What A Day - Women's Misery Month
Episode Date: March 8, 2023Five women who were denied abortions have filed a lawsuit against Texas over the state’s near-total abortion ban. It’s the first time that pregnant patients who are affected by such laws are takin...g legal action.Florida Republicans have introduced bills that would further restrict abortion in the state, including one that would prohibit the procedure before most people even know they’re pregnant. If passed, the measures could also jeopardize abortion access across the South.And in headlines: two of the four Americans kidnapped in northeastern Mexico were found dead, the Justice Department wants to block JetBlue from buying Spirit Airlines, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz agreed to testify before a Senate committee about his company’s labor practices.Show Notes:Vote Save America: Fuck Bans Action Plan – https://votesaveamerica.com/roe/Black Girl Scout Virtual Marketplace – https://www.justiceforblackgirls.com/black-girl-scout-virtual-marketplaceWhat A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastCrooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whatadayÂ
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It's Wednesday, March 8th. I'm Priyanka Arabindi.
And I'm Juanita Tolliver and this is What A Day, where we've decided the Vanderpump Rules drama is Watergate for the Bravo Generation.
Yeah, the decoding of every photo, video, and questionable Tom Sandoval outfit is journalism truly at its finest.
Shout out to all the TikTok explainers for doing the Lord's work. I'm so grateful.
Truly.
On today's show, the ACLU says the government has been working on facial recognition technology that could be used for mass surveillance.
It's really giving minority port, y'all.
Big yikes.
Plus, there is a booming black market for, you guessed it, Girl Scout cookies. Okay, I want
to know more. But first, five women who were denied abortions despite facing high medical risks
have filed a lawsuit against Texas over the state's near total abortion ban. So this is the first case
of its kind where pregnant patients themselves are taking legal action against a statewide abortion
ban. As you all know, several of these bans went into effect around the country last year after the Supreme Court
overturned Roe v. Wade. Right. And Texas was one of those first states. Honestly, they could not
wait to ban access to abortion care in the state. And we know that put doctors in a bind when they
did it. So tell us more about who's involved in the suit. Yeah. So the plaintiffs are five women
in Texas, all of whom are married,
some with other kids already, and all of them were excited to be pregnant. But as their pregnancies
progressed, they all found out that their fetuses had no chance of survival. For example, in two
cases, the fetus had no skull. So carrying these completely non-viable fetuses put them at risk of
hemorrhage or serious life-threatening infections.
But all of these women were told that they could not have abortions.
Some of their physicians refused to even present termination as an option or forward their medical records to other states for emergency abortions. And the fifth, who was the lead plaintiff in this case,
had to carry her fetus until she went into septic shock,
nearly died, and suffered permanent physical damage as a result.
Oh my God.
Not only is this heartbreaking, but it's yet another reminder of why I have said repeatedly
and why advocates across the country have said that abortion care is basic
health care. Totally. And in these situations, life-saving health care. Yeah. I mean, if we
sound upset, it's because we are. It's crazy that it got to that point with these women. But according
to their attorney, all five of these women should have qualified to receive an abortion. Like most
states with these types of abortion bans, Texas supposedly allows exceptions.
So if a doctor says that there is a risk of, quote, substantial harm to the pregnant person,
the law allows them to provide the patient with an abortion.
But the consequences that health care providers face for breaking this law are so high, they
include prison sentences of up to 99 years or $100,000 fines, losing their medical licenses,
that some Texas doctors
don't provide this necessary care to their patients, even when this extremely, extremely
restrictive law would allow them to do so because their patient's health is being threatened.
So these women are saying that they were denied necessary and potentially life-saving care,
and they are now taking legal action against the state of Texas with the help of the Center
for Reproductive Rights.
So is their suit trying to overturn Texas's abortion ban,
or are they suing their providers for not helping them?
So they're actually not doing either of those things.
Interesting.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
So what they want out of this suit is for the court to confirm that Texas's law
does in fact allow these doctors to offer their patients abortions if they are
necessary. They go on to specify that that includes, you know, when the patient has a quote,
physical emergent medical condition that can't be treated during the pregnancy, or that makes
pregnancy unsafe to continue, or if the fetus has a condition that makes it unlikely to survive
past birth. But beyond clarifying this Texas law and getting the court to say that, yes, in fact, the doctors can do this, what this suit may actually go on to do is illustrate to the American public, who, by the way, most of them support abortion rights, that abortion is health care and is medically necessary in many cases.
It's not pro-life to subject these people to these completely preventable outcomes. And in other countries, lawsuits like this that centered around women who were denied abortions,
despite these huge medical risks that they faced,
actually helped build support for legalized abortion.
I know we've had it before in this country.
We've had this fight, but we have to go full circle
because we don't have these rights anymore.
Right, and when you say that most of the country
and most of the public supports abortion rights,
that's consistently more than two-thirds
of the country. Like, poll after poll has shown this number for decades, y'all. So not only is
the law on their side, the public is on their side, too. Now let's jump from Texas back to
Florida. I know our brilliant co-host, Trayvill, told y'all about all of the vile and disgusting
policies that we should expect from DeSantis and the Republican-controlled
Florida state legislature as DeSantis gears up for a 2024 presidential run. And now the ball
is officially rolling, y'all. Yesterday, Republican State Senator Aaron Grawl introduced a bill that
would ban abortions before many people even know that they are in fact pregnant. You guessed it.
This is another proposed six-week abortion ban, and the bill
features exemptions up until the 15th week of pregnancy for people who become pregnant due to
rape or incest. And before anyone even thinks that this exemption shows any degree of humanity,
y'all should know that to qualify for the exemption, a person must have a copy of a
restraining order, police report, medical record, or other court order or documentation proving the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest.
And it is truly sickening.
Yeah, it's unfathomable.
I mean, not only in this scenario is this person been assaulted.
They have to go to law enforcement, go to places where they might not be comfortable.
They have to get this documentation in a tight time frame.
This is extremely time sensitive.
And then they have to get signed off.
It's completely impractical for anyone who's living in reality.
It's cruel and it compounds the trauma.
Let's be real.
A sexual assault survivor, they're asking them to put aside the trauma and pain of the
experience of being assaulted first and then go to these unsafe places like you just named,
but it's creating another layer of violence
for these survivors.
And it just shows that the intention behind this law
is the cruelty.
The cruelty has been the point the entire time.
And get this, the bill was announced just moments
before DeSantis delivered his annual
State of the State address yesterday.
So not only was the timing a layup for the extremist agenda, DeSantis and the annual state of the state address yesterday. So not only was the timing a
layup for the extremist agenda DeSantis and the GOP controlled state legislature are advancing,
but it's showing how they're trying to one up their previous anti-abortion bill, which was a
15 week abortion ban that's currently being challenged in the courts. And since Florida
isn't an island, this six week ban could have an impact well beyond the state for the pregnant
people who travel to Florida from neighboring states where abortions are almost completely Island, this six-week ban could have an impact well beyond the state for the pregnant people
who travel to Florida from neighboring states where abortions are almost completely banned.
I'm talking about states like Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee,
and Texas. I didn't realize that this would have such a regional impact. Can you
tell us more about that? Right. It's really creating a situation that's going to make it
harder for people seeking abortions in the South writ large. According to analysis conducted by the
19th, last year alone, more than 6,700 people traveled from their home state to Florida for
the procedure. About 8% of the nearly 82,200 abortions performed there. That represents a
nearly 38% increase in out-of-state abortions from 2021.
Abortion clinics, particularly in northern Florida, which is closer to the Georgia border,
have said that they are seeing twice as many patients as before, with a large share coming
from out-of-state.
It's almost like someone told DeSantis that Florida is the biggest regional hub for abortions
as they now have 60 abortion clinics operating.
And he is determined to shut
it all down. And if, rather when, this proposed six-week ban gets passed, that would leave the
region with three abortion clinics in South Carolina that perform abortions up to 14 weeks
and about a dozen clinics in North Carolina. Yeah, definitely not enough, obviously, to handle the
need. But there's also, while this is going on, the still unresolved issues related to abortion medications that are compounding concerns around accessing safe abortions nationwide. Can you tell us a little more about where that stands? when you also consider that we're still awaiting the pending decision from a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas regarding Mifeprestone,
the first pill used in the two-drug regimen for medication abortions,
which, according to the Guttmacher Institute, now account for more than 50% of pregnancy terminations in the United States,
as well as the fact that Walgreens is refusing to distribute Mifeprestone at its pharmacies in at least 20 states
where Republican
officials have threatened legal action. At this point, Democratic state leaders and governors are
stepping up to respond, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, who declared Monday that
California won't be doing any business with Walgreens. Now, it's unclear exactly what ongoing
business between the state and Walgreens entailed, but a spokesperson for Newsom told
Reuters that all relationships between Walgreens and California were now under review without
providing further details. This is all developing news, so you can trust us to keep monitoring
all of the details, and we'll share more updates soon.
Let's get to some headlines.
Headlines.
Two of the four Americans kidnapped in northeastern Mexico last Friday have been found dead.
The two survivors are now back in the U.S.
Officials say that the group was abducted at gunpoint after they crossed the border from Texas into the city of Matamoros. At least one of the Americans was traveling for a medical procedure. Harrowing video footage of the kidnapping shows the gunman loading the victims
into a white pickup truck in broad daylight following a shooting that left a bystander dead.
Authorities are investigating how and why it all unfolded, but one Mexican official said it may
have been a case of mistaken
identity. The area where the kidnapping took place is a stronghold for one of Mexico's oldest cartels
and has seen an increase in violence over the past decade. The FBI and the Pentagon have been
working on highly advanced AI-powered surveillance technology that could be used to track anyone,
anywhere in the United States. That's according to documents obtained
by the ACLU and shared with the Washington Post. The materials show that American intelligence
agencies teamed up with researchers to develop frighteningly accurate facial recognition
software. Case in point, a test run outlined in the documents found that it could recognize a
subject from more than half a mile away, even if their face was partially obstructed.
The revelations are, of course, raising serious concerns about privacy because the technology
could be used in public street cameras, drones, and even police body cameras to track people.
Similar surveillance technology is already online across China and Russia, as well as
in the city of London.
And while some states and cities here in the U.S. either ban or restrict police from using facial recognition technology, there are no federal regulations for how it can
be used. This is all a major red flag for this brown girl who knows AI does not recognize my
features. Yeah, someone better get some federal regulations on the books pronto. This does not
sound good. French labor unions continued their show of resistance
to President Emmanuel Macron's plan
to raise the national retirement age to 64
with another day of nationwide protests yesterday.
According to local reports,
one and a half million people
took to the streets across the country,
though the unions organizing the day of action
put the number of protesters closer to three and a half million.
Je suis very, very
impressed. And this is just the latest demonstration to disrupt transportation, schools, and services
in the past two months as tensions grow over the proposal. It's unclear if the protests have done
anything to sway Macron and his cabinet. The president has largely been silent about his
pension reform plan since it was announced. But yesterday's action comes amid multiple rolling worker strikes designed to pressure lawmakers into throwing out the policy
entirely. The Justice Department filed suit yesterday to block JetBlue from buying Spirit
Airlines. You may remember that JetBlue won a bidding war last summer to acquire Spirit for a
whopping $3.8 billion. Wild to me that there was a bidding war. Girl, and they were dropping mad coins.
But the proposed merger,
which would create the fifth largest airline in the U.S.,
faced heavy criticism from regulators
ever since it was announced.
Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters
the takeover would stifle competition
and actually raise airfare prices.
He even said JetBlue's plan
to revamp the discount airline in the merger would
quote, eliminate Spirit's unique and disruptive role in the industry. I guess he's talking about
the fact that your seats will not recline, Priyanka. Yeah, what? Unique and disruptive.
Gag. So next time you find yourself flying, Spirit Airlines knees up to the chair in front of you,
contemplating buying a $6 can of Pringles just to feel something.
Thinking, is this bad?
Ask yourself instead, is this unique and disruptive?
Merrick Garland using what could only be described as the politest possible adjectives to describe Spirit Airlines is hysterical to me.
Nothing has ever been funnier.
It's giving Marco Rubio announcing a presidential run saying he's uniquely qualified.
That's the vibe. In a surprise about face, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has agreed to
testify before a Senate committee about his company's labor practices. This comes after
Senator Bernie Sanders threatened to hold a vote to subpoena him. Schultz initially declined an
invitation to testify before the committee last month. He thought it was one of those, you know, invitations that was actually an invite. It was really more
of a formality. He is now scheduled to appear before the lawmakers on March 29th. He can expect
questioning over the company's alleged anti-union activities. I would personally never want to stare
down Senator Bernie Sanders on this matter, especially not if I were Howard Schultz. So
worst of luck to him. I think this is going to go terribly.
Oh, I love I love the situation when a billionaire squirms like I'm looking so forward to this.
Truly worst of luck to you.
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported on a burgeoning resale market for this season's new
Girl Scout cookie. The Raspberry Rally, which is only available online
and has been marketed as a sister cookie
for the ever-popular Thin Mint,
is described as follows.
Thin, crispy cookies infused with raspberry flavor
dipped in chocolatey coating.
So if the Thin Mint is the Gigi Hadid
of the Girl Scout cookies,
the Raspberry Rally is the Bella.
After selling out in local markets within hours,
the normally $4 to $7 boxes
have been marked up for sale on
eBay for as much as five times
the price. Have these people no shame?
Give the money to the Girl Scouts, y'all.
That's like a $25 to $35
box. Sickening.
The Girl Scouts of the USA
have rebuked these third-party resellers,
asking cookie enthusiasts to support
the girls by opting instead for one of their other cookies.
Meanwhile, Girl Scout troops with later cookie seasons
are busy preparing their customers for the hype.
The Girl Scouts of Northern California
will start selling their raspberry rallies online today,
warning potential customers via Twitter
that like Beyonce tickets,
these cookies will be gone and fast.
So get in line, Priyanka.
Yeah, I need these cookies.
I have not been approached by a Girl Scout in like years and years.
I need a Girl Scout in my life.
Somebody, if you are a Girl Scout, if you know a Girl Scout, get in my mentions.
I want this cookie.
I must have it.
Can we also talk about how my geriatric self only fills out the Girl Scout form?
So I didn't even know this flavor was available,
but I'm excited to try it.
Yeah, they have an online operation.
Like I'm learning so much.
We got to step it up.
And those are the headlines.
We'll be back after some ads.
Hopefully some Girl Scouts can bring us into this century.
Please and thank you.
It is Wednesday, Wild Squad and for today's temp check we are talking about the reigning queen of the rom-com returning to our living rooms Netflix announced the cast for their upcoming project with
Nancy Meyers the writer and director behind classics such as The Parent Trap Something's
Gotta Give and The Holiday Scarlett Johansson Owen Penelope Cruz, and Michael Fassbender will star in the movie
Interesting Group, which is set to begin shooting in May.
Also raising eyebrows is the budget, which is estimated to be $130 million.
Just how much Le Creuset cookware can one protagonist's kitchen have?
We will find out what $129 million worth of Le Creuset looks like, I imagine.
So Juanita, with this news in mind,
how are you feeling about the current state of the rom-com?
Well, first and foremost, I've been fucking up Le Creuset, like period,
even though it's in my house.
So let me confess to that.
Number two, love, love, love Nancy Meyers' work,
Something Gotta Give, The Holiday, Winners, Parent Trap,
Never Seen It, We'll Never See It.
Number three,
I will never support anything Scarlett Johansson is.
Change this casting.
I want to see the movie,
but I cannot under these conditions.
But Priyanka,
what do you think?
Scarlett Johansson,
just after everything she's said
about all the characters
she should be allowed to play,
did not sit in so great with me.
So I can't say I'm her biggest fan.
Nancy Meyers though,
I will give it a shot.
I'm curious.
The state of the rom-com up until now,
you know, there were some good ones.
Something from Tiffany's this past winter.
That was good.
Very cute.
I hope that rom-coms are, you know, on a little upswing.
But there definitely have been,
like the Ashton Kutcher Reese Witherspoon one.
Didn't even try it because no chemistry.
Pass. Hard pass.
I don't know.
Getting mixed messages about the state, but I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.
I want to spend like 15 minutes digging into why you are so adamantly anti-parent trap.
I love that movie with my whole heart.
Because the original was superior.
Lindsay Lohan doesn't do it justice.
But okay.
Lindsay Lohan is like a 12-year-old Juanita.
She's like a kid.
What does that got to do with performing?
She's a kid who's paid to perform, and she was underwhelming.
That's all.
Juanita!
That's all I got to say.
But you haven't even seen it.
You said you'll never watch it.
I thought it was lovely.
I have seen the previews, and it was flat.
Okay, but Lisa Ann Walter, the woman who plays Elizabeth James,
Dennis Quaid, there's a lot going on.
Love that
movie so much. I guess. Just like that, we have checked our tabs. They are, could be rising.
We're curious. We are ice cold, frigid. Absolutely not. Nevermind. They're negative. We broke the
thermometer. One more thing before we go.
Are you tired of hearing sanitized or even downright trifling versions of women's history?
Crooked Media's Hysteria podcast is here to set the record straight.
Co-hosts Erin Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco lead the charge every week to bring you unapologetically
real and opinionated conversations about the women shaping America.
Tune in for new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.
That is all for today.
If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review,
risk it all for a box of raspberry rallies, and tell your friends to listen.
And if you're into reading and not just the entire rom-com section on any streaming service like me,
What A Day is also a nightly newsletter.
Check it out and subscribe at
Cricut.com slash subscribe.
I'm Juanita Tolliver.
I'm Priyanka Arabindi.
And happy International Women's Day.
Not that our country loves us
or takes care of us or any of that, but okay.
Juanita, we're trying to be happy.
Okay, I'm gonna keep it 100 with a smile.
Every other institution in the world
might not be wishing you a happy
International Women's Day,
but to us, it's always Women's History Month, International Women's Day.
All of it. I don't know. All the things.
What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance,
Jazzy Marine, and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers. Our head writer is
Jossie Kaufman, and our executive producer is Lita Martinez.
Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.