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Banning Abortion Violates Religious Freedom

Our guest is Marcee Lichtenwald, who is a volunteer patient escort with the Toledo Abortion Center We talk about the post Roe landscape for reproductive rights, her time as a patient escort, and what we can do to support abortion rights.

Episode 44: Banning Abortion Violates Religious Freedom

Our guest is Marcee Lichtenwald, who is a volunteer patient escort with the Toledo Abortion Center We talk about the post Roe landscape for reproductive rights, her time as a patient escort, and what we can do to support abortion rights.

01:00 A Post Roe World
07:34 Ban is a violation of the 1st amendment
11:06 Why we need patient escorts
21:19 I Fund Abortions
25:15 What to know when protesting
27:26 Protesting churches
31:10 How can men support abortion rights?

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Our Guest

Marcee Lichtenwald

Marcee Lichtenwald, who happens to be a member of SHoWLE, is a volunteer patient escort with the Toledo Abortion Center – the last abortion clinic in Northwest Ohio and she volunteers with The Agnes Reynolds Jackson Fund which helps fund abortions for those not able to afford them.

Extras:

Aggie Fund Linktree (includes links to many abortion resources)

Statement from the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie concerning the Dobbs decision and abortion rights

Transcript:

Read Full Transcript Here

Voice Over 0:00
This is Glass City Humanist, a show about humanism, humanist values by a humanist. Here’s your host, Douglas Berger.

Doug Berger 0:09
In this episode, our guest is Marcee Lichtenwald, who happens to be a member of the Secular Humanist of Western Lake Erie. She is a volunteer patient escort with the Toledo Abortion Center, which is the last abortion clinic in Northwest Ohio. And she volunteers with the Agnes Reynolds Jackson Fund, which helps fund abortions for those not able to afford them. We talk about the post Roe landscape for reproductive rights, her time as a patient escort and what we can do to support abortion rights

Voice Over 0:40
Glass City Humanist is an outreach project of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. Building Community Through compassion and reason for a better tomorrow.

Doug Berger 1:00
Thank you for joining us today and we are speaking with Marcee Lichtenwald, who happens to be a member of SHoWLE. She is a volunteer patient escort with the Toledo abortion Center, which is the last abortion clinic in Northwest Ohio. And she volunteers with the Agnes Reynolds Jackson Fund, which helps fund abortions for those not able to afford them. Thank you for joining us today. Marcee.

Marcee Lichtenwald 1:23
Thank you for having me.

Doug Berger 1:23
Can you briefly tell us what happened to abortion rights when the US Supreme Court handed down there? Dobbs v. Jackson, women’s health decision on June 24?

Marcee Lichtenwald 1:35
Oh, gosh, completely. Key word is right. You know, the key word is our rights. We completely lost our rights as well as what happened. And we’ve seen like we’ve seen in Ohio, many saddening, they were like 13 states with, you know, trigger bands. So I mean, I think at least 10 of those don’t quote me on that. But I know the numbers right in that range, completely outright banned abortion, as soon as roe fell, Ohio had an injunction on a six week ban, that Governor dewine signed Cata was back in 2019. But of course, there was an injunction on that it was you know, found to be unconstitutional, so it hadn’t quite Pashto. So being holed up in the courts, and we figured we would have time, as soon as Roe, we, you know, we all knew that this was going to happen, but you know, still blow nonetheless. But we figured we would have time, before they hire was able to actually implement anything. And so we were really taken by surprise, when a judge lifted the injunction the very same day. I mean, you know, since one of these legislators were past five 5pm. And at six o’clock, we got the news, so that so literally effective the very following day, Saturday, which is, which is typically abortion clinics, you know, busiest days, because that’s when people have the most availability to be able to make doctor’s appointments, when you know, clinics are actually available on those days. So effective immediately. appointments were cancelled all it clinics all across the state. Our clinic here in Toledo actually only only does medical abortions, which is the pill, which is only good for up to nine weeks and six days. That’s that’s an FDA regulation. However, the six week ban really put a damper on that, because obviously, if there was any detection of fetal cardiac activity whatsoever, they cannot prescribe that pill. We have to send them over to Michigan.

Doug Berger 3:34
Let’s be clear, that cardiac indication is not a heart beating, correct, right.

Marcee Lichtenwald 3:41
There is no heart at six weeks. It’s yeah, it’s basically just I mean, I am not a medical person. So I can’t speak to you know, medical terminology or, you know, the functionality of it. But there is no heart in place. I mean, basically, you know, you’re, you know, the system has been put in place. So it’s fetal current, it’s fetal cardiac activity. It’s just like basically a fetal cardiac pole. It’s just a register. It’s not an actual heart. The word heart heartbeat is a sensationalist term. It’s designed specifically to give personhood to an embryo. May you know that they’re trying to apply personhood to this embryo, which is more than just emotive language. I mean, this later helps determine personhood laws, or embryos and fetuses, to which he wants to apply personhood to an embryo or fetus. Suddenly, that personhood of the embryo or fetus supersedes the personhood of the person who is pregnant.

Doug Berger 4:39
And you mentioned about the dissolving of the injunction against the heartbeat bill. So before that was dissolved, was it the full 20 weeks that somebody could get an abortion in Ohio or?

Marcee Lichtenwald 4:53
Yeah, Ohio’s, yeah, according to Ohio law, you could get an abortion up to 20 weeks, that’s 20 weeks gestation, which is basically Were on 22 weeks, you know, from your last the first day of your last period, like the whole thing, how they figure all that out. But it basically equates to about 20 weeks gestation period. However, it was very limited, which clinics could actually perform abortions after 20 weeks, because that’s a skill that, you know, not all doctors can perform, you know, a 20 week abortion. So the majority of the very few clinics at Ohio already had actually couldn’t perform abortions all the way up to 20 weeks. So it was on the books, but it wasn’t really in practice at every clinic, because they didn’t have the capabilities of performing abortions that far. So like, capital care, or Well, I’m sorry, Toledo abortion center, it used to be Capitol care only does medical. And that’s, you know, up to nine weeks and six days, there was another clinic only dozen medical, there were a couple other ones that would do them up to like 1617 weeks depending. So it just it really, it really depends on the clinic, which is also the case with these folks that now have to across state lines to obtain abortion care. I mean, you know, just we’re lucky enough that we’re on the Michigan border, we can send patients to Detroit. But that’s also very specific to what their gestation is, and which clinic they could even go to, depending on what that what services those clinics can provide.

Doug Berger 6:15
Now, you know, technically we do have the six week ban now. And that is in state court. Now. They just filed a lawsuit last week or the week before challenging it on based on the Ohio constitution. For whatever reason, that doesn’t work out, what can we what can we expect to happen as we move forward here in Ohio in a post war row world?

Marcee Lichtenwald 6:41
Well, the Ohio Supreme Court already refused to hear that case. So it was shut down before it was even argued. So they just completely shut down any argument that we have against that. So that just kind of I mean, I know it’s not done. And I don’t know where they’re at with it right now. But that was a huge blow when the Ohio Supreme Court and this was that last Friday. Time means nothing. Yeah. So that was a pretty huge blow. And it didn’t really look very good for us. I mean, there are representatives that are definitely going to try for a an all out ban. I mean, we do have an SBA, Texas style ban on the you know, on the table, it’s already been introduced. So they’re definitely going to try to move forward with that. I can’t speak to whether or not we’ll be able to move forward with it. I guess we’ll see how the primaries go. And they’re specifically waiting until after the primaries to move that forward. But so

Doug Berger 7:34
and I think to one of the major arguments that they often use, is that they consider a fetus, a child, and it taking the fetus out before it’s born is murder. Do you have any suggestions about how we can get around that or?

Marcee Lichtenwald 7:56
Well, I think it’s important to understand that that is it, it’s an extreme Christian Right View. And so what they’re essentially doing is forcing a very specific religious ideology on to the public, which completely goes against our First Amendment. There are plenty of other religions out there that do not share that same view regarding embryos and fetuses. I personally am an atheist humanists. That’s why I am part of secular humanism in Northwest Ohio, you know, you know, they don’t have any right to force that worldview on to me, there is absolutely no consensus within the scientific community on when life actually, you know, begins as far as how you how you define life, whether it begins at conception, whether it begins at that first breath, once the, you know, the fetuses born. I mean, that is very, very subjective based on you know, your religion, your non religion or whatever. So, no one specific religious aspect, especially this extreme, right, religious ideology that is being forced upon us, I mean, we’ve got legislators that are creating laws based on an extreme Christian view.

Doug Berger 9:16
And what can people do if they are upset by what has happened? What, how can they get involved?

Marcee Lichtenwald 9:24
Well, that’s a really good question. So we’re actually working on some things here in Toledo. We’re going to hold some events, we’re hoping to kind of start holding regular events to kind of help educate the public on different things that they can do. And it really kind of depends on the person, what they’re capable of doing, what they’re willing to do, what skills that they have, you know, whether that’s, you know, taking direct action, whether that’s letter writing campaigns, you know, whether that’s, you know, whether you’re the person that you know, wants to pressure or you know, your local politicians in your state politicians, I think everyone has their own unique set of skills that they can utilize. There’s really No one thing that you that you have to do to make things happen, there’s really a variety of things that multiple people can do, talking about abortion openly saying the word like, you know, I mean, there are a lot of people out there that talk about their abortions openly as as a means of normalizing abortion and making people, you know, allowing people to understand that it’s very, very nuanced. It’s very, very individual. And it’s also very personal, everyone’s reason is different. But then somebody else probably doesn’t want to share their personal story, but they do want to talk about abortion openly as if it’s a normal part of reproductive care, you know, having those conversations with your friends and with your family. You know, however you choose to do that. There’s really just a variety of things that people can do to speak more openly about abortion, show their support for Reproductive Justice and reproductive rights, and, and really work to end the shame and stigma that surrounds abortion, and really crush this religious narrative that is forced onto us and is literally controlling our lives as we just saw happen with the fall of Roe.

Doug Berger 11:06
And as I mentioned in the intro for you, that you’re a volunteer patient escort at the Toledo abortion center, why does the clinic need patient escorts?

Marcee Lichtenwald 11:16
So I mean, obviously, this starts on the sidewalk that starts outside of these clinics. So we have what we call in you know, in the referral world aunties, and we’re referring to, you know, these anti abortion religious zealots, these religious extremists that stand outside of clinics and harass, harass people that are pulling into the clinic. I mean, imagine going to the dentist and there’s a bunch of people on the sidewalk screaming and hollering Do you know, that you’re a murderer for pulling out your teeth, or, you know, something ridiculous I’m in an abortion is safer than, than a root canal, that having a tooth fold. I mean, it’s really one of the safest procedures out there. It’s safer than a colonoscopy. But the you know, you got these religious extremists with this really twisted and demented view on abortion and why people are having it. Like they literally create people’s stories for them, like they act like they are the authority on why bolts are walking in. They think people are being forced into that clinic, they’re coming in against their will, they don’t know what their options are. And, and you know, they’re there to give you options, because that’s what you need when you go to a doctor’s appointment is some weird stranger on the sidewalk, saying I can save you, you know, it’s just really, but we’re, for the most part at our particular clinic. We’re somewhat lucky that our aunties are a little on the milder side. But they still scare the crap out of our patients. I mean, you know, just because, you know, some, you know, little lady Grandma, you know, is out there saying I can help you doesn’t mean she isn’t terrifying. The patient, I mean, a friend of mine, who escorts there, had one of the, the workers inside the clinic call her on her cell phone, no. And she was out there saying there was a patient trapped in her car and she’s terrified to get out because someone is standing behind her car yelling at her and won’t leave, you know, when it was like the 6070 year old woman, but it still was terrifying to this to this patient. I mean, it’s It’s intrusive on your privacy. It’s intrusive on, you know, your personal space. Like people don’t need to be accosted when they go to a doctor’s office. I’ve escorted out other clinics where, who, oh my gosh, the things that these Auntie’s scream and holler is just some of the most hateful, disgusting rhetoric I’ve ever heard come out of another person’s mouth. And it is just absolutely unreal, that the general public associate themselves with these people, when they adopt these anti abortion sentiments and the anti abortion narratives and these shame and stigma narratives and language, you know, they’re really aligning themselves with these horrible people. And it starts there, you know, and these are the folks that I mean, these are very organized groups of people who are then lobbying our legislators, they are writing the laws, they are writing the speeches, they are putting politicians, you know, they are getting people elected, they are putting people in our state houses. I mean, they have a really, really strong effect. It doesn’t it doesn’t begin your end on that sidewalk, right.

Doug Berger 14:26
And it also doesn’t begin or end with the patients either. There’s been doctors that have been harassed and clinic workers who have been harassed. There’s been stories of, of abortion doctors having to ride in an armored car, with bulletproof vests on and not giving what their what their schedule was because people had given lists out of doctors to kill.

Marcee Lichtenwald 14:54
They do they you know, they find out where these doctors live. They dock them in their neighborhoods, they post one Wanted posters throughout their neighborhoods saying wanted for murder. And, you know, and sometimes the general public, you know, they just don’t really understand what these people are actually saying. They just say they just see wanted for murder, and they’re like, oh my god, you know, then there were other ones that are like, Oh, do this, you know, it’s ridiculous. I know that I, you know, I know this person, they’re great. We had a barbecue last weekend. But it’s really it’s really dangerous. I mean, they’ve been known to, you know, stalk and harass clinic workers. And we, I mean, it’s led to actual murder of doctors, unfortunately, I think there’s been a total of 11 doctors over the course of the last 30 years, you know, that have been murdered by by, you know, these anti abortion zealots? We need to go back to your original question. I remember I realized I didn’t like fully answer it. So our purpose as escort sorry about that, I told you, when we started this, I’m a Rambler. So

Doug Berger 15:47
you gotta get You’re fine, you’re fine. But

Marcee Lichtenwald 15:51
our main goal as escorts is we’re there to create a barrier between us people on the sidewalk and the patient’s, we do what we can to, you know, we walk them to the door, you know, we, you know, we comfort them, we just give them something like, Hey, you know, just kind of walk them to the door. And, you know, we use umbrellas to kind of block out, you know, the people on the sidewalk, and also give them a sense of privacy as they’re walking to the door, you know, make them feel like they have a sense of privacy walking to the door, and just to make them feel safer, you know, as we’re playing because they have to pull in, through these people that are screaming and yelling at them. So, you know, to see like a smiling face, and like, Hey, I’d be more than happy to, you know, walk the door with you and just kind of kind of soften you know, what’s going on on the sidewalk, just ignore them a little bit. And we just kind of keep talking as we’re walking them to the door just to kind of keep their focus off the folks on the sidewalk that are just being absolutely horrible and try to make their experience a little bit better as they’re walking in.

Doug Berger 16:43
And that’s why I thought it was very ironic and telling, when Attorney General Yost fell over himself to respond to a suppose it or suspected bombing of an anti abortion groups office in Wisconsin, with a letter to the Department of Justice saying, Hey, you better look into this. And people are getting harassed at clinics, doctors are getting harassed. Nothing, just absolutely.

Marcee Lichtenwald 17:09
You know, we always say, you know, we always say, you know, we don’t call the cops, we have a general rule on at Toledo Women’s Center, that we don’t call the cops on the folks on the sidewalk, unless there was like a direct threat to our lives. Like if there was something like a bomb threat, or if there was a clinic invasion, you know, that’s a different story. In it, we’re talking about a direct set threat to us or patients. But as far as you know, other things we, you know, we don’t we don’t call the cops because historically speaking, the law enforcement, it’s not generally on our side. Now, we are lucky enough with, you know, the Toledo police department, you know, you know, they have been there, you know, for us and, you know, in certain instances, so it’s not as bad here as it has been in other regions. But we still don’t get as much support from law enforcement as say, let’s, you know, say a crisis pregnancy center, or church, you know, God forbid you vandalize a church, the cops will definitely hunt you down and find you. I mean, our clinic has has been vandalized numerous times over the years. It was there was an arson just, you know, last December. So, I mean, and they never, you know, they’ve never caught the people. And there was several reasons, you know, to that, you know, it’s kind of hard to catch folks that do these things, but at the same time, I mean, we always say, well, because abortion, you know, we just don’t get the same respect that you know, other businesses or you know, are going to get, you know, if somebody is outside another doctor’s office, non abortion related doctor’s office, harassing them, the cops would make them go away, they, you know, they wouldn’t be like a free speech, free speech, or if they were outside, you know, a store or anybody else’s personal area, you know, property, they would allow it to happen. But because abortion free speech, you know, and we’ve seen some, you know, we’ve seen several instances and other areas, who are cops actually join, join the anti is on the sidewalk, pray with them. Say, Oh, I agree with what you’re doing, you know, I’m on the clock. So I can’t really say much, but you know, so. Now,

Doug Berger 19:05
I know the patient escorts locally, have been very active on the political front, including getting involved with trying to get the Toledo abortion center a transfer agreement with Toledo hospital back when they are trying to subscribe to that one of those trap laws that they had. Yes state had have many of the escorts have personal abortion experiences.

Marcee Lichtenwald 19:30
I can’t speak to their personal experiences. Yeah, I really don’t know. I mean, that’s, that’s personal to to each and every individual. And I definitely can’t speak about somebody else’s experience. You know, they were the only they can speak for themselves. So

Doug Berger 19:43
can someone who doesn’t have a personal experience? Can they be a good advocate for patients as a patient escort?

Marcee Lichtenwald 19:50
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, any single person with a uterus is affected by these abortion laws. Anybody who’s capable of getting pregnant is affected by these abortion laws. I mean, you know, a abortion isn’t just an unwanted pregnancy abortion is healthcare you know abortion is not just an unplanned or I should say unplanned pregnancy not unwanted because, you know, that’s still stigmatizing language you know, but unplanned you know, we all have the right to choose when and if we want to parent, but even you know, an unwanted pregnancy abortion is healthcare, you know, pregnancy is not safe pregnancy can kill you. You know, pregnancy comes with a series of complications. Abortion has to be accessible, when things get really, really scary when things go bad. It’s the life of the pregnant person is depends on that, you know, their future and their future ability to reproduce to go on to have children depends on having access to abortion, you know, miscarriages, you know, pregnancies that go wrong. I mean, this could that’s that could seriously inhibit someone’s fertility, future fertility.

Voice Over 20:52
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Doug Berger 21:19
And you are also involved with the Agnes Reynolds Jackson fund. Could you tell us a little bit about that and what its mission is?

Marcee Lichtenwald 21:28
Yeah, absolutely. So the Agnes Reynolds Jackson fund, the Aggie fund for short, is Toledo’s local abortion fund. We’ve been around since the early 90s. Always, we’ve always been really small and local. So it’s always been a really small fund. We just basically took care of the local clinic, which was center for choice up until 2013, which unfortunately, shutdown. But then additionally, Capitol care, which is our Toledo Women’s Center. So basically, what the Ronald Jackson fund has always done is just kind of picked up that little bit of extra cash that patients can’t cover out of pocket. There are other larger funds, you know, like the National abortion Federation, and Ohio statewide fund, women have options Ohio. So it’s kind of a trickle down effect where, you know, goes starts with those funds that you know, they cover, they have certain allotted amounts that they cover for procedures. And then patients are responsible for the rest of the out of pocket expenses, because obviously, most insurances don’t cover abortion and Medicaid doesn’t cover it at all because the Hyde Amendment. So the Aggi fund existed to kind of help pick up those added costs, because that’s a hefty cost for especially, you know, a low income person. We’ve grown substantially over the last three years. So back in 2018, we actually expanded into Michigan, after Toledo Women’s Center was no longer doing procedural abortions, just the medical abortions. That meant a lot of patients had to then go into Michigan or wherever else be able to obtain their procedure, their procedural levels for abortions. So we started supporting Northland family planning up there in Detroit. And so we’re able to expand there. And we just we’ve just had a really good couple of years, we have a really, really great community. Aggie is 100%. volunteer base, we are 100% individual donation base. So we don’t have a fiduciary sponsor, we don’t rely on endowments. It’s a 100% individual donation. So it’s completely and totally community led. I mean, it’s the epitome of mutual aid, which is what we think abortion funds are. So 99.9% of what you give to Aggie goes towards abortion care. And that’s predominantly the cost of abortion, but it can also include rides too, you know, some people have transportation issues. Gas right now is absolutely astronomical, it’s very hard to drive an hour to and from and to Michigan, these gas prices, that’s a hefty cost. These appointments can take all day long, people might need to get some lunch afterwards, you know that gift cards to you know, McDonald’s or Starbucks or you know, wherever you might be able to drive through and grab a bite or a coffee or something with the current climate we’re in and people having to go across state lines depending on where you’re going. This might even include an overnight stay because other states still have truck laws in place, which means 24 hour waiting period or a 48 hour waiting period between appointments. Some states even have 72 hour waiting periods. So you can’t exactly drive back and forth between those appointments so you might need an over an overnight stay. So we haven’t gone that far with it but we definitely we definitely exist to assist all those added costs as well. We’re connected with Midwest access coalition which is a practical care funds they help with all those added costs outside of just the cost of abortion.

Doug Berger 24:51
Yeah, and I will make sure that the link to the Aggie fun and and other links are put up on the show notes.

Marcee Lichtenwald 24:59
Yeah. I’ll explain, I’ll send you our link tree, we just clicked created a link tree, so a bevy of resources on there, it’ll pretty much have Yeah, you can pretty much have access to just about every resource we can think of for this right now. So.

Doug Berger 25:15
And I noticed in the past week that there have been some new ad hoc groups holding protests around town here in Toledo. If so, if someone hears about a protest on social media, or by word of mouth, what should people be aware of when they get involved?

Marcee Lichtenwald 25:31
I think people should really know who the organizer is. And that doesn’t mean you don’t know who they are personally. I mean, that’s an added bonus. If you know they, if you know that, it’s if it’s someone that’s obviously done protests around the city, you know that they’re an activist within the city, that’s always an added bonus. But with these newcomers ask a lot of questions. And if they aren’t answering your question, this was probably not somebody that you want to trust and that you want to engage and protest with. Because if they’re not being upfront about what their objectives are, what permissions they do or don’t have, you’re taking a pretty huge risk. I mean, some people want to just get out and have their voices heard, they don’t want to get arrested. You know, they don’t, some people do. And that’s totally great. But some people don’t. So people need to go into these situations, with all the information informed consent is absolutely everything. And people need to be able to make decisions that are best for themselves. And you know, their own family lives. You know, hefty fines might be pretty difficult for someone, you know, you don’t want a chance getting your car towed, you don’t want a chance to have to, you know, find from the place, you don’t want a chance arise. If you want a chance, all the little things that’s completely 100% up to you. But you need to have all the information to make those decisions for yourself. So I, you know, protest is great. It’s, you know, it’s about community. It’s about community building and meeting others and, you know, meeting other people that feel as strongly as you do about these issues. But there’s also a lot of risk involved. And so you need to make sure that you can trust your organizer, and that they’re putting to get better organizing responsibility and putting to get putting together. You know, people want to be vigilantes. They can be vigilantes, but they have to be upfront about being vigilantes, you know, if they want to be radical, be radical, but be upfront about being a radical, don’t just expect people to blindly follow you, and then let them take the fall for any mishaps that might happen along the way. They have to know that that’s a possibility going in.

Doug Berger 27:26
Right, and I noticed that one of these new ad hoc groups protested a local church this weekend, which I find intriguing. I think if religious people protest at clinics, then supporters of abortion rights should protest at churches who are anti abortion. What do you think?

Marcee Lichtenwald 27:43
Yeah, I actually really agree with you. And I’ve engaged in protests outside of churches for that very reason. But again, it has to be done. It has to be done well, so know your organizer and trust your organizer. The face x, which is freedom of x, freedom of access to clinic entrances, it was something Bill Clinton passed back in the 90s, in response to like, the heavy civil disobedience that was going on, outside of abortion clinics, and people were, you know, invading clinics, they were chaining themselves, they were blocking doors, keeping patients from being able to go inside, so the face Act was created to stop that from happening. So you could actually bring federal charges against people for blocking these entrances. I think it’s very important for people to understand that this also applies to churches. Because little sidenote, the only way that they could pass the face Act was if they included churches. So because so many people were blocking entrances, that churches they had to include churches and that but so what people need to understand is if you are protesting outside of churches, there is always a potential for a felony charge. So people need to know ahead of time what they’re getting themselves into, if they’re going to be outside of these torches. So if there is no public property for you to be on, that’s a huge indicator that you might be chanting a felony charge. If there is nowhere for you to put an animal and a lesser angle if there’s nowhere for you to park your car. Your chancing finds your car, you know being towed, you know, the charge port, you know, you know, if you’re gonna park on private property, you can’t do that. Again, if people want to be vigilantes that’s 100% up to them, but they have to have all the facts and make those decisions for themselves. They have to know the risks.

Doug Berger 29:27
And one of the major downsides to the Dobbs ruling is it really puts the right to privacy in danger for everyone. Should we point that out to help build coalitions to help change it? The law focused on the effect on people with uteruses? Oh, gosh,

Marcee Lichtenwald 29:46
no, it’s going to affect everything. And I think Clarence Thomas even kind of laid that out for us. I mean, they’re not going to it didn’t start with Roe and it’s not going to end with Roe Roe was a major major blow because Roe was decided based on the right to privacy, but people Yeah, like I mentioned earlier, this is this is also religious ideology being forced onto us. They completely, they completely disregarded the First Amendment and this ruling because we have a right to freedom of which also means from religion. So what they’re doing is they’re basing these decisions because of religious ideology that they are actually forcing on to community that they’re working on to the people. Laws are going to be created our own state, our own state judges are, are going to rule on cases based on historical tradition, that language has already been taken out of a lidos. Yeah, out of a leaders decision. What defines historic tradition? I mean, we could probably do a whole other podcast on the the historical sortition of this country. So yeah, it definitely isn’t about people with uteruses. When it comes to this decision. It affects people with uteruses directly that decision does. But this is going to lead to into all sorts of rights being taken away from us. And we’re already seeing that happen. I mean, this this opens so many doors, it’s it’s utterly terrifying. And people need to be terrified. They need to they, they need to act and they need to lift up and they need to realize what just happened.

Doug Berger 31:10
Yeah, and the, the Dobbs decision was a monumental retraction of rights for women. And there have been some forceful words coming from women, about how men get involved in supporting abortion rights. So how can someone like me be supportive and get involved without stepping over that line?

Marcee Lichtenwald 31:32
I think the best thing is, is to make sure that, you know, people with uteruses are at the forefront, we really really, uh, you know, I’m gonna say we have to absolutely center black and indigenous people of color, these are the most affected people, you know, by, by these abortion bans, abortion bans or classes, they are racist, and black, indigenous people of color are going to be the most heavily affected. So we have to look for black leadership and, you know, leadership of women of color people of color within the circumstances, when it comes to white sis men and I am going to say white sis men, because unfortunately, you are the the most protected class. Well, I guess white women are probably the most protected class, but you have the most amount of privilege within this country. So you really you just you got to be supportive, but kind of also sit on the sidelines, don’t be the loudest person at the protest. Don’t be the one organizing the protests. Because that this is that’s not your space, we want your ally ship and we want you to have conversations with other men. have those conversations with your friends, don’t laugh at the jokes, don’t engage in those jokes, stop and say, Hey, you want to know what, you know, this is the type of thing that leads to violence against women. This is the type of thing that leads to a country that is controlling, you know, women’s lives and you know, people with uteruses lives and, you know, you just have to really examine things that you two have internalized, recognize that and yourself, you know, and kind of break those down. But when it comes when it comes down to it, we need you there. But don’t center yourself in those conversations don’t even have an ally, you know, don’t engage in not all men rhetoric, you know, because, again, when you do that, you’re centering yourself, because it is all men, you know, it really is. Because we all I mean, we all have our own internalized things that we’ve taken in because of our because of our privileges. So you have to recognize it, and you have to have those conversations with people but don’t center yourself.

Doug Berger 33:33
Okay, and as we wrap up today, what I like to do is I like to give our guests an opportunity to maybe restate any points that they made during our conversation or promote a project or event coming up and how we can get involved that sort of thing.

Marcee Lichtenwald 33:50
Yeah, absolutely, I guess for promotion. So abortion access front, who is this really amazing organization, they’re based out of New York, they’re going to be doing a boot camp day Operation Save abortion on July 17. So you can actually find abortion access front. I’m on all the socials, check them out on YouTube, feminist Buzzkill. They are going to be live that day. I can’t tell you a whole lot about what all they’re going to be doing. But it’s just going to be kind of like this whole activist boot camp that’s going to kind of help you you know, find out how you can get in, get involved within your community, the different things that you might be able to do. So check them out on their socials. Find out more about that, see how maybe you can get involved. We’re trying to have an event here in Toledo unfortunately, the last almost two weeks has been really really crazy. With dogs falling and planning this event has kind of fallen to the wayside. But even if we don’t even if we can’t have our own event on the 17th we are actually going to have one here locally so that people you know within this community can find out things that they can do to be active within this community. So follow Toledo abortion escorts, Toledo abortion center escorts on Facebook. We are also aligned twitter and instagram ran but we are most active on Facebook. That’s where we’re going to post the majority of our stuff and our events. So keep an eye on that. Also follow the Aggie funds on all the socials, we are on Facebook, we are on Twitter, we are on Instagram, the Agnes Reynolds Jackson funds. You can see our link tree there. Toledo Boston Center escorts also has a link tree, lots of resources and both of those. And Doug, I’ll make sure that you have that link so that you can post it there. But this fight is not over. It’s devastating right now. But it just, it goes on, we’re not done. We will be out there. And we will definitely do everything we can to make sure that people can access the abortion that they need the abortion care that they need.

Doug Berger 35:38
All right, well, thank you very much for your time. And I really appreciate it. And yeah, I will be very supportive of whatever actions people are taking. Because yeah, this is going to affect everybody, not just women.

Marcee Lichtenwald 35:52
Yeah, I mean, this this case is going to I mean, you know, we know how cases work. They’re going you know, they refer to other cases to make their current case. So this is going to trickle into so many different things are coming out for contraception. They’re coming after gay marriage, you know, they’re coming. We already see what they’re doing to trans rights in Ohio. I mean, it’s just going to be a huge trickle down effect.

Voice Over 36:14
Thank you for listening. For information about the topics in this episode, please visit the episode page at Glass City Humanist dot show. Glass City Humanist is an outreach of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, and is supported in part by a grant by the American Humanist Association. The AHA can be reached at americanhumanist.org SHoWLE can be reached at humanistswle.org. Glass City Humanist is hosted, written and produced by Douglas Berger, and he is solely responsible for the content our theme music is glass city jam composed using the amplify studio See you next time.

[Transcript is machine generated and lightly edited]

Credits

Written, produced, and edited by Douglas Berger and he is entirely responsible for the content. Incidental voice overs by Shawn Meagley

The GCH theme is “Glass City Jam” composed using Ampify Studio

This episode by Glass City Humanist is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.