Opinionpalooza: The Vanishing Emergency Abortion Decision (Preview)

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

Slate Podcasts

News Commentary, Politics, Government, News

4.6 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued two important decisions in its traditional fashion: a box of printed copies for those journalists in the press room, and furious SCOTUS website refreshing for those who were not. Murthy v Missouri was one of the closely watched social media cases of the term, about “jawboning” or when and if the government can ask/prod/urge private social media companies to moderate content in the interest of things like public health or election integrity, or whether such conduct constitutes censorship. Snyder v US concerned corruption and the difference between bribes and gratuities under a federal corruption law. Somewhere in between the publishing of these opinions, however, the court inadvertently and very briefly published what may or may not be its opinion in a pair of emergency abortion cases, Moyle v United States and Idaho v United States. The Court spokeswoman urged us all to pay no attention to the early draft. Chaos ensued. On this extra, members-only episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to try to get our arms around a day of big news, including the “now you see it, now you don’t” abortion news at the highest court in the land. This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!) This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes of Amicus, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, it's Dahlia Lithwick, and we are thundering toward July, and the US Supreme Court
0:08.4	is doing so with some serious clown car energy.
0:12.4	A dozen-ish opinions still to come, one of which momentarily slipped
0:17.2	out on Wednesday morning, only to be stuffed back inside its box. In a huge break for our colleagues at Bloomberg in the
0:25.1	press core game of refresh refresh roulette on the Supreme Court
0:29.9	dot-gov website the court momentarily published its decision in a pair of emergency
0:36.6	abortion cases and then just as quickly it was all gone.
0:40.8	Later, the court's press office published a statement claiming it was all a big
0:44.8	mistake and the real Amtala decision will be, quote, issued in due course, end quote.
0:51.3	Even later, Bloomberg shared a copy of the fleeting decision in which the court
0:56.6	looks to have decided to dig, aka dismiss the two cases as improvidently granted.
1:03.6	On Wednesday morning, the court managed to intentionally publish two important cases that
1:08.8	ought not be lost in this shuffle.
1:11.2	Murthy versus Missouri, the so-called social media job-owning case, and Snyder
1:15.6	versus US, a case about a federal bribery and corruption statute, they're both more humdinger than Humdrum in part because of what they signal
1:25.1	about what the justices are thinking and feeling in these last few days in June
1:29.3	and also because they just tell us so clearly how very badly the Fifth Circuit truly sucks.
1:37.0	Here's a taste of my conversation with Slate's Mark Joseph Stern,
1:41.0	senior writer on the courts and on the law for Slate and my ride or die here
1:45.7	on Amicus, as we tried to wrap our heads around all of it.
1:50.0	Oh my God Dahlia, hi, it's so great to be here with you, but do we have to be here at all?
1:55.2	Jesus, this is a bad one. I just feel like we cover like fireflies, luminous fleeting fireflies, luminous, fleeting fireflies in the sky.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.