On June 23, 2022, Samantha Bee hosted the ultimate episode of her discuss present Full Frontal whereas affected by COVID so as to discuss concerning the impending Supreme Courtroom resolution that may strike down Roe v. Wade. “We’ve got to boost hell,” she urged. “In our cities, in Washington, in each restaurant Justice Alito eats at for the remainder of his life.” The aftermath of the Dobbs v. Jackson resolution has had devastating results, however the hell-raising that Bee known as for has been quieter than one might need anticipated contemplating that half the American populace had a 50-year-old constitutional proper yanked away. But throughout the nation, activists have been invisibly placing themselves on the road to make abortion accessible to these in want.
These are the those that Bee and longtime ABC Information journalist Gloria Riviera determined to highlight of their new podcast, The Defenders, a deep dive into 2023’s sophisticated abortion rights panorama from Lemonada Media. Riviera, who additionally hosts the podcast No One Is Coming to Save Us, visits the world close to the Texas-Mexico border to listen to how reproductive care intersects with immigration points and elsewhere within the nation hears a lady speak about her harrowing journey to get an abortion throughout state strains. The hosts additionally discuss to docs and clinic employees who’re below fixed menace, church leaders who talk about these points with their flock, and activists serving to sufferers navigate the impediment course of up to date abortion legislation. All through, Bee does what she does greatest: trawls via political historical past, connects the dots between disparate justice actions, and makes all of it clear and—in some way—wryly humorous.
The Defenders began out as a blind date for Riviera and Bee, who didn’t know one another previous to engaged on this mission. It wasn’t till she noticed Bee’s stay present that Riviera understood the potential. “I left that present considering that she simply talked about essentially the most horrific points which can be taking place in our nation proper now and I used to be laughing out loud. So I felt like we may work collectively,” Riviera says.
“We do need to preserve speaking unapologetically about abortion,” Bee says. She hopes that listeners will take away from the podcast the concept that anybody “could be a defender.” Opponents of bodily autonomy have been “chipping away at this proper eternally,” she continues. “Now we are able to chip again.”
The duo talked to Vainness Honest about methods to battle again, connections between the reproductive rights and gender-affirming care actions, and the necessity to take the abortion battle to tv.
Vainness Honest: Many people bear in mind the day that Roe was overturned as a devastating second. I do know lots of people felt powerless, like: “Okay, what can we do now, apart from contributing to abortion funds?” Was that a part of the motivation for doing the sequence?
Samatha Bee: Oh, for certain. And to be sincere, even below Roe big swaths of the nation by no means had entry to abortion care, and so they constructed techniques to account for that. So studying about that and highlighting the tireless work of the folks defending entry to abortion, in a pre-Roe world and a post-Roe world, felt like an important train. There’s pleasure within the battle, there’s enjoyable within the battle—as somebody says in an interview—and it spans the nation. It’s very energizing to pay attention to those unimaginable folks communicate. It makes you perceive that everybody may help, as a result of it’s not over. And preserving going could be tough until you have got one thing to mannequin your self after.
In a single episode, you discuss to an activist in Tennessee who says that as a substitute of getting intimidated by how excessive the wall is, you must simply chip away at it by doing grassroots work. What sorts of various teams did you communicate to who’re doing the chipping?
Gloria Riviera: One of many locations that I went to was McAllen, Texas, which is near the border with Mexico. There’s a bunch there known as the Frontera Fund. When the Texas abortion ban handed in September of 2021, on the time it was essentially the most restrictive abortion ban within the nation. In case you are undocumented in that a part of the nation, it’s unattainable to go away due to the inner checkpoints inside our personal nation. You possibly can think about how tough it’s to entry well being look after an undocumented immigrant. So what occurs is that you’ve got a buddy who does have a inexperienced card and so they cross the border into [Mexican town] Nuevo Progreso. They nonetheless promote misoprostol, abortion drugs, there. However there’s a lot concern as a result of though it’s authorized to purchase it, the grey space is whether or not it’s authorized to convey it again. However [activists] are doing the work and so they’re not giving up.
