SCOTUS Decisions This Week: Resources for Podcasters and Their Audience

This week, several Supreme Court decisions were handed down and all of them will impact us in difficult and truly dangerous ways, and those most marginalized in our communities even more so. At Simplecast, our biggest goal is to support our creators and our community, and that can’t happen without sharing safety resources, information, funding opportunities, and other calls to action. Below, you will find two sets of lists: one for resources regarding Roe v. Wade getting overturned, and another for what’s happened to our Miranda rights.

If you feel deflated or defeated, if you're asking yourself "I can't do anything to move this needle", I encourage you to read this article by Makeena Rivers on how anti-racist activism (something that is deeply interconnected with all the issues below) takes many forms. Take a look at the image below by Deepa Iyer that illuminates the many roles that we need people to fulfill in order to achieve equity, liberation, and justice. You can't, and shouldn't, do all of them.

Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization: The Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were both legal cases that helped legalize the reproductive right to abortion. This morning, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to overturn Roe v. Wade and effectively no longer protect this right at a federal level. This has deep consequences for everyone who can bear children and everyone who wants to plan a family.

Podcaster Pre-Roll Campaign

Arielle Nissenblatt, founder of the Earbuds Podcast Collective, has started a massive pre-roll campaign with podcasters from across genres to create and distribute a message in opposition to the SCOTUS decision. If you’re interested in joining and putting this pre-roll on the next episode of your podcast, you can reply to the Tweet we’ve linked below. They’ve already gotten a public Google Doc up with a draft of the text to read and will announce when it has been finalized.

Text of Tweet: If you’re a podcaster interested in organizing a massive pre-roll campaign, a message in opposition to the Supreme Court decision to overturn roe v wade, let me know by commenting on this post. We can run host-read messages that offers resources and support. Open to ideas.

ACCESS: A podcast about abortion

This podcast was recommended by Caitin Van Horn as an excellent way to gather varied information about abortion access by using first-person perspectives and experiences in order to demystify abortion. They feature voices of people who have had aboritons, as well as providers, funders, researchers and others. If you need abortion policy information broken down in a way that is accessible and vigorously examined, this is where to go.

Apiary for Practical Support

Apiary is a vetted resource for finding Practical Support Organizations (PSOs), which are local community-based collectives and organizations that provide logistical assistance to those seeking abortions and other types of medical care. This includes transportation, childcare, lodging, meal assistance, and so on. Apiary is focused on collective liberation, and the fact that PSOs are expansive and adaptive means that they can potentially do so much more. They have a database of PSOs from around the U.S., at national, regional, and state levels.

Abortion Funds

One of the biggest chain reactions from this decision is that trigger bans will now activate in over 20 states, bans that are in place to be activated once Roe v. Wade is overturned. That’s now. But the fight isn’t over. Bustle has published a list of abortion funds specifically in trigger ban states that need your help. You can mention them on your podcast, especially if you live in one of these states.

The Jewish Teaching That Supports Abortion & Trans Rights

This piece by Rabbi Becky Silverstein is an incredibly valuable resource towards understanding the linked attacks on abortion rights and trans rights. It's about how the Jewish traditions demands bodily autonomy and the honoring of people's self-knowledge. Not all religions are against abortion as a right, and this essay makes it clear how that's true in Judaism.

Jews for Abortion Access

From the National Council of Jewish Women is an initiative to support abortion access. There's place to donate both to the Jewish Fund for Abortion Access and local abortion funds, but also a Havdalah resource for Shabbat and holidays to plan your ceremony, a social media toolkit, vigils, and other events to participate in.

L'Dor Va-Dor Donations

The congregation L'Dor Va-Dor in Boynton Beach is suing Florida for violating Jewish religious freedoms by heavily restricting and banning abortion access. As noted in the article by Rabbi Silversteine above, this is an enshrined demand and right within Jewish tradition. Religious freedom isn't just for Christians, even though that's what happens here. You can consider donating in solidarity as they begin what is going to be a long and arduous fight for our reproductive rights.

Ordinary Equality

From Wonder Media Network, Ordinary Equality is a deep-dive podcast heading into its fourth season about the history of abortion access in America, reaching back into colonial America to the present day. Hosts Kate Kelly and Jamia Washington analyze the situation and the history in place holistically, sometimes with a guest (such as Jenny Kaplan from Womanica). In the episode discussing the SCOTUS Dobbs decision leak in May, they bring a call to action to protect abortion access and what strategies to focus on, both in the short and long-term. They correctly identify that, as a nation, we have put our trust in institutions that don't deserve it and have never figured out a long-term strategy, often confusing human rights with constitutional rights.

Rewire News Group, Special Report: The End of Roe v. Wade

This is a large special report that includes various articles and podcast episodes about abortion access, safeguarding, perspectives, and more. For instance, it includes several episodes about abortion-related laws from Boom! Lawyered, an article about how California is planning to safeguard abortion, and a legal analysis and explainer about substantive due process. There is information and resources here for days.

Sawbones, “History of Abortion”

This popular podcast that works on investigating misguided medical practices, theories, and understandings published an episode on the history of abortion. This is valuable information in order to understand what people have sacrificed in order to gain us legal abortion in the United States, and why it is part of the right to bodily autonomy, a basic tenet of medical ethics.

Vega v. Tekoh: The Gutting of the Miranda v. Arizona

Because why live in a week with just one horrible decision when you can have several? In the matter of Vega v. Tekoh, the Supreme Court ruled that a person who did not receive the Miranda warning has no right to sue the government for constitutional violation. This effectively guts and empties the power and importance of the Miranda warning, an informative statement given to people arrested for a crime about their Fifth Amendment rights. Important note: evidence obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment can still be excluded from trial. You still have these rights; police officers are now simply shielded from liability for violating them. So don’t talk to the police except to say, “I want a lawyer and I am invoking my right to remain silent.”

Backstory, "You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A History of the Miranda Warning"

This episode is an extremely thorough dive into the circumstances of the Miranda warning, its history, and the impact that it has had on us throughout its existence via pop culture and popular knowledge. Please note that this episode does contain interviews with and recordings of police officer Carroll Cooley, who was an officer in Phoenix at the time when Miranda crossed his desk and who vehemently disagrees with the Miranda warning’s existence (as you might expect a cop to do). Risa Goluboff provides a Miranda defense, and talks about how it didn’t go far enough.

Bail Funds

One of the ways we can help people affected by this outcome of Vega is donating to bail funds, like the National Bail Fund Network. They are fighting to abolish the money bail system and pretrial detention, which has severe consequences for everyone, including anyone arrested for a crime they did not commit and anyone unaware of their legal rights. That’s probably a larger number of people than you think.

Due process and undocumented minors

This 2018 article by Boom! Lawyered host Jessica Mason Pieklo is a quick explainer and news article about the Texas Attorney General who filed a brief stating that undocumented minors aren’t entitled to due process. It’s important to understand all the facets of the constitutional amendments that we have, and how our politicians have corrupted and twisted them.

Slate on Vega v. Tekoh

This is a useful article from Slate about Vega v. Tekoh and the attack on Miranda. Justice Alito called decisions like Miranda a “prophylactic rule”, something that is a “controversial claim to authority”. The danger is bigger than we think, especially since confessions made without informing people of their rights are sometimes not suppressed; and if someone is convicted wrongly and sent to prison because of a statement that was not suppressed, they do not have a legal resource for compensation for the violation of their rights.

Undisclosed

Although it released its final episode in March of this year, Undisclosed remains an insightful look into various cases of wrongfully convicted persons, and includes information about how to handle the police and what your rights are. In particular, the episodes and addenda on State v. Jamar Huggins includes discussions about Miranda with Seth Stoughton, a professor studying policing.