00;00;00;21 - 00;00;39;06

Jonathan Hafetz

Hi, I'm Jonathan Hafetz and welcome to Law on Film, a podcast that explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films. Films, in turn, tell us a lot about the law. In each episode, we'll examine a film that's noteworthy from a legal perspective. What legal issues does the film explore? What does it get right about the law and what does it get wrong?

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Jonathan Hafetz

And what does the film teach us about the law and about the larger social and cultural context in which the law operates? Our film today is never, rarely, sometimes, always. A 2020 film written and directed by Eliza Hittman, the film centers on the effort of a 17 year old Autumn Callahan, played by Sidney Flanigan, to obtain an abortion after learning that she's pregnant.

00;01;04;16 - 00;01;35;09

Jonathan Hafetz

As Autumn travels from her small town in central Pennsylvania to New York City, where she seeks to obtain the abortion items accompanied by her cousin Skylar, played by Talia Ryder, and must navigate a series of obstacles and persevere in what is ultimately a traumatizing experience. The film was made and released in what we might now call the Twilight of the Row Casey era, the period since 1973 where abortion had been recognized as a constitutional right in the United States.

00;01;35;12 - 00;02;01;03

Jonathan Hafetz

The film was overtaken by events, in particular, the 2022 decision by a reconstituted Supreme Court overrule ruling, the court's earlier decision in row, and eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. Yet, in a sense, the film's exploration of the obstacles to abortion, even in states where it remains legal today, makes it as relevant, if not more so, for understanding the state of reproductive freedom in America.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Our guest today to talk about the film and about some of the larger issues around abortion is Alexia Colby Molinas. Alexa is deputy director of the Reproductive Freedom Project of the ACLU, where she's worked since 2007. In 2021, Alexia argue before the US Supreme Court in Cameron v BMW at all, a case concerning an 11th hour attempt by Kentucky's attorney general to reinstate a prohibition on the standard abortion procedure after 15 weeks.

00;02;30;15 - 00;03;05;04

Jonathan Hafetz

Alexa was also lead counsel in Robinson v Marshall, a challenge to Alabama's total abortion ban, and ride U. V Camacho, a lawsuit to restore abortion access to people in Guam. Alexa has also litigated a range of other reproductive rights issues in state and federal court, from trial through appeals, from bans on abortions based on gestational age method, or reason for seeking abortion to minors, access to abortion, so-called fetal personhood ballot initiatives, restrictions on Medicaid coverage for abortion, and religious refusals to provide health care.

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Jonathan Hafetz

In addition, Alexa directs the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project's efforts to improve access to reproductive health services for people who are incarcerated to defend pregnant persons accused of fetal harm or self abortion, and to prevent forced or coerced reproductive health care. Alexa is a former colleague of mine at the ACLU. When I was there in the National Security Project.

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Jonathan Hafetz

It was fantastic to work with her, and it's great to have her on the podcast. Welcome, Alexa.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

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Jonathan Hafetz

So the film Never Rarely Sometimes Always came out in early 2020. It premiered in January 2020 at Sundance and then was released in March 2020. Can you give a little more context of the legal status of abortion then at the time?

00;03;49;18 - 00;04;18;17

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

It's actually a really critical time legally for abortion. Then. While the law in Pennsylvania and New York, where the movie takes place to law in those states, was stable and remained stable, but what was going on nationwide was really a critical moment. First, you would had a wave in 2019 of states passing blatantly unconstitutional total and near-total abortion bans.

00;04;18;24 - 00;04;50;09

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Zuri, Louisiana. These states had all enacted either total or six week abortion bans during 2019. And they done so because Donald Trump had done what he had promised, which is to start to put justices on the Supreme Court who had promised that they would overturn Roe v Wade. So the politicians in these states smelled the blood in the water, and so they started enacting these, again, blatantly unconstitutional.

00;04;50;10 - 00;05;08;06

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

You know, they didn't take effect when they were passed. They were immediately blocked by courts because no court was going to allow them to take effect at the moment. But politicians were hedging their bets. They saw what was coming. They saw how the court was changing, and so they were laying the groundwork. So this is all going on in the background, right?

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Again, abortion is not banned in any of these states at this point. But you can tell that the tide is shifting. The other thing that's happening is that, you know, between 2011 and then ultimately, you know, Dobbs in 2022 states had enacted nearly 400 restrictions, now talking bans, but just restrictions on abortion, which together all combine to really push abortion out of reach, even though it remained legal, even though it remained a federally, constitutionally protected right for people like autumn.

00;05;43;11 - 00;06;05;04

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

These restrictions pushed abortion effectively out of reach, forcing her at least, you know, she did have the option to cross state lines fairly close to get somewhere else. But so these are sort of two things that were going on at the same time. You have these web of restrictions that had made abortion all but unavailable for so many people in the country.

00;06;05;06 - 00;06;18;16

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And then you had the wave of bans that were just starting to take place, because we were getting to the point, which ultimately we got to in 2022, where the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v Wade. So a very pivotal time.

00;06;18;18 - 00;06;22;05

Jonathan Hafetz

And the 2020 period is when at that point, Trump had put two.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I think Gorsuch and Kavanaugh had been already appointed. Yeah.

00;06;25;28 - 00;06;34;27

Jonathan Hafetz

And so then Roberts was the last person that might continue to uphold the right to abortion in some form or overrule more gradually. And it's not until Ginsburg dies that fall, and.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Exactly.

00;06;35;22 - 00;06;52;26

Jonathan Hafetz

By Amy Coney Barrett that you have it. So, yeah, it's not there yet. But as you said, the right was under siege when it was all these attempts by red states, anti abortion states. It's not like blood in the water to sort of lay the groundwork for overruling rule. But even before that, you know, even when Trump took office, the right to abortion had been chipped away at right with all of these.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Exactly. It was it was little more than, you know, in name for many people. The fact that it was a right, you know, the words weren't worth that much. You know, more than the paper they were written on for many people. And I had mentioned 2011 before, that was a pivotal date because that was the Tea Party revolution, the so-called Tea Party revolution in many state legislatures.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So that prompted yet another wave. And then, you know, it culminates then we get the bans in 2019. But so 2011 is also, you know, even before Trump is sort of a pivotal year in terms of these restrictions that were pushing abortion out of reach for people getting passed.

00;07;30;15 - 00;07;49;00

Jonathan Hafetz

What's striking about the film, and it's picking up on what you were saying, is Autumn, right? She's in a state where abortion was and remains legal, Pennsylvania, but where there are restrictions and she's not poor. I think she's sort of, you know, she's from rural Pennsylvania. She's either, you know, working class or sort of like barely middle class.

00;07;49;03 - 00;08;04;03

Jonathan Hafetz

But even she has a very hard time getting an abortion, which just goes to show how difficult it was. I mean, compared to other states like, right, Texas or other states in the South where you've litigated cases where there might be 1 or 2 abortion clinics, the entire state, people can't get to them, so it's out of reach.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Yeah. You know, I don't know exactly where she was in the state, but there are certainly people who live a far distance, even within Pennsylvania, from clinics. But yes, it's it's a place where they may be concentrated around Pittsburgh and around Philadelphia, but there are numerous providers. There are restrictions, but nevertheless, it was legal. Yeah. I thought it was very interesting.

00;08;23;04 - 00;09;00;19

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

The scene where she, you know, it seems that she has insurance or she's on her mother's insurance, which but certainly a majority of people who seek access to abortion are on Medicaid, not on private insurance. But I did I thought that was such a great scene. Sorry to sort of go to that specifically, but where where she mentions the insurance and then it occurs to her to ask about the explanation of benefits because this is a real issue for minors, and it's an issue for people who are in abusive relationships or relationships where there's violence and they can't have their partner know that they had an abortion.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Now, not all private insurance does cover abortion, but even assuming that it did, some people who have it can't use it. And I thought that was very smart to put that fact in there.

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Jonathan Hafetz

It's a great detail because if she uses the insurance, then her parents will see the explicit benefits and they'll know, I mean, which is what basically starts the whole process because it's a parental consent state, which we'll talk about. Exactly. And so she has to get the consent. She doesn't want to. She's 17 not 18. Just shows these things.

00;09;26;24 - 00;09;43;23

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, the film begins with Autumn finding out she's pregnant and she goes to the pregnancy crisis center in her town. I think it was filmed in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, which is in Northumberland County. It's kind of looks like sort of central and central to Western. And, you know, outside of the urban centers like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it's pretty rural.

00;09;43;23 - 00;10;03;01

Jonathan Hafetz

So she's from this kind of small town, somewhat of a different world than those urban centers. And you know, it's not a neutral session that she has at the local pregnancy crisis center. Right? She's given literature on adoption, shown on video calling abortion, murder. So how common are these? I don't to say subtle, but sort of extra legal maneuvers.

00;10;03;03 - 00;10;18;20

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I mean, this is a child. It's extremely common. As soon as in the movie where she walks down the street and opens the door, I thought to myself, there's no way that's a clinic. Like there's no way she's that. Otherwise we wouldn't have much of a movie. There's no way that's clinic. She's walking into a crisis pregnancy center.

00;10;18;22 - 00;10;41;21

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Oh, no. And I think they got it pitch perfect. You know, the organization that they mentioned that makes that video she's shown that is a real organization. I've never seen their videos, but the guy in it is a real guy. And we have had people as expert witnesses for the other side in our lawsuits. Who are the people who make these sorts of videos?

00;10;41;24 - 00;11;00;20

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And of course, it doesn't go as well for them when they're subject to cross-examination. But when you have a 17 year old who's a captive audience and someone who is showing you this video and, you know, I noted that the woman, she was wearing the white lab coat right. Which to make Autom think she was getting medical care.

00;11;00;20 - 00;11;26;24

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

We don't know if this person had any medical training. And I think the fact that they gave her the urine pregnancy test and kept saying, you're doing a self-administered test, I think that was meant to be a clue that these people actually didn't have any medical training because they couldn't do any other sort of pregnancy test. Nevertheless, she's wearing the white logo, and you're a 17 year old girl going to a place that says Pregnancy Help Center, right?

00;11;26;24 - 00;11;50;20

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

You're going to assume that you're getting informed, scientifically accurate information. But yeah, when I saw that video, I just thought of the people we dealt with, who have actually even tried to play their videos in court during trial, though, we were able to get it excluded as cumulative. They were so upset. But anyway, yeah, those people are around, those videos are around.

00;11;50;20 - 00;11;53;17

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And I think that scene was pretty pitch perfect.

00;11;53;19 - 00;12;02;08

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, that's so interesting about why they gave her the pregnancy test. Because they're not medical people. They don't know what they're doing this, that they're sort of there to give their propaganda and advance their views.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Exactly.

00;12;03;11 - 00;12;18;11

Jonathan Hafetz

I think then she goes and tries to, like, induce the abortion herself. Right. And you noted in your bio you've worked on cases involving so-called self-induced abortions, right? She does, repeating herself. There's a picture of her hammering herself in the mirror in her stomach. So what were you supposed.

00;12;18;12 - 00;12;22;12

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I think she tries to take a mass amount of vitamin C as well.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Exactly.

00;12;23;05 - 00;12;53;29

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Yeah, I mean this again, this is common, especially for minors. One of the things that's different today than about, you know, the Pre-Roe era or the 1970s and even, you know, into the 1980s is the availability of safe medications that can be used to self manage your own abortion. But of course, someone has to have the access to information and to be able to obtain, you know, if you're going to self manage your own abortion, they have to still know how to get those medications and how to get them safely.

00;12;53;29 - 00;13;13;27

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And for many people, they are still when they are pushed into desperate circumstances and when they can't access the medical care they need, they do resort to self harm or other methods that they might read about on the internet that are just not, you know, reliable or could be harmful. So yeah, again, that was, I think, pretty realistic.

00;13;13;27 - 00;13;34;29

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I did think it was interesting though, you know, given that this was taking place in 2020 or, you know, modern times, that there wasn't a discussion of obtaining medications on the internet because actually, in Pennsylvania in 2014, a mother, she was I think she was 39 years old, a mother of three, was sent to jail on a 9 to 18 month sentence.

00;13;34;29 - 00;13;55;00

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I don't know how long she served for purchasing her daughter, medications to have an abortion on the internet. And that was in Pennsylvania. So that could have been sort of an interesting overlay. Had Autumn attempted to do that in a place where people were getting prosecuted for that, even though it is not illegal in Pennsylvania to self-manage your own abortion.

00;13;55;06 - 00;13;59;12

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Anyway, I thought that was interesting. But yes, the self-harm stuff does happen.

00;13;59;14 - 00;14;15;12

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, and the medication abortion now is approximately half or so of abortions in the United States are done through medication abortions. And this is the at the forefront of one of the current challenges post Dobbs, the decision that overrules Ruth over that access to.

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Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Access to one of those medications. Yeah. So in the US it's commonly a two medication regimen. If it sits stone and mine's a pro-style and the challenge that you've referenced that's going on in Texas now, the Fifth Circuit, but the Supreme Court has put a stay on those opinions so they can't take effect that is a challenge to the FDA's approval of misoprostol.

00;14;38;20 - 00;14;56;17

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So if that challenge was successful, it could take me briston off the shelves across the country. There would still be access to might as a pro-style, but it would have a significant effect on access and would be removing, safe and medically proven, medication that millions of people have used.

00;14;56;20 - 00;15;12;11

Jonathan Hafetz

All right, because people like Autumn in the film and other thousands, tens of thousands of women in other places, we even face more challenging obstacles to obtaining abortion by a medical abortion rite performed in a clinic would have access to the medication. It's important. And so it sounds more like legally, potentially, it could have been an option for her now.

00;15;12;11 - 00;15;44;09

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So she was she thought she was ten weeks. It's pretty common for the medication abortion, the two drug regimen in the United States to be available to up to ten weeks or 70 days. There is evidence that shows that it can be safely used beyond that point. It just becomes less effective. But it is safe to use. But I think particularly back then, it was probably more common to have a cut off if you were getting it from a provider with a prescription to have it cut off at ten weeks.

00;15;44;09 - 00;16;10;15

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So even if she had been ten weeks as she thought she was, which she wasn't, she probably couldn't have gotten it. I did actually check what is currently provided at the Court Street location, for my parent, and they do go to 11 weeks. So had it been today, and had she actually been as far as she thought, she was not further, because she was lied to, then she maybe could have access to medication, abortion and maybe the the movie would have ended there.

00;16;10;17 - 00;16;18;28

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But but that's probably why they didn't go into it, because even if she was at the point she thought she was, she couldn't have access to then.

00;16;19;01 - 00;16;59;24

Jonathan Hafetz

And so she goes on the internet, then to find out how she can get an abortion rights using Google, which is probably what many people do. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. And she finds out Pennsylvania is a parental consent state. Women under 18 must obtain the consent of at least one parent. And she does want to tell her parents. So this right requirement or some version of it was at issue in the Supreme Court's decision in 1992 and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, where the movie takes place, versus Casey, which reaffirms the right to abortion role but adopts this new test, called the undue burden test, which makes it more difficult and allows potentially things like parental

00;16;59;24 - 00;17;03;14

Jonathan Hafetz

consent requirements. Right. So what's that legal overlay?

00;17;03;16 - 00;17;46;21

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So parental consent requirements had actually been upheld by the Supreme Court long before Casey in a separate line of cases. And what the Supreme Court had held is that states can impose parental consent requirements, but they have to provide a judicial bypass option. So they have to provide an option for, young person to go themselves before a judge and try to convince the judge that either they are mature enough to make this decision themselves without involving their parents, or even if the judge doesn't think they are mature enough that it is there in their best interests for them to be able to have the abortion without involving a parent.

00;17;46;24 - 00;18;12;26

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

At the time that Dobbs was decided, I think 36 states had some parental involvement requirement. Most of those, I think 27, were consent. Some of the other ones were notified nation. But in reality, having to notify a parent is often, for all intents and purposes, giving them the ability to consent or not consent. Because once they know what you're going to do, they can stop you.

00;18;12;29 - 00;18;37;29

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But nevertheless, Pennsylvania was a consent state. I think it would have been interesting if they had explored the bypass option. You know, I would imagine that Pennsylvania is a state that actually had a fairly organized system for helping people to get through the bypass to connecting them. You have a right to a lawyer, but, you know, you're 16 years old figuring out how to get a lawyer yourself, right, to help you in the process.

00;18;38;01 - 00;19;15;19

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But I'm sure clinics there would set someone up with, you know, everything they needed to go through the process. But it certainly wasn't the case across the country. And it may not have been the case. You know, in every county. And it really was just I mean, if you imagine being in that age, in that situation, essentially bringing your own lawsuit and potential leave, representing yourself to convince a judge that you should be able to have an abortion and, you know, minors would be interrogated sometimes by judges about their sexual activity, about their grades, about their extracurricular activities.

00;19;15;26 - 00;19;31;12

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

If they were really, really, you know, put together, then that could be used against them to say like, well, you seem very responsible. I think you'd be able to, you know, have a child or if they weren't, if they, you know, we're getting bad grades and had gotten in trouble in school and weren't involved in a sport, then.

00;19;31;17 - 00;20;00;02

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Well, you're not mature enough to make this decision. I think the fact that if you are a minor, you can get yourself into a courtroom in order to say, I am not ready to be a parent. That should be irrefutable evidence that you are mature enough to make this decision yourself. And there are places around the country where especially small towns, I mean, you imagine trying to do this also if you live in a small town, what if you have a family who works or neighbors who work at the courthouse?

00;20;00;04 - 00;20;30;29

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

There were anti-abortion groups and protestors who will sit in the courthouse with yearbooks to identify people coming in for bypasses. And, you know, we used to see laws that would try to restrict the county that you could go to to get your bypass to your home county, to try to put people in that situation. And we were able to get them struck down to say people should have the ability to go to a different county or the county where the clinic is located, precisely because of these privacy sorts of concerns.

00;20;30;29 - 00;20;47;10

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But anyway, it is also something that many people do when faced with this is I'm just going across state lines to go somewhere else so I don't have to go through this, but it would have been a really interesting thing to explore, I think on film what that process is actually like for people.

00;20;47;12 - 00;20;58;20

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I mean, if so, Fordham scrolls down a little bit more and says, wait a minute, there's a bypass. It would be just like another, as you're saying, exploration of the way that undue burden standard of Casey operates and the challenges of.

00;20;58;20 - 00;21;24;21

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Getting right the bypass. Right. So right. And back to Casey. So, you know, the parental consent laws had been established prior to Casey, but that what we did have in Casey is this. And, you know, she is in Pennsylvania and Casey is about was about an omnibus, you know, set of abortion restrictions out of Pennsylvania. You know, at the time Casey was being decided, people were expecting another Dobbs people were expecting that road was going to be overturned.

00;21;24;29 - 00;21;48;08

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

The last Supreme Court decision that had come out in 1989, in Webster, there were at least four justices who had indicated their readiness to overturn Roe, even though the question wasn't presented to them in that case. And then you have Casey. So that's what people were expecting to happen. It isn't. And instead, the underlying right in row was affirmed.

00;21;48;14 - 00;22;15;29

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But the test and the standard, the trimester framework and the strict scrutiny standard, which was applied because if it's a fundamental right, then you gets usually protected by a strict scrutiny that was thrown out and it was replaced by the undue burden test, which said that an undue burden is a law that has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking pre viability abortion.

00;22;16;01 - 00;22;49;04

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And what it did was allow courts to give so much more weight to the state's interests in restricting abortion, that then just sort of led to the floodgates opening for all sorts of restrictions that would have been struck down under strict scrutiny to be permitted under the undue burden test. I say that the undue burden test itself was inherently unworkable or that it necessarily had to be applied this way, but I think it definitely allowed courts to manipulate it.

00;22;49;04 - 00;23;21;00

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And you know what the Supreme Court does, right? Like when they announce something, they don't ever want to clarify what they've said for another, at least another 10 or 20 years. So they don't like to keep taking the same cases over and over again. So they issue this test. And then it's not until 2016. And the whole women's health decision that we finally get more clarity as to how the undue burden test is to be applied, and that it means something more than just rubber stamping any abortion restriction.

00;23;21;00 - 00;23;53;09

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Right? That it actually is a context specific analysis, real world analysis of the burdens a law imposes, weighed against the so called benefits, requiring the state to actually put something behind their assertion that there are benefits to these laws. But, you know, for such a long time, between 1992 and 2016, the way the undue burden test was, you know, I think manipulated by courts that wanted to, you know, manipulated, it was just used to rubber stamp any restriction.

00;23;53;11 - 00;24;14;15

Jonathan Hafetz

And so you and your colleagues at, Reproductive Freedom Project and other lawyers doing similar work spent the better part of those decades just trying to knock down whatever restrictions were put up under the undue burden test. It opened the door for states or allowed states or states use this opportunity and the abortion state to come up with all kinds of restrictions as a means to prevent.

00;24;14;21 - 00;24;22;13

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

A woman to be terminated, as a means to push abortion out of reach, without saying that they're banning it. That's really what it allowed.

00;24;22;16 - 00;24;43;22

Jonathan Hafetz

And then you mentioned the whole women's health decision from 2016, right? Where there one of the issues was that abortion would have to be performed in a surgical center that met the requirements for other procedures, other surgical procedures, or it regulated where abortion could be performed but had nothing to do with public health. It had everything to do with erecting.

00;24;43;24 - 00;25;10;04

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Exactly, exactly. It would require them to be, you know, this incredibly safe outpatient procedure, which at least at the time, I think something like 96 or 97% of abortions were performed in the outpatient setting and certainly didn't need to be performed in a hospital, but would have required them to effectively be performed in many hospitals. We call those trap laws targeted regulations of abortion providers.

00;25;10;04 - 00;25;22;26

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So it's these sort of restrictions, so-called health restrictions, facility, you know, foods, plant restriction bans that made it virtually impossible for clinics operating for the care to be provided.

00;25;22;28 - 00;25;40;11

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I think the decision, it looks like at the Supreme Court gives some real teeth to the undue burden, standard whole women's health decision. And then Scalia passed away right in early 2016. It looks like Obama is going to be able to fill the seat. Justice, who's a supporter of row. And the right looks actually, at that point likely more secure than it's been.

00;25;40;11 - 00;25;57;16

Jonathan Hafetz

And of course, Garland locked in Trump wins and the rest is history. But yeah, it took a 180 degree turn. And one of the things that guides a movie that's so real to life is, even, again, where you have this legal right, all autumn has to do is take a bus, get on a bus, moderate long bus trip, or get on a bus.

00;25;57;16 - 00;26;15;25

Jonathan Hafetz

Go to York City where abortions are you going to have the abortion performed? But there's so many different obstacles, financial, emotional, that she has to overcome. So the first thing right as she arrives in New York City, she goes to Planned Parenthood in Brooklyn, which is in fact located at 44 Court Street. That's the address that's used in the movie.

00;26;16;01 - 00;26;36;08

Jonathan Hafetz

And she learns that she's 18 weeks pregnant, not ten weeks pregnant, as she was previously told in the Pennsylvania Crisis Center, and that the woman in the center lied to her. And so she has to then go to a facility in Manhattan to have the abortion done. The abortion is now going to take longer because the second trimester abortion and the cervix will have to be dilated.

00;26;36;10 - 00;26;54;08

Jonathan Hafetz

So how real are some of these challenges? Or, you know, for someone like Autumn, who's a fairly capable 70 year old girl, you can't go, yeah. All right. Yeah. They they managed to get money by stealing money from the supermarket where they work. They take the bus. So she is a capable person, and yet she's got all these obstacles thrown in her way.

00;26;54;11 - 00;27;21;14

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Yeah, I think it gets a lot of those financial and logistical obstacles. It gets another thing the movie does really, really well. But one thing I really wanted, you know, that jumped out to me was the 1 to 2 day procedure issue. We talk a lot about how the obstacles people face compared, because the longer it takes to raise money, the further you get pushed into pregnancy, the more expensive the procedure is.

00;27;21;14 - 00;27;50;02

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Then, you know, the more time it takes to raise the money. And then often the longer it takes to have the procedure, it is pretty common, I would say across or at least, you know, now we have less abortion available. But it was, you know, pretty common across the country that somewhere between 16 and 20 weeks people would shift, providers would shift from a one day to a two day procedure because, as you mentioned, the later you get in pregnancy, the more dilated the cervix has to be.

00;27;50;02 - 00;28;17;13

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So the more time it takes to dilate the cervix. But the thing is, you can do safely a one day procedure. You know, I had a client who did it up to 22 weeks, a one day procedure. And the reason that they did that was precisely because of people like Autumn, because they knew that there were people who were sleeping in their cars in the parking lot overnight because they couldn't afford a hotel to wait while they were dilating.

00;28;17;15 - 00;28;38;22

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

It's a skill you need to know how to have, and it definitely makes it a lot harder to balance just sort of the patient schedule of the day, because when you have everybody coming in at the same time and getting their limited area at the same time to dilate overnight, and then they leave and then they come back and they're ready, you know, that they will be ready when you have them in the same day.

00;28;38;22 - 00;28;59;10

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

You're using different methods, you're applying medications and you're monitoring them all day. You know. No, you have people waiting there just waiting to be dilated. You don't know exactly when it's going to happen. It might take long, you know, so it's definitely harder to manage logistically. So certainly, you know, it's completely understandable why many physicians just feel more comfortable.

00;28;59;10 - 00;29;17;19

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And when they are more comfortable that the procedure they provide is safer to switch from a one to a two day. But it can be done in one day. And for many people, that difference is significant. So when I, you know, heard them say that to her, I was like, oh yeah, I mean, it's so realistic. It's what happens to people.

00;29;17;19 - 00;29;34;27

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And you can only imagine how your heart must, you know. And I think the actress does an amazing job of portraying it. You know, I think she says, why can't you just do it today? Like, can't you do something? And just the idea that, are you kidding me? And of course, the fact that she was lied to again, totally common.

00;29;35;04 - 00;29;42;23

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I mean, even I when I saw them doing that ultrasound in the movie, I was like, that is not a ten week, that does not look like a ten.

00;29;42;23 - 00;29;44;08

Jonathan Hafetz

So I guess that was that.

00;29;44;08 - 00;30;00;07

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Was like a ten week. Something tells me something is going to happen later on. I mean, thank God she was in a state like New York where you can still get an abortion at 18 weeks, but there are people who are showing up at their clinics and finding out that they'd have to go to an entire other state for now, a two day procedure.

00;30;00;07 - 00;30;21;11

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So anyway, that really sort of jumped out at me again. It's just one of the little bits of the film that were so true and real to life, and it just really resonated with me doing this work. But yeah, the financial and logistical obstacles, the one thing I would pick the film up on a little bit is that it's unclear, right, whether she called ahead to make an appointment.

00;30;21;15 - 00;30;42;13

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

There is at the Brooklyn Planned Parenthood. There's no walk ins. I think she probably made an appointment because if she had just walked in to be like, hi, I'd like an abortion, they would have been like, look, we'll do your ultrasound, but we're going to have to put you on that, you know, like you're not. Even if she had been ten weeks, I don't think they would have been able to fit her in today just because the schedules are so packed.

00;30;42;16 - 00;31;01;22

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I mean, maybe that's wrong, but I think that's likely the case. And usually when you call, especially a Planned Parenthood, they will do such a good job of telling you about the financial options that are available, like someone would have offered her, you know, a prepaid card or that will reimburse you for the bus to, you know, someone would have told her in advance.

00;31;01;22 - 00;31;20;27

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And I know that they offer the lodging assistance while she's there, and she's sort of like, no, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine, which people do. But I think, I think that someone would have offered her assistance. But nevertheless, the paying for the bus tickets, the fact that, you know, she went with a friend, it seems like for support, which a lot of people do.

00;31;21;04 - 00;31;40;12

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But as we all know from getting a medical procedure, if you're going to be sedated, they usually require there to be. So even when you live in New York City and you're not getting behind the wheel of a car, nevertheless, they require you to have someone with you. And so even if she hadn't wanted her cousin to come when they were, she probably would have been told she had to have it.

00;31;40;12 - 00;31;59;20

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So people have to raise money for two roundtrip bus tickets. They have to eat, you know, it's both of them have to eat. They both need a place to stay and then they're young. So this didn't really go into it. But people have childcare costs if they have to leave the state to get medical care. There's not just lost wages but likely lose your job.

00;31;59;20 - 00;32;15;26

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

If you have a job where you don't have guaranteed paid sick leave, and especially most people are not inclined to have to explain why they need to take one 2 to 3 days off. You lose your job, and then there's the need, the just all the logistical hurdles. If you have to hide from other people what you're doing.

00;32;15;26 - 00;32;35;12

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

It seems like Autumn, you know, her family was pretty neglectful of her, so she was able to slip out without people noticing. But for other people, that's also really difficult and then adds to the delay, because you have to figure out a way to be able to leave the state for 2 to 3 days. I mean, if you have a child, you can just be like, peace out.

00;32;35;12 - 00;32;39;28

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I'm going to be out of state for three days and not have everyone know why.

00;32;40;00 - 00;32;53;17

Jonathan Hafetz

And so and even for autumn, it's complicated. With no childcare, you have to get out of the job and I think it's going to be overnight. Her and her cousin, they work as clerks, check out people in supermarkets. Yeah, they could lose their job. What happens if someone's unable to get their cousin or friend or someone to go with them?

00;32;53;22 - 00;32;58;28

Jonathan Hafetz

Well, the abortion clinics provide someone to take them back because they won't let them leave. Or how does that work?

00;32;58;28 - 00;33;20;04

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

No, I don't think I've never heard of that. I think there are options to have. I'm not sure this is an option. At 18 weeks earlier, you can have an option to have it without sedation, and so that is often what people have no choice but to do. But I think at 18 weeks, I don't think you have the option to not have some sedation.

00;33;20;12 - 00;33;45;05

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Now. I think there is a movement and I think it's not just in abortion. I think there is a movement to recognize, especially if you are not driving like like it bothers me. I can get in a taxi, I'm fine. Right? Like I've been in the recovery room. I'm fine. And so I think there is a movement in medicine to sort of recognize people's life circumstances and especially if you're not driving, maybe we can relax those requirements.

00;33;45;05 - 00;33;54;19

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But as far as I know, I've never heard of people being assigned to be their escort especially. They would just be taking them to Port Authority and then just being like, peace out.

00;33;54;21 - 00;34;14;11

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. So it's like another challenge. Well, I guess one reason the plot is constructed as it is in terms of having to spend the additional time, is that they have to go back and contact the teenage boy. Jasper is the character's name they met on the bus, who gets on much closer to New York City, probably some suburb of new Jersey or Philadelphia.

00;34;14;16 - 00;34;33;18

Jonathan Hafetz

And he's going in to listen to music and spend a couple days in the city. Yeah, he's more affluent, more worldly, and definitely more carefree. And he's intent also on picking up any particular scholar, the cousin. I mean, it's interesting too, because they're all from relatively the same. The northeast, same kind of geographic area, but they're kind of operating in different worlds.

00;34;33;18 - 00;34;48;15

Jonathan Hafetz

I don't know, it struck me as like one of the really good things about the movie and the way that this character was used, and also to sort of show their dependance on, and vulnerability to man and what Skyler has to do with this guy in order to butter him up to get the extra, money to get back.

00;34;48;18 - 00;35;16;03

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Most girls have met a Jasper in their life. That's that's that's for sure. And I thought that, you know, the character was just written and played so well. I knew someone had told me about the character in that storyline before I saw the movie so wide. Sort of saw the, like, quiet menace that was, you know, developing because I knew what was going to happen, but I think it just played it so well.

00;35;16;03 - 00;35;39;09

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Right. Because the I don't want to say subtle, because when you're the girls, you know exactly what's happening. It's not subtle at all. But nevertheless, you know, it's not this just sort of overt cartoon villainy, violence, the coercion is which, you know, I think is just real life. The coercion manifests itself in a little more subtle way, even though, again, it's obvious to everyone who's experiencing it.

00;35;39;11 - 00;36;03;02

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But what it really illustrated to me, we would always talk in his work about how people will walk over hot coals to get the care they need. People know right when they cannot be a parent or where they cannot add to a family. And you know, I think it was clear that Otto knew what she had to do.

00;36;03;02 - 00;36;40;26

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And it was clear that Skyler knew what Autumn needed and knew that the result. Right, knew that not doing these things to be able to get Autumn the care they need, the result would be so much worse. And just to tie it to the legal questions and the legal issues, one of the real problems with the undue burden standard, and the way it had been interpreted and applied, is that it essentially required substantial obstacle to be outright prohibition, impossibility, not just a burden that is undue, right.

00;36;40;26 - 00;37;04;21

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Undue burden is an outright prohibition, but that's the way it was being interpreted. And if you couldn't quantify, if you couldn't show how many people were just absolutely not getting abortions, then you hadn't proven an undue burden from a given law. I mean, yes, certainly there were always some people who didn't get the care they need, but you also see what people went through to be able to get the care they need.

00;37;04;21 - 00;37;28;08

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And the courts just didn't care. Right? Like the experience that autumn went through wasn't in any way reflected by how the undue burden standard was applied, because all they looked at the outcome. She got the abortion, therefore she was not unduly burdened. And so it just erased the real life experiences that people went through to get the care they need.

00;37;28;08 - 00;37;49;09

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So to me, when I saw, you know, again, playing out everything we know, you know, everything that happened in the movie is a thing we know that happened, and happens to people trying to access abortion care. It was just illustrating again to me how difficult it was to work under that standard, not because I think that that was a correct way of reading it, but that was the way it was being applied.

00;37;49;09 - 00;38;03;13

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And you see what people do, they will walk over hot coals, their family members will go through hell. They will do what they need to do and so that they can get the care they need. And then the courts were telling us, well, then I guess you're not experiencing an undue burden.

00;38;03;15 - 00;38;18;25

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, even someone like Autumn in the film, what she has to go through and even someone like her. Right, who it seems initially kind of like it's not going to be that hard. I'll just get a boss, I'll take extra money, I'll go to New York, I'll get it done. My cousin will come with me. She understands and we'll get back the next day.

00;38;18;25 - 00;38;39;06

Jonathan Hafetz

But it turns into this odyssey. I mean, the director found the area and she does a great job, I think, in portraying some of the kind of seedier sides in New York and capturing the Port Authority bus terminal without having to spend the night riding the subway. She's done another film called Beach Rats, which deals with this teenager who's coming out from a conservative part of Brooklyn.

00;38;39;06 - 00;38;58;10

Jonathan Hafetz

We might say, and caption Coney Island area and captures that really well. So she's really got, as you know, fellow New Yorker, I think, can appreciate how well she kind of nails this experience of having to survive late at night in New York. And unlike Jasper, he's just there to see music. And it's interesting too. They can't tell him, right?

00;38;58;16 - 00;39;12;26

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, he's probably pro-choice, right? He's probably not someone who's anti-abortion. He looks like from a suburb, from a suburb, but they won't tell him. And it's interesting. They don't say, hey, look, can you do us a favor? Right? And it's interesting that they got comfortable.

00;39;12;29 - 00;39;30;23

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I thought that was interesting, too. I mean, maybe they just thought it would turn him off, because what his ultimate goal, if he didn't think he was going to get his ultimate goal, which was not to be a charitable person, helping someone critical. Yeah. So, I mean, the other thing that from doing this work that I kept thinking of is autumn is bleeding and cramping.

00;39;30;26 - 00;39;58;09

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Her cervix is being dilated. And what the lemon area are, it's actually sticks of seaweed. And they expand as they absorb moisture. And, you know, there was this scene in the bathroom where she changes that panty liner, but they're not only incredibly hungry and tired and, you know, I'm sure stressed out, but she's physical while she's in the bowling alley, which ACLU, you know, we back in the day used to have intern bowling at the Port Authority.

00;39;58;11 - 00;40;07;29

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But not that I have fond memories, of that bowling alley, which is definitely an interesting experience, but yeah.

00;40;08;01 - 00;40;30;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, that very interesting. One of the most powerful scenes in the movie is when Autumn has to answer a series of very personal questions at the clinic in Manhattan before she obtains the abortions, questions that ask her about her wish to obtain abortion, touch on her past private sexual life, and bring out whether she was in sexually abusive relationships.

00;40;31;04 - 00;40;47;24

Jonathan Hafetz

And she's got to answer these questions. You know, she has four choices. And this is where the title comes from. You say never, rarely, sometimes, always. Let me play this clip of this exchange between Autumn and the woman in the Manhattan abortion clinic.

00;40;47;26 - 00;41;09;27

Film Dialogue

Hi, Adam, I'm Kelly, I'm your counselor. How are you doing? Okay. Can you tell me what led to your decision to terminate the pregnancy? I was not ready to be a mom. It's totally fine. Whenever your decision is is totally fine. As long as it's yours. Is there anyone who's pressuring you to be here today to terminate this pregnancy?

00;41;09;29 - 00;41;33;09

Film Dialogue

No. Okay. I want to spend a few minutes talking with you about your relationships, okay? Because they can affect your health. Did you know that? All right, so I'm going to ask you some questions that can be really personal. And all you have to do is answer either. Never rarely, sometimes or always. It's kind of like multiple choice, but it's not a test.

00;41;33;11 - 00;42;15;16

Film Dialogue

Okay, okay. In the past year, your partner has refused to wear a condom. Nothing really. Sometimes always looks sometimes. Okay, and your partner messes with your birth control or tries to get you pregnant when you don't want to be there from when. Sometimes, always recently. Okay, if your partner's threatened or frightened, you never worry. Sometimes. Always asking me this.

00;42;15;18 - 00;42;55;26

Film Dialogue

I want to make sure that you're safe. Your partner's threatened, you're frightened. You never really. Sometimes. Always. Were you okay? Your partner is hit you, slapped you, or physically hurt you. Never really. Sometimes. Always. Has your partner ever hit you, slapped you, or physically hurt you? Is someone hurting you? So it's okay. It's just a couple more questions, all right?

00;42;55;29 - 00;43;12;25

Film Dialogue

Your partner has made you have sex when you didn't want to. Never, barely. Sometimes. Always. It's okay.

00;43;12;28 - 00;43;36;07

Film Dialogue

I want to make sure you're safe. And I want to help you if I can. I just one more question for you, okay? I'm. Has anyone forced you into a sexual act ever in your lifetime? Yes or no? Yeah. Okay. Do you want to tell me about it all? It's okay. I'm going to give you my number.

00;43;36;09 - 00;43;56;16

Film Dialogue

You can call me. We don't have to talk about it today, but you can call me if you need to talk or if you need some help. Okay. To have any questions for me? Is it the procedure is you're going to be paying for. It's going to be a little uncomfortable. Have you ever had to do an exam before?

00;43;56;19 - 00;44;14;11

Film Dialogue

Oh, okay. It's going to be in an operating room. There's going to be a doctor. There's going to be a nurse, there's going to be medical assistance. I can be there with you if you want me to be. Would you like me to go with you? You sure? Okay.

00;44;14;14 - 00;44;19;00

Jonathan Hafetz

So, Alexa, can you help kind of unpack this exchange and what's going on?

00;44;19;02 - 00;44;44;27

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Yeah, I mean, it was very difficult, you know, I think to watch, which I think was certainly the point. And it obviously speaks to gender and power and violence. You know, those dynamics in sexual relationships that I think are very real for many people. It also, I think one of the things that was so heart rending about it is it seems clear that nobody's ever shown that care to bottom before.

00;44;45;00 - 00;45;23;23

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Nobody's ever cared to ask about that aspect of her life before, or suggests that those things are not just normal and what she deserves. And for me, what that actually showed and why I really appreciated the scene, was that it shows the care that people in clinics provide for their patients. You know, I think the anti-abortion movement has worked very hard to demonize health care providers who provide abortion care and the sort of the public consciousness and part of that, there's actually a whole sociological books written about it.

00;45;23;23 - 00;45;50;18

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

That part of that is because of the way that abortion has been sort of marginalized into clinics that only provide that care, which those clinics are amazing, and they provide very good care, and they're providing a service nobody else would provide. But it just sort of underscores the lack of integration of abortion into mainstream medicine. And that makes it easier to other the people who provide abortions.

00;45;50;18 - 00;46;10;22

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And so, anyway, I think the anti-abortion movement has really seized upon that to try to demonize abortion providers and the care they provide when the reality, I mean, the level and quality of health care that is provided in abortion clinics looks nothing like that. I mean, you know, I you and I have good insurance. We live in New York.

00;46;10;26 - 00;46;31;24

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

We have access to good care by abortion clinics. They will open on their days off, bring in staff just to see a single patient who is I've had this happen who was incarcerated and was nearing the gestational limit. We couldn't get the jail to transfer her until this point. They didn't care. They opened on the day off. Everybody came in just to provide the care.

00;46;31;27 - 00;46;54;23

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

They will clear the schedules and a waiting room to see a 12 year old rape victim in the afternoon, because they know she's just going to need that much care and attention, and don't want to have to have her sit in front, you know, around other people while she's experiencing it. They register people to vote. They provide you gas cards, they provide onsite childcare, they bring in clergy.

00;46;54;23 - 00;47;23;28

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

There are clinics that will bring in clergy if that's something you want. They have meditation rooms. Journaling. Right. Like this. Just like the comprehensive wellness that they do and they doing it while under, you know, such tremendous legal siege and facing in many parts of the country, real threats of violence for the work that they do. And so all of that, to me, that's what I am thinking about when I see this social worker talking to Autumn and caring about this aspect of her life, which nobody has ever cared about before.

00;47;23;28 - 00;47;44;29

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And technically, it's not medically necessary. You know, it doesn't change how the procedure is going to be provided, but it showed an interest, a desire to help the whole person and to give her access. We don't know if she ever takes them, right, but access to resources she needs. I think the social worker gives her her cell phone number.

00;47;45;01 - 00;47;54;16

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Right? I mean, not many of my health care providers give me their personal cell phone number to call. Like maybe I can call an answering service and maybe someone will call me back.

00;47;54;23 - 00;47;56;25

Jonathan Hafetz

But once you pay for concierge service.

00;47;56;28 - 00;48;17;14

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Abortion is the concierge medical care of the United States. This is what people need to understand. I mean, again, so much of how abortion is provided in this country reflects what is so messed up about health care in our country. But also, I think it really shows what health care can be, and I really appreciate it.

00;48;17;14 - 00;48;24;09

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I'm not sure everybody who took all of that from the scene the way I did, but I really sort of appreciated that aspect of it.

00;48;24;11 - 00;48;44;00

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, it's a really important insight and it does affect Autumn. I mean, she sort of has a deeper appreciation of her life and what's going on around her. There was a little glimpse of what her life was like socially before, right when she's at the bar and it's there's sort of like an exchange with the guy who is likely the one who doesn't make her pregnant.

00;48;44;00 - 00;48;53;11

Jonathan Hafetz

Right? And turns out this was an abusive relationship, but I think she hadn't she hadn't been able to process that until she got this care and assistance that you're talking about from a social worker.

00;48;53;13 - 00;49;08;01

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I think that's right. I mean, who knows, right. It was clear she was still processing it and taking it in. But you have to hope that for people like that, even just someone showing that care and interest in telling you that you deserve something better has an impact moving forward.

00;49;08;03 - 00;49;31;19

Jonathan Hafetz

So if we fast forward to the present, we're now in the world of post Dobbs, where the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, and now it returns, essentially the decisions to states. So it's like a patchwork where it's legal, it's not legal or many areas where contested, which is, I'm sure, what you spend the overwhelming majority of your time litigating and addressing.

00;49;31;22 - 00;49;48;29

Jonathan Hafetz

And of course, there are interstate issues in terms of ability to travel. But I don't know when the movie looks different today, post Dobbs I mean, I guess Pennsylvania, probably the city. I mean, it's probably similar. They can now regulate more freely the states like Pennsylvania without eliminating it because they don't have to provide it in the first place.

00;49;49;05 - 00;50;02;01

Jonathan Hafetz

The right to abortion. But someone like Autumn would have to probably would come to New York. But New York, I guess, is in a little bit of a different situation because they're now providing abortions for more people who are elsewhere.

00;50;02;03 - 00;50;31;16

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Yeah. So I mean, legally, the restrictions or lack thereof have not changed in Pennsylvania or New York. But I think you hit on exactly what has changed, which is that, you know, the demand now in new, especially in New York City, of people coming from places where they can't access. Right. So providers are just even more in New York City was always a place people were, you know, as you can see, people from Pennsylvania, we're trying to come even when abortion was and remains legal.

00;50;31;16 - 00;50;51;12

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And now you have that many. I had to check before we did this podcast because it changes every day. You know, I think we now have 17 states with a total or near-total abortion ban. And four states that are banned 12 to 15 weeks, which if Adam had lived in one of those states, she would have also had to leave.

00;50;51;14 - 00;51;27;15

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

You know, New York has done things legally to try to shore up protections and has certainly tried to expand the financial resources that are available, you know, not just for New Yorkers, but for people who are coming from out of state. But yeah, she would likely I don't know what the wait times are at that specific clinic, but I've certainly heard around the country of, you know, weeks, if not months of backlog for people and especially, you know, when you are facing a weeks or months backlog, you try to get in the people who are later in pregnancy first because they're getting closer and closer to their cutoffs, whereas, you know, the earlier people can

00;51;27;15 - 00;51;50;07

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

technically wait, even though, as we know, it makes the procedure take longer and more expensive. But when Autumn called, she would have thought she's at ten weeks, so I don't even know what she would have been booked for. Right? And when she actually showed up, who knows? So I think that's the thing that would have changed. But legally, you know, it's still legal in Pennsylvania, but there's still parental consent.

00;51;50;07 - 00;51;52;29

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And so she still would have left.

00;51;53;01 - 00;51;58;05

Jonathan Hafetz

Are there people who can't get the abortions in Europe because there's just too much away? I don't know, I.

00;51;58;05 - 00;52;26;06

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I'm sure someone is tracking that data. I think we know that abortion just in general are, you know, people are being pushed later and later into pregnancy. And the places in the country where you can get a third trimester abortion are getting less and less, and those places are even more under siege in terms of just working at and beyond capacity to try to provide care.

00;52;26;09 - 00;52;40;10

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

You know, again, it's like it's the compounding cycle. And so it definitely is getting worse. I don't know information on the how many people are getting turned away from New York because they're too late. But I think eventually that's going to start happening more and more.

00;52;40;12 - 00;53;09;02

Jonathan Hafetz

The director of the film, Eliza Hittman, said she began working on the story back in 2012 after learning about the death of a 31 year old woman living in Ireland, Savita Ullah, Panama, who died due to the failure to perform an abortion. The woman was she was miscarrying and the standard of care was to perform an abortion. But it wasn't performed due to Ireland's constitutional ban on abortions at the time, and she died as a result due to various medical complications.

00;53;09;04 - 00;53;30;07

Jonathan Hafetz

So this is in 2012, and Eisenman didn't think she could get funding for a feature film in Ireland at that stage of her career. So the project kind of put on the backburner and she returns to it in 2018, right? So that's the year Ireland, in a referendum by the public, votes overwhelmingly to remove the longstanding constitutional ban on abortion.

00;53;30;10 - 00;53;48;08

Jonathan Hafetz

And that there's Ireland. Right. And so they've now eliminated their constitutional ban on abortion. At the same time, the right to abortion in the US is under assault. As we talked about earlier, following the election of Donald Trump and his appointment of new justice as the Supreme Court, which ultimately leads a few years later to the overturning of Ro.

00;53;48;10 - 00;53;54;16

Jonathan Hafetz

If you talk a little more about the place we're at in the United States with abortion now and what the future might look like.

00;53;54;18 - 00;54;25;03

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I can certainly talk about where we're at. And so as as I mentioned, right, I think we now have 21 states with total near-total or significant restrictions by gestational age alone on abortion access. So nearly half the country, we also have new threats actually beyond just state bans, which actually could have been interesting to explore in a movie like this, or in a movie that involves someone having to go somewhere to another state.

00;54;25;03 - 00;54;57;03

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Because what we're seeing now is states that have already banned abortion within their borders, but now they're trying to criminalize people who cross state lines or people who help them cross state lines, whether criminalizing speech or conduct and just sort of helping someone to get across state lines to basically expand their bans beyond their own borders. The Supreme Court told us this was going back to the states, and that some states would be able to pass protections, would be able to expand access.

00;54;57;03 - 00;55;28;11

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

But of course, the states and the politicians that have already banned abortions within their borders are not content to stop there. And so, in addition to, you know, losing access in nearly half the country or significantly reducing access, we're now seeing people who are going trying to get to places that are illegal, who are under threat. When we have two lawsuits now, one in Idaho and one in Alabama, about these sorts of cross-border threats to protected speech and conduct relating to the right to travel.

00;55;28;17 - 00;55;47;26

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So that is certainly another sort of place where we're at. You know, if anybody ever thought Dobbs was just going to resolve the question, I mean, that's certainly not what happened. And it hasn't resolved the question in federal court because all of these sort of cross border cases and issues that I'm talking about, you know, we're bringing them in federal court.

00;55;47;26 - 00;56;23;26

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

They're federal constitutional issues. But we are also, of course, going to state courts and utilizing state constitutions where we can. That's actually not like a post Dobbs thing for us in the abortion rights movement. We've been utilizing state courts and state constitutions, really, in sort of a systematic way since 1980, because that's when the Supreme Court in Harris v McCray upheld the Hyde Amendment, the ban on the use of federal Medicaid funding for abortion.

00;56;23;26 - 00;56;46;28

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And so we started going to state constitutions. And I think there's something now, like 17 states where state Medicaid has to cover abortion. We also did it with parental involvement laws. Actually, there are states where we have used state constitutions to strike down the sort of parental consent laws that are an issue in Pennsylvania under state constitutional theories.

00;56;46;28 - 00;57;12;16

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So we are fighting the sort of expansion of these state bans across border, I would say, either states trying to impose their laws on other states or to just really force people from their states to basically, you know, carry the laws of that state around on like, like a backpack wherever they go. Right? You're from Alabama, but if you go to Georgia somehow, still you're bound by Alabama's ban.

00;57;12;19 - 00;57;39;18

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So we're dealing with that. But then we are also going to state courts and using state constitutions to shore up protections to expand access. The other thing we're seeing, which is not litigation related, but I think is equally, if not more important, is the political backlash to Dobbs. You know, in the last round of elections, you know, abortion won big at the ballot in places like Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Michigan.

00;57;39;25 - 00;57;58;01

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

We're going to see another initiative on the ballot to establish constitutional right this November in Ohio. This is going to keep happening. Abortion wins. When you ask the people what they want, and when you ask them whether they want this care to be like, we know that from polls, and we know that from what happens at the ballot.

00;57;58;04 - 00;58;26;18

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

I think what it also shows, especially in terms of what the you know, you asked what the future might look like. We often think about the intersection of reproductive rights and the First Amendment, or, you know, the similarities between accessing reproductive health care and gender affirming health care, all of which are true. But the intersection between voting rights and the right to abortion, I think, is all the more salient now, because when people have a chance to vote on it, abortion wins.

00;58;26;22 - 00;58;47;25

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And the only way they can stop that is by, you know, restricting and diluting and making it difficult or impossible for people to meaningfully vote. So that is, you know, the ability for us to continue to protect and expand abortion rights in this country is so inextricably linked with the right to vote. I mean, that was always the case, but particularly now.

00;58;47;27 - 00;58;54;07

Jonathan Hafetz

And that's what happened recently to some extent in Ohio, right, with the proposed amendment to the Constitution, which would have made it more.

00;58;54;13 - 00;59;22;17

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Oh, yeah. So what you tried to do before, so we have the constitutional right to abortion question will be on in November. And they are so afraid of having that go to a vote in Ohio. They are so afraid of that that they tried to pass an initiative. They tried to get people to vote, basically to restrict their own Democratic power, but they tried to pass an initiative that would heighten the threshold of votes required to enact laws by initiative.

00;59;22;21 - 00;59;34;17

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

So, yeah, and that was very resoundingly rejected by the people who, shocked, did not want to vote to restrict their own power. So yeah, that just shows you how scared they are.

00;59;34;20 - 00;59;53;12

Jonathan Hafetz

The film because it's pre Dobbs. It's still in the period where the right is safe. The concepts all right exists even though the film punctures the myth and shows how vulnerable the right is, how difficult it is to access. But now that myth is gone. Right. And so the politics of change, I mean, another film that would come out would be some of these post Dobbs issues politically.

00;59;53;12 - 01;00;05;05

Jonathan Hafetz

But as you said, efforts by anti-abortion states to punish people for traveling to another state or to assist. Yeah, either that or through private civil lawsuits like the SB eight case.

01;00;05;05 - 01;00;07;09

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

And that's exactly that, too.

01;00;07;12 - 01;00;25;06

Jonathan Hafetz

Well, actually, it's been so great to have you on law and to discuss this movie. Never Rarely, sometimes always, which is as timely, if not more timely than when it came out in 2020. So thanks again and and wish you the best in your ongoing work to protect this, right.

01;00;25;08 - 01;00;28;24

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas

Thank you so much. It was so much fun to be able to talk about this with you. Thank you.