SCOTUS Chat: Recorded live with Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director and Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor

On June 27, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Idaho v. United States and Moyle et al., or the “EMTALA” (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act) case, which centers on whether state abortion bans supersede the federal EMTALA law mandating that hospital emergency departments receiving federal funding must stabilize a patient whose life or health is at risk.

In its long-awaited decision, the Court sent the case back to the lower courts, where. It also reinstated a lower court’s ruling permitting doctors to provide emergency abortion care even where such care conflicts with Idaho’s abortion ban—but not before several patients had to be airlifted out of Idaho to receive emergency health care because of the Court's initial decision.

By punting on what should be a straightforward ruling, the Supreme Court effectively condones the denial of emergency abortion care.

In this SCOTUS Chat, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor Erin Maye Quade and Legal Director Jess Braverman share their analysis of the Supreme Court ruling.

References from the podcast and additional resources:

Supreme Court opinion

Gender Justice statement on the EMTALA opinion

Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠ & Audra Grigus.

Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director

Guests: Ash Tifa, Rainbow Health Legal Services Program Coordinator, and Annie Van Avery, Family Tree Clinic Executive Director

“No health plan that covers physical or mental health services may be offered, sold, issued, or renewed in this state that excludes coverage for medically necessary gender-affirming care.”

This is the simple language underlying one of the major accomplishments from Minnesota’s 2024 legislative session: the Gender-Affirming Care Act, Representative Leigh Finke’s 2024 bill codifying Minnesota’s existing mandates for insurance coverage of gender-affirming care. The policy was included in the omnibus Commerce policy bill that passed this session.

Our guests for this episode bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the discussion, describing the urgent need for codification, the process of drafting and passing this law, and the impact that the policy will have on the many people for whom gender-affirming care is an essential aspect of their healthcare.

References from the podcast and additional resources:

Rainbow Health

Family Tree Clinic

Quarterly Name and Gender Marker Change Clinic - Rainbow Health in partnership with Family Tree Clinic

WPATH: The World Professional Association for Transgender Health

Minnesota Departments of Human Rights, Human Services, Health, and Commerce: Joint Administrative Bulletin 2023-1 (pdf)
'Trans refuge' law draws some to Minnesota, and providers are struggling to meet the demand

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Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠ & Audra Grigus.

Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director

Guest: Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director

On June 13, 2024, the Supreme Court issued a decision in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, its first abortion case since the Dobbs ruling reversing Roe v. Wade.

In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court maintained the current FDA regulations on mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortion.

This medication, alongside misoprostol, constitutes the primary method for over 60% of U.S. abortions and plays a vital role in reproductive healthcare beyond abortion, including miscarriage management and treating reproductive health conditions.

As reliance on medication abortion surges nationwide, with over three in five abortion patients opting for this method, the Supreme Court’s decision maintains access to a fundamental aspect of reproductive healthcare.

However, while this ruling maintains the status quo for mifepristone access, it contains troubling language suggesting that doctors with religious objections to any medical treatment could potentially opt out, even if it could result in death or severe harm to a patient. Even where there are no alternative providers to ensure care (in largely rural areas and healthcare deserts, for example)

In the latest SCOTUS Chat, Gender Justice Communications Director Noah Parrish sits down with Legal Director Jess Braverman to discuss the ruling and its implications.

References from the podcast and additional resources:

Supreme Court decision

Gender Justice statement on the decision

UnRestrict Minnesota Guide to Getting an Abortion

Join the movement for an inclusive Minnesota Equal Rights Amendment

SCOTUS Chat: Can States Ban Emergency Abortion Care? Episode of the Gender Justice Brief discussing EMTALA

Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠ & Audra Grigus.

Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director
Guests: Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director and Paige Suelzle, Litigation Counsel at The Lawyering Project

In this episode of The Gender Justice Brief we talk with The Lawyering Project’s Paige Suelzle about a recent victory for abortion funds—and for the First Amendment—in a case that is likely to have broad regional and national repercussions.

When the Dobbs decision was announced on June 25, 2022, abortion became illegal in Alabama overnight. By the end of that summer, Alabama’s Attorney General threatened to criminalize people who help Alabamians from leaving the state to access legal abortion—including abortion funds like The Yellowhammer Fund, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama—which had a chilling effect on providers and funds.

Represented by The Lawyering Project, the Yellowhammer Fund fought this threat in federal court, and in May 2024 received a preliminary ruling: their case can move forward, and the fund can resume assisting people while the case progresses.

“The right to interstate travel is one of our most fundamental constitutional rights,” wrote U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in his preliminary ruling. “Alabama can no more restrict people from going to, say, California to engage in what is lawful there than California can restrict people from coming to Alabama to do what is lawful here.”

References from the podcast and additional resources:

The Lawyering Project’s timeline of the case

The Yellowhammer Fund

National Network of Abortion Funds

Our Justice (Minnesota’s abortion fund)

SCOTUS Chat: Can States Ban Emergency Abortion Care? Episode of the Gender Justice Brief discussing EMTALA

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Visit the “Gender Justice” Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠ & Audra Grigus.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the passage of the Women’s Economic Security Act (WESA), which guarantees nursing rights for Minnesota workers, we are re-releasing our 2023 episode on Pregnancy and Pumping Rights.

In 2014, Gender Justice helped catapult the life-changing package of legislation known as the Women's Economic Security Act over the finishing line. In the decade since, the policies have been further strengthened, solidifying protections for pregnant and nursing employees, creating supports for parents of young children, narrowing the gender pay gap, and more.

In this episode, Senior Staff Attorney Sara Jane Baldwin and Humphrey School of Public Affairs policy student Allison Glass discuss the law and its implications.

""Our goal with every case we take is to improve the law and improve people's lives more than just one client. We can have all the great laws we want, but if they’re not enforced, then there's no real change," says Senior Staff Attorney Sara Jane Baldwin. "So there’s a lot of work to do, and we're ready to do it."

Join us on Monday, May 13th to celebrate the 10th anniversary of WESA!

• Time: 8 am – noon

• Where: Minnesota Senate Building, Room 1200, at 95 University Ave. W. in St. Paul (a virtual option is available.)

Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠ & Audra Grigus.

Host: Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor

Guests: Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director and Rupali Sharma, Deputy Executive Director for Legal Programs at the Lawyering Project

“This case is about our humanity: do we matter?” — Rupali Sharma

Gender Justice legal and policy experts are joined by the Lawyering Project’s Rupali Sharma to discuss the oral arguments in the case Idaho v. United States and Moyle et al., or the “EMTALA” (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act) case, which centers on whether or not state abortion bans supersede the federal law mandating that hospital emergency departments receiving federal funding must stabilize a patient whose life or health is at risk.

Rupali Sharma previously worked at the Center for Reproductive Rights, where she successfully litigated challenges to unlawful abortion restrictions in Ireland and the U.S., including Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. She led the Lawyering Project’s amicus brief submitted on behalf of doctors in the EMTALA case.

Audio of the Supreme Court oral arguments in the EMTALA case (transcript provided)

Amicus brief submitted by Rupali Sharma for the Lawyering Project on behalf of Physicians for Reproductive Health in the EMTALA case

The Lawyering Project

In Idaho v. United States, the Supreme Court Must Reckon With the Post-Dobbs Reality It Created
I'm an ER Doctor. If the Supreme Court Upends EMTALA, Patients Will Die.

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Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠ & Audra Grigus.

Host: Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor

Guests: Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director and Amanda Allen, Deputy Executive Director for Legal Programs at The Lawyering Project

Gender Justice legal and policy experts and the Lawyering Project’s Deputy Executive Director for Legal Programs Amanda Allen discuss the oral arguments in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Supreme Court case challenging access to medication abortion in the U.S..

Amanda oversees The Lawyering Project’s Access & Innovation Program, which focuses on expanding access to medication abortion through telehealth and other innovative technologies and she brings her years of advocating for meaningful access to reproductive health services to the conversation. In this episode, she joins Gender Justice Legal Director Jess Braverman and Special Projects Advisor Erin Maye Quade to analyze the oral arguments in the case, review the current landscape of medication abortion access, and look ahead to what the future could bring.

Links:

Audio of the Supreme Court oral arguments in the case (transcript provided)The Lawyering Project

Gender Justice FAQ on the mifepristone lawsuits

The UnRestrict Minnesota Guide to Medication Abortion
The Current Attack on Abortion Pills Will Fail. The Next One Will Be So Much Worse.

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Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠ & Audra Grigus.

This episode of The Gender Justice Brief is a recording of the panel of advocates and researchers featured in the film Preconceived, moderated by Gender Justice Executive Director Megan Peterson at its premiere at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas on March 9, 2024.

Preconceived tells the stories of Maleeha and Maria, just two of the thousands of people who have been deceived by coercive anti-abortion propaganda mills known as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). As the film follows these protagonists, it sheds light on the deceptive practices deployed by CPCs, investigates the funding streams that fuel their spread, and raises urgent questions about how to combat disinformation in a post-Dobbs era.

Panelists:

• Maleeha Aziz, Texas Equal Access Fund

• Jenifer McKenna, Reproductive Health & Freedom Watch

• Tara Murtha, Women’s Law Project

Links:

• Preconceived home page and trailer

• Designed to Deceive: A Study of the Crisis Pregnancy Center Industry in Nine States (a report created with Gender Justice partners in the Alliance: State Advocates for Women’s Rights & Gender Equality, coauthored by panelists Jenifer McKenna and Tara Murtha)

• Host a screening, learn more, and take action

  
  

  Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

  The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠ & Audra Grigus.