything to do with Planned Parenthood. There'll be lots of ways to donate. A lot of artists and actors and, you know, like real people with real money and real fame have come out and said that

they're going to donate a lot of their profits to Planned Parenthood. But, you know, it seems to me from looking at the kind of donating landscape that there's not one central place to donate. It's kind of all spread out. So wherever you put your money, I'm sure it's going to be put to good use. There's so much guilt experienced by people who choose to have abortions and there is so much prejudice towards people who make the decision to have an abortion and I think it cannot be understated what you just said there is that there are so many different reasons why women make that choice and it is not simply trying to brush it of being irresponsible and not using contraception it's the tiniest and most immature way of looking at this very big picture and how

it affects so many people and I so appreciate you coming on the podcast and speaking Sam because this is something that hugely affects women it's so much of a not only of our choice our right to have agency over our own body but it's something that fundamentally will affect women in the United States every single day moving forward but it also affects men and so many men have benefited from abortions so many men who have equally contributed to a woman's pregnancy and then that woman has to make that decision because in many cases the man didn't want the child either and I think it's one thing for all of us to be very vocal and to have conversations around it and for so many women who otherwise would have kept their abortions private for example myself

and not spoken about it but wanting to come forward and talk about it but it's also another thing that men have to do the same thing because there is equally the same amount of men who have benefited from having abortion rights and they are not being loud enough in this conversation and this was a conversation I had with producer Keisha when she asked me to come on and chat with you guys was kind of what's my role as a 27 year old male in this discussion. My gut instinct was to vacate the space and make sure that women could have really meaningful discussions. But Laura, the more that I'm processing it and thinking about it, the more I realized that for me, the best thing I can do is advocate as well for something that I believe in, which I know will

not only, as you say, benefit women, but benefit everybody and their right to choice. And the other thing i wanted to say was that let's not let this discussion just stop here a week after roe v wade is you know in the headlines use me use the daily oz as a way to just dm us questions about things that you're not quite understanding right now at the moment we're working on a post with explaining what the abortion landscape in australia is like because a lot of people have been messaging us saying well what's actually my rights here at home and again it's state by state so we need to break all of that down but use us use us to get some knowledge because let's not just have a three-day chat in the news about this. Let's keep it going. Sam, thank you so much for being a part of the

podcast, for coming on, for sharing your wisdom, for sharing the information that you have. If anybody wants to find out more, can you let everyone know where they can find you? You can find us on the Daily Oz on Instagram. It's where over 373,000 Australians get their news every day. And we're having some really meaningful discussions over there. So have a look. Hey, Legends. Producer Keisha here jumping in. That was part one of our little two-parter for today. It was obviously something that the whole world is talking about at the moment,

something we thought was very important to unpack with Sam from The Daily Oz. And part two of this episode is with Dr. Hannah Correll. She's a neuropsychologist, and we are talking about navigating friendships throughout different stages of your life. And the best part is you don't have to wait. So if you want to listen to it right now, it is the next episode coming up in your libraries, or you can search it anywhere that you get your podcasts. We'll be right back.