Amicus: Anti-Abortion Lawyers Love this Zombie Law

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There’s a terrible legal Easter egg in Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s ruling on the abortion medication, Mifepristone. And that same Easter egg makes an appearance in the Fifth Circuit’s partial stay. It’s the Comstock Act - a mostly forgotten 19th century vice statute that is suddenly the anti-abortion movement’s favorite zombie legislation. On a special extra episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Mary Ziegler, an expert on the law, history, and politics of reproduction, health care, and conservatism in the United States from 1945 to the present. Together, they tackle the chaos upon chaos of the past week’s medication abortion cases, and take a long hard look at the next steps in the anti-abortion movement’s fight for a nationwide ban. In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern to discuss the “quid pro Crow” of Justice Clarence Thomas’ real estate deals with GOP mega donor, and avid court-watcher, and amicus-brief-funder Harlan Crow. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you ask people in the anti-abortion movement, they'll essentially say what we're doing
0:07.6	here is more important than democracy.
0:10.0	This matters more than the will of the people.
0:12.3	But embracing Comstock says that with a bullet.
0:16.6	Hi and welcome to another off-week emergency edition of Amicus.
0:20.7	This is Slate's legal podcast about the law and the courts and the Supreme Court and the
0:24.8	rule of law.
0:25.8	And it was another spectacularly bad week for the law in the courts and the Supreme
0:29.6	Court and the rule of law at least is measured in units of judicial overreach, Supreme
0:35.8	Court law breaking.
0:37.5	And just the general sense that things are pretty much on fire all the time.
0:43.0	In a couple minutes, Slate Plus listeners are going to get to listen to Mark Joseph Stern's
0:47.0	thoughts on the revelation that Clarence Thomas, benefactor and vacation Wrangler, Harlan
0:52.6	Crow, is also somehow in improbably the landlord of Justice Thomas's mom, not
0:59.6	weird at all.
1:00.6	That conversation with Mark can only be accessed by Slate Plus members.
1:04.9	There are lots of benefits to Slate Plus membership like bonus segments from your favorite
1:09.2	shows, including the upcoming season of Slowburn, which just happens to be all about one Justice
1:15.1	Clarence Thomas.
1:16.6	Slate Plus members listen to all Slate's podcast commercial free and they never hit a paywall
1:22.0	at Slate.com.
1:23.4	You can find out more by going to Slate.com slash Amicus Plus, that's Slate.com slash
	...

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