Boom! Lawyered

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a case that could determine trans minors’ right to gender-affirming care, in December. It’s coming on the heels of Donald Trump’s successful election campaign, which he closed by attacking Democrats left and right on trans rights.This week, Jess and Imani walk through what to expect from this case—and it’s not looking great. We’re expecting junk science, moral cowardice, and an “assurance” that this is about returning the issue to the states. Sound familiar?Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Well… Donald Trump is back for a second term. We hate it here!This week, Jess and Imani go through what reproductive health-care hellscape we can expect from the next Trump administration: legally establishing fetal “personhood,” federal surveillance of pregnant people, and banning abortion pills—all eventually leading to a national abortion ban. We’re preparing for a parade of horribles. You’ve heard us say it before, and you’ll certainly hear us say it again: The only way out is through. And we’re going to get through this together.Mentioned in this episode:Project 2025 Is Worse Than You ThinkRewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

With the election less than a week away, abortion rights and democracy are both on the line—and that’s no coincidence.Andrea Grimes, journalist and vice president of research at Reproaction, joins Jess and Imani this week to talk about the importance of opposition research into anti-abortion activists, how the anti-abortion and anti-democracy movements work hand-in-hand, and why there’s no shortage of work for the pro-abortion movement. Plus, the trio chats about Grimes’ new media venture—the feminist blog The Flytrap—and why collective media could be the future of journalism.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Can pro-natalists go touch some grass? A trio of conservative attorneys general filed a complaint in federal court claiming the availability of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortions in the United States, creates a “sovereign injury” to the states themselves. They argue that mifepristone lowers teen birth rates in violation of the states’ “population interests.”Jess and Imani get into why this argument is essentially constitutionally-mandated eugenics and how it could expand state police power. We could be entering an entirely new era of constitutional law.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

This week, we’re talking about EMTALA—yes, again. The Ninth Circuit will hear arguments over Idaho not wanting to abide by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act in December, and the case is sure to make it back to the Supreme Court.This time, though, conservatives have a new weapon: the Spending Clause. Much to Jess’ chagrin, she and Imani get into how Amy Coney Barrett pulled an Alito-esque move to tee anti-choicers up to use the Spending Clause to upend EMTALA for good.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Project 2025, the 2024 election’s big bad wolf, is coming for reproductive justice. The Heritage Foundation’s policy prescription for a second Donald Trump administration would turn the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) on its head and explicitly allow anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.This week, Jess and Imani dive into the Project 2025 policy positions that pose the biggest threat to reproductive health care. From disavowing abortion to its “life agenda,” the parade of horribles would, if implemented, entrench the country further into Christofascism. Mentioned in this episode:National Women’s Law Center Project 2025 reportRewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

If there’s one thing conservatives like doing, it’s finding the perfect plaintiff to be the face of a court challenge to a policy that will strip people's rights.Enter: the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and their plaintiffs: a group of goat-herding Anglican nuns, who are challenging a New York state regulation that requires employers to provide medically necessary abortions in their employee health insurance plans.In this week's Boom! Lawyered, Jess and Imani get you caught up on Diocese of Albany v. Harris, and the Becket Fund's petition to the Supreme Court asking the justices to take up their case.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Welcome to a new season of Boom! Lawyered, which also means a new Supreme Court term is around the corner. What better way to usher that in with friend-of-the-pod Elie Mystal joining Jess and Imani on the season premiere of the podcast?They try to answer important questions weighing on all our minds, including:Is the gig finally up for Chief Justice John Roberts and his reputation as anything other than a Republican operative?Is there real momentum for meaningful Supreme Court reform?What is Elie's proposal for expansive Court reform?Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

How can Vice President Kamala Harris go beyond “restore Roe" messaging during her presidential run? What are the odds that a state like Michigan, where voters enshrined abortion rights into the state constitution, could have that overturned in a second Donald Trump presidency?Join Jess and Imani this week as they respond to these questions and more—submitted by you, our listeners. And stay tuned for the return of Boom! Lawyered's regular season in the fall to usher in what promises to be another unpredictable Supreme Court term.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

The Biden administration's final Title IX rule, which bans sex discrimination in schools that get federal funding, took effect last week. Except, that is, in the more than two dozen states where conservative attorneys general filed lawsuits to block the rule from taking effect.Chris Geidner joins Imani and Jess this week to parse through the legalese and where it leaves LGBTQ+ students as the school year nears.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Editor's note: This episode was recorded before President Joe Biden's SCOTUS reform proposals. Black women law nerds, unite! "We're having a moment," as this week's special guest Madiba Dennie says.Dennie is a lawyer, deputy editor and senior contributor at Balls and Strikes, and the author of The Originalism Trap. She joins Jess and Imani to discuss how originalism is not a legitimate intellectual theory, the idea of "jurisdiction stripping," and the next Supreme Court term.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that rapid reaction episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Boom! Lawyered is back for a summer session with four episodes before fall—and first up is Lizz Winstead, the founder of Abortion Access Front and co-creator of the Daily Show.It's a smorgasbord of all things reproductive rights, including serious things like expanding the courts and abortion access and not-so-serious things like a debate between "Anthony Comstock" and Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith that Winstead will moderate in the fall, and starting a band called Mife and Misotones.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that rapid reaction episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

The Supreme Court released its decision regarding the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act—not once but twice thanks to another opinion leak!—and, well, the justices punted.In this reaction episode, Jess and Imani get into the coward decision in Idaho v. United States— that dismissing the case as "improvidently granted" is simply a cop-out, and the ripple effects that will emerge.And stay tuned for a short summer season coming up!Mentioned in this episode:By the Way, Fetuses Can't Consent to Health CareRewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that rapid reaction episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

The recent Supreme Court decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine did not "restore" mifepristone access. The justices didn't "dismiss" the case. And yet that's what some media have been claiming.Join Jess and Imani in this mythbusting mifepristone episode and what they're predicting comes next.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

The Supreme Court issued its decision in the first of two abortion cases we've been waiting for—and it was pretty OK!Join Jess and Imani in this reaction episode breaking down the unanimous ruling on standing in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine that was written by—yup—Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Our verdict? The decision is great, but more litigation is coming.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that rapid reaction episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

It's a supersized episode of Boom! Lawyered with special guest Gretchen Sisson, author of the recently released book Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood. Sisson is also a qualitative sociologist and friend of the pod who studies abortion and adoption at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health based at the University of California, San Francisco.Jess and Imani talk to Sisson about the complicated politics of adoption and abortion. She explains why adoption isn’t the answer to winnowing abortion access and why the conversations around abortion and adoption are overly simplistic. The decision faced by relinquishing mothers is not whether to adopt or have an abortion but whether to parent or not.And poverty, unsurprisingly, plays a large role in any decision a pregnant person makes regarding parenting. The anti-abortion movement wants adoption to be an alternative to abortion, but it’s not.“The idea that women are choosing between abortion and adoption is not borne out by the data at all,” Sisson said.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has always been the worst, but now, he's even more confident letting his freak flag fly because he knows nothing is going to happen to him.By now, you might have heard about the Alito's Virginia home displaying an upside-down American flag—an insurrectionist symbol after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and their flying another, an "Appeal to Heaven" flag, at their beach home in New Jersey.As Imani says in this week's episode, "everything about this story stinks."Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Jess and Imani are talking about Idaho—again!Now that the state has made its argument that people who visit emergency rooms at Medicare-funded hospitals needing an abortion can go pound sand, it's arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that anyone who “recruits, harbors, or transports” a minor within Idaho for the purposes of “procuring an abortion” out of state can be criminalized as an abortion trafficker.As Jess says, Matsumoto v. Labrador isn't about "abortion trafficking"—whatever that means—it's about criminalizing direct aid to folks who need abortions and forcing parental involvement in minors' reproductive health-care decisions despite contrary Supreme Court precedent.Mentioned in this episode:A Federal Court Finally Connects the Dots Between TRAP Laws and StigmaRewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Two years ago today, Politico published the bombshell leak heard around the world—Justice Samuel Alito's 98-page majority draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.In this flashback episode, Jess and Imani react the following afternoon to the absolute sucker punch.For more coverage of the leaked opinion, check out our next episode, "Processing the Fallout of the Supreme Court Leak."Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that Boom! Lawyered—especially emergency episodes like this one—is only made possible by the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

It was a grim day at the Supreme Court for oral arguments in Idaho v. United States with the fate of Emergency Medicine Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) at stake.Jess and Imani bring you quick analysis about what happened, including how the conservatives are arguing in the margins about life and death. Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that rapid reaction episodes like this one is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that’s exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.