[Danielle Balocca]: Hey Medford Bites listeners. I'm super excited to present today's episode. Before I get to the interview, I wanted to announce that the Medford Family Network Gala is back. The night under 10,000 lights is scheduled for Saturday, September 10th at Wright's Pond from 6 to 10 p.m. Tickets and sponsorship opportunities are still available. Check out the link in today's show notes to find out more. Hope you enjoy the interview. All right, thanks, everybody, for joining us today. If we could just start by having our guests introduce yourself with your name and pronouns and just a bit about who you are.
[Laura Rotolo]: So hi, my name is Laura Rotolo. I also pronounce it Laura. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm she, her, hers. I live in Medford. I am a lawyer and advocate. I work currently at the ACLU of Massachusetts. the American Civil Liberties Union, where I am a field director. So I lead our organizers, lobbyists, and political advocates in all of the work that the ACLU does. So my base is in immigrants' rights. I'm an immigrant myself from Argentina. And most of my career has been defending and protecting and promoting immigrants' rights in the United States. But currently, I lead a team of advocates that work on a variety of civil rights issues. I'm a mom, two kids in Medford, and I live near Wrights Pond.
[Danielle Balocca]: Oh, that's sweet. I live near Wrights Pond as well. So before we get into our rather serious topic today, I'll ask you the question that I ask everybody on the podcast, which is, what is your favorite place to eat in Medford?
[Laura Rotolo]: My go-to is Tenocht.
[Danielle Balocca]: And do you have a favorite?
[Laura Rotolo]: Once a week, probably. When you're at dinner, too. My kids love it. It's a favorite of everyone's.
[Danielle Balocca]: Do you have a favorite item on the menu?
[Laura Rotolo]: My favorite is the tortas, which is the sandwiches. But we also get burritos and burrito bowls.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. All right. And I'll mention just Shelly is here co-hosting with me today. Shelly here. And you might hear my voice is a little gone. So I'm going to lean on Shelly today to do a lot of the interviewing.
[Chelli Keshavan]: I'll pass it to you. So let's get into it. I think to start, maybe Laura, you could speak to some of the ways that the recent overturning of Roe has impacted you in the immediate sort of professional world that you move in.
[Laura Rotolo]: So the overturning of Roe v. Wade was On the one hand, well, it's monumental, historic, devastating. There's no overstating the impact that this is going to have on millions of people in the country. Because we got that bizarre sneak peek in May, it gave us a little bit of time to organize. But it also gave us a little bit of pause that maybe perhaps this wasn't going to happen. But then, of course, we saw just very recently that the Supreme Court did go ahead and overturn Roe versus Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to an abortion. I think it is. Many of us felt we said these words to each other, my friends and I said, we feel like we've been punched in the stomach. It was a very. physical feeling that morning where I don't remember my physical reaction, but I remember my kids came to me and said, mom, you just screamed. Then you put your head down and you didn't move for a long time. And we said, what is happening? And I think a lot of us felt that way, that after 50 years of believing that we had made progress, that we had this constitutional protection to bodily autonomy that was ripped out from under us. So I think we're all still reeling in that very emotional reaction and at the same time getting ready for the work that is coming at us very quickly now.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yes, I share the visceral reaction that maybe you and others had. My daughter and I were lucky enough to see you speak at the abortion rally with Maura Healey. And one of the comments that was made was sort of, you know, not to worry, abortions will be protected in the state of Massachusetts. And so my mind sort of went to, well, you know, what does that mean? Is that really true? If there's fear around, like, can this really happen at the federal level? What does that mean for state level? And then, yeah, maybe if you could speak to thoughts around abortion security in Massachusetts, and then maybe even what it might mean here at home in Medford and for folks needing birth control options locally.
[Laura Rotolo]: Absolutely, and I think we can still feel good that abortion is legal in Massachusetts, to this day, and there's no sense that it will go away anytime soon. So that is all correct. What the advocates in Massachusetts did was to make sure that a year ago, the state legislature enshrined that protection into statute. And so we have, we call it the Roe Act that was passed. It was vetoed by Governor Baker, but the legislature was able to override that veto. So let's not forget that veto happened, but we do have that protection in Massachusetts. Access is a different issue. And we've always struggled with access for the same groups of people that have struggled to get medical care in other contexts. So people without means, black and brown people, women mostly, of course. And it's the same groups of people that don't have the same access as, you know, wealthier, more privileged. groups of people and so we struggle with that access, I think we still have more work to do in Massachusetts. Currently, there's a new coalition that's now called beyond row coalition. And we're fighting for those things to make sure that we expand access and at this point, we need to make sure that we protect providers, because I think one of the things we need to realize is that with the overturning of Roe and the losing of the constitutional protection, it's also a mass criminalization of abortion. Yes. So we know that other states are going to try to prohibit people from leaving their state and coming here for abortions. And what does that mean for those people getting abortions here, for those people providing abortions here? We need to make sure we protect providers in the state and protect people who are coming to seek care in our state but may live somewhere else. And so there's still a lot more work to do. If you are a person who needs an abortion now, please do reach out. Planned Parenthood is the best place to go in Massachusetts right now to get you set up to visit a provider. If your doctor can't help you at the moment, Planned Parenthood is a really great resource.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, I've had, in sort of like grappling with all that's happening, I've had kind of two larger thoughts. One being the kind of relationship between regulating abortion and or birth control and sort of a raw capitalism to view the female body as a driving product force that maintains a lower class, that maintains a pipeline to military capacity, that maintains sheep, a working class, the whole nine, and wondering where and when folks are having conversations that are saying as much. I don't know if you have thoughts or you've seen materials that are commenting either in support or against that kind of line of thought.
[Laura Rotolo]: Let me make sure I understand the thinking about, I guess, the economic part of this, right? and the disproportionate impact, of course, that this has on people of lower economic means. And I guess, are you asking like, you know, is this going to create some sort of an industry or is there?
[Chelli Keshavan]: I think my mind goes to the sort of term baby factory. And in that, if women have access to deciding when they become parents, then their capacity for education and higher earning and whatever self-driven choices may be is much higher.
[Laura Rotolo]: Absolutely. And that is something that was completely missing from the Supreme Court majority opinion. There wasn't any talk on the impact of this decision on women's capacity to lead full lives, women's capacity to be part of both the economic, cultural fabric of society. I mean, I think we know what happens when women don't have bodily autonomy, right, and how this impacts. entire families and obviously, I should say, not just women, of course, many people, including the transgender community, who, of course, of course, has been devastated by this as well. But we have seen the impact on women's liberation, on women's capacities by being forced to carry a child. term to give birth to a child, to use their body in that way, and to most of the time raise that child, right? It's completely missing from the analysis and the Supreme Court's majority opinion. There's a lot of talk about the fetus. There's a lot of talk about a potential human, a potential life, as they call it. No talk about the impact of this is that it means forced work of labor, of carrying a child on people's bodies. And that's missing. I think that has been one of the greatest, you know, sort of even just the legal critiques of this opinion.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yes. You used the term bodily autonomy. Another piece that's been on my mind is I'm hearing so many stories of you know, the what ifs. Was this rape? Is this some sort of medical issue? Is it IVF? And not to disparage those pieces because they are so relevant, but my mind also is thinking about a woman's right not to share that. Like, I said I wanted an abortion and that's what I'm doing and I'm not needing to offer validation to sort of satisfy an outside energy. And thinking about the ways that there are no regulations for men's bodies and there is never a time that they have to explain away independent bodily choice, as you know. Yeah, I'm appreciating the term bodily autonomy because it feels like there's so many spaces where we're asked to say, to explain why.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's not something I've thought about before. And my primary job is working with survivors of sexual trauma. And that idea of having to prove sexual assault, I don't know what the majority opinion says about this, but if there's exceptions for rape and incest, having to prove that in order to get an abortion, and how we know it's hard to prove just general incest.
[Laura Rotolo]: Right, and I mean, talk about traumatizing and re-traumatizing somebody to prove that. But I think what we should be clear about is that this Supreme Court decision opens the door to not even having those exceptions. So those exceptions, if they exist, are going to be defined by state legislatures. They're going to say, in the case of rape or incest or assault, abortion will be allowed, and they will define. And who is that? It's elected officials. It's politicians who are, you know, responding to whatever pressures are on them from their constituents or their lobbyists, they will define those terms. But some, we've already seen, will completely ban it. It doesn't matter if it's rape incest. It doesn't matter if it's prior to 15 weeks. They now are able to have a full out ban on abortion.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah. One of the questions Danielle and I have thought about is what are steps that folks can be taking to that person who says this feels so large and so overwhelming, I'm not even sure what me and my person or me and my own family can be doing. I think personally, I'd also like to add to that, what can men be doing? I feel like birth control harangues the wrong body. or just birth control ranks among money. And so, yeah, do you have advice, thoughts on that mind who would like to contribute and isn't really sure how?
[Laura Rotolo]: I think there are many short term things we can do and long term things we can do. So I think in the short term, it is supporting those states where abortion is being panned. So donating to the abortion fund for the states where that's still available, for example, donating to any organizations doing transportation. Of course, that may become illegal at some point, and we're going to have to continue to fight that. Donating to the organizations Like, you plan parenthood who are doing the work so that's that's very short term. And in the short term, I think being local, being active, being out there on the street, we saw record turn out on the street opinion. And then after it came out. And, you know, judges don't live in a vacuum. They say that they're just interpreting the law. We see the wide spectrum of the way that you can interpret the way that you can interpret the Constitution itself. They don't make those decisions in the vacuum. So to the extent that we can be vocal and show that we are against this, I think that's really important, both in the short term and the long term. And then long-term, I think we need to have some very hard discussions about what this movement looks like in the long run. How are we going to, you know, the anti-choice activists did not stop in 1973. They organized and it was a 50-year battle for them that they are at this moment winning. What does our 50-year battle look like? What is our 50-year plan? How do we change public opinion? No, because even the majority of the public is in favor of abortion. How do we make that overwhelming? How do we change public opinion? How do we elect legislators, presidents, mayors, every elected position who is who are going to defend and promote and protect and expand abortion rights? What does that 50 year fight look like? And, you know, having those very hard conversations?
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, I'm with you. I think there's a divisiveness in the left that does not lend to, like in Audre Lorde, revolution is not a one-time event. That just because there are wins doesn't mean that those can be solidified without further thought.
[Laura Rotolo]: That's just because people who are, you know, in, in cities, people who are more liberal, we think a lot and we see connections between right so maybe we won't vote for a pro choice elected official because they're really bad on other issues. And that's not a bad thing. You know, it's good that we think about intersectionality. It does make the work harder. But I think if we name it and we, you know, we prioritize this issue, which is now clearly a priority, it's something that we're just going to need to be doing for the next few decades.
[Danielle Balocca]: But I think the leaving these decisions up to the states, it makes me wonder, like, what are there other things that we need to be paying attention to? Are there other things that like potentially could be threatened by this move?
[Laura Rotolo]: Absolutely. And I think the moment for me that solidified that fear was reading Justice Thomas's concurrent. He very clearly, it's a very short concurrence or anybody who wants to read it very clearly said, actually I think this doesn't go far enough. I think that this whole doctrine called substantive due process, which is just, you know, it's a legal term, but it's the sort of basis for a lot of the rights that we have. It means that it's something that was not maybe named in the original constitution, but that, you know, you do have these rights to like your bodily autonomy. And this includes things like same-sex marriage and includes things like, a homosexual sex, like actual intimacy between partners, that was the Lawrence decision, and includes things like contraception. He is ready to go after all of those, and he said so in his concurrence. He said, I actually think this whole doctrine should not exist. I think it's fake. And we should revisit all of those rights in upcoming decisions. The majority didn't say that. They said, no, no, no, we're just talking about abortion. Abortion is different. It's because of this thing called potential life. But I mean, that's also what they said before they got confirmed. Right. So the you know, the justices in the dissent don't believe them. And, you know, Justice Thomas is clear that he wants to go further. So I think they're going to come after LGBTQ rights. They're going to come after gender affirming care. That is top on their list. Right. They don't want, you know, especially people under 18 to receive this care. They're going to come after contraception. We don't know where this ends, which is why the long term fight is so important. Again, I think in Massachusetts, we are in a good position because our advocates have been so strong and have pushed our state legislature to be progressive on these issues. But there's way more work to be done. We have to protect these in Massachusetts and then we have to help our states around us.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, while you're speaking, I'm thinking, does that create a space where Massachusetts could function as sort of a template or a model for what other states could be looking to do? Are there places where we're documenting wins and thinking about how we could improve? And then, like, how do those details maybe get shared with folks? And by folks, probably I mean me first, so I can be more educated.
[Laura Rotolo]: Yeah. And to be honest, the map right now is in chaos because, you know, if you if you look right now, if you Google what are the states that have banned abortion, that may be different a week ago than today. You know, the conservatives are filing legislation and lawsuits all over the country. Those are being hashed out in state legislatures, in courts. The sort of map of rights is in total disarray right now. So we have to be vigilant about these things that we care about in all the states.
[Chelli Keshavan]: I'm sorry, I'm jumping all over the place. Do you have thoughts on the optics of, I mean, I think last week was just Kind of insane, but the optics of the existing court talking about, like, nominations to seats or taking seats moving as fast as they did just before. It was on boarded or is on boarded.
[Laura Rotolo]: So, you know, there's there is some talk of adding seats to the Supreme Court. It doesn't seem like that is real. That is that actually has any possibilities in this current Congress. You know, there's I think some people on the left have been talking about this a lot like, OK, well, let's just add some more seats in the Supreme Court and pack it right. I don't, I don't see that happening under a Biden administration. So, you know, it's going to be about replacing some of these justices as they retire. You know, but that's, but they're very young, right? They're very young. They can be on there for 10, 20, 30 more years.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, do you have thoughts on Justice Ginsburg, the way that she managed her ending, as opposed to making space for a different justice to take a seat before this Trump shift? And maybe that's one of the last questions, because that's a big one.
[Laura Rotolo]: You know, nobody can fault a person who has worked so hard around their life to say, OK, this is my moment. to leave. I think that, you know, that was her personal decision to make. You know, obviously she was a champion of all these rights. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Before, before leaving.
[Chelli Keshavan]: So, yeah, I'm so grateful to you. I know Danielle is too. I clearly this conversation just is exists in concentric circles of thought. I wanna be mindful of time and ask you maybe if you have any last final comments, thoughts before we wrap up.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I feel like this conversation could look different in a few months and hopefully for a better reason, but it's hard to, I find myself, it's being hard to sort of remain optimistic, but I really appreciate you giving us all these insights and hopefully we can continue this conversation in the future.
[Laura Rotolo]: And I'll just say that if people wanna get involved locally, the website is massbeyondrow.com. So it's M-A-S-S beyond R-O-E.com. There's a coalition that's being built now. And so if you wanna get involved, receive the updates, that's a great place to be so far. That is Planned Parenthood, Reproductive Equity Now, and ACLU that are the anchors of that coalition. And I hope more will join. and make that coalition stronger, make sure that we have many voices at the table. And donate to abortion funds. Abortion funds around the country are really struggling right now to meet demands. If you're able to do that, it's a really great way to get involved right now.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Thank you so much. Thank you.
[Laura Rotolo]: Thank you so much for having me.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks so much to Laura and Shelly. Links to resources mentioned in the episode can be found in today's show notes, as well as more information about the MFN Gala. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode, and as always, if you have feedback about this episode or ideas for future episodes, you can email medfordpod at gmail.com. You can also subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites. Never Bites. Good job.