Boom! Lawyered

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.

Jess, a savvy political commentator, and Imani, a legal and social issues expert, explore pressing questions from listeners. They dissect Vice President Kamala Harris's reproductive rights messaging and the realities of potential abortion law changes in a second Trump term. The duo critiques the Biden administration’s approach to emergency abortion care, reflecting on the healthcare crisis. They also tackle the Comstock Act's outdated relevance and discuss necessary judicial reforms, all sprinkled with insightful humor.

Chris Geidner, a legal expert well-versed in LGBTQ+ rights, joins the discussion to unpack the Biden administration's new Title IX rule banning sex discrimination in federally funded schools. They dive into the ongoing legal battles across states seeking to block these protections. The conversation explores landmark cases like the Supreme Court's Bostock decision and the implications for LGBTQ+ students. Chris also sheds light on the impact of judicial trends on trans rights, highlighting critical legal challenges ahead.

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.

Special guest Lizz Winstead discusses expanding courts, abortion access, and moderating a satirical debate. Other topics include starting a band called Mife and Misotones, Kamala Harris in Biden's campaign, using humor in political resistance, and unique advocacy in reproductive politics.

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.