[Danielle Balocca]: Hey Medford Bites listeners. Today's episode continues our series of conversations about the impact of the reversal of Roe versus Wade. Some of the content in today's episode includes discussion about sexual violence. If you or someone you know is looking for support around the impact of sexual violence, you can reach out to the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center if you're in Massachusetts, or the National Sexual Assault Hotline through RAINN. Phone numbers for both hotlines are listed in today's show notes. Hope you enjoy. All right. Thanks, everybody, for being here. If we could start by having our guest just introduce yourself with your name, pronouns, and just a bit about who you are.
[Mossalam]: Hi, everyone. My name is Nicole Mosalem. She, her. I'm a candidate for state representative here in Medford and Malden, as well as interfaith, community activist, and advocate.
[Danielle Balocca]: And my co-host here today is Chelly. Hey guys, Chelly here. And so Nicole, we've already recorded another interview with her. So you will make sure to listen to that to hear what her favorite restaurant in Medford is. But we've thought of a different question for today, which is, is there a type of restaurant that you would like to see come to Medford?
[Mossalam]: Oh Okay, so we have a lot of great restaurants that just opened up here in malden and I gotta say, one of the ones I really like the 110 grill they have you know fires outside with this really cozy you know vibe where you can just hang with your friends and enjoy some really great food. And I have to admit, they've got an excellent gluten-free menu.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, something to be said about the outdoor ambiance of the place after COVID. Yeah. Great. All right, well, I'm going to hand it over to Shelley to start our interview.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Great, let's get into it. I think to start, Nicole, maybe you could speak a little bit about how the recent overturning has affected you both professionally, but then also maybe if you're willing, maybe personally in the context of sort of family and friends.
[Mossalam]: Yeah, I mean, it's really difficult to describe and to put into words like this. difficult ball of fillings that so many of us are going through right now and it's on many different levels to begin professionally it's a I guess you could say it's renewed my efforts because. Now there's more passion for it. Now I have, like, I had meaning before, you know, I had motivation before, but now it's even stronger. And so on days where, you know, campaigning's tough, like we're door knocking every single day, you're talking to people, you know, there's, you have to spread yourself thin between family, work, everything. It's very grueling. But as I reach those low moments where you're just exhausted, I get this as a good reminder, and it helps pick me back up again. And the reason why that motivation is so strong is this ruling that came out of the Supreme Court. It affects so many different things. I mean, I've seen firsthand how abortion is health care. I was raised Roman Catholic, I became Muslim. Later on in life. And so I grew up in a very, you know what we dub a pro life household. But what really changed my mind and really opened my eyes, I had a friend who was severely epileptic and it was on birth control. Uh, she was also, you know, on heavy medication to control epilepsy. She found herself unexpectedly pregnant. And the doctors told her if she continued with the pregnancy, it would aggravate her epilepsy. She could die from it. and the medication had most likely already caused severe harm to the fetus. And they strongly recommended an abortion. She called all of her friends. Nobody was willing to go to the clinic. So here I am, you know, at the time I was like uber Catholic and entering a convent. I actually almost became a nun. And I was like, you know what? Compassion trumps everything. Just my friend needs me. I got to be there in that moment. And it was very eye-opening for me because I had to go and sit with her. It was a devastating choice on her part, but it really was a life and death situation. And as I'm sitting in the waiting room, waiting during her procedure, I'm seeing other young women in the waiting room who are receiving their care and waiting for their procedures. Some of them are crying. I mean, some of them spoke with me and shared their stories. It was, I suddenly knew that, you know, it's not a one-size-fits-all policy.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Sure.
[Mossalam]: You know, and women don't make these decisions willy-nilly. It's not like you wake up one day and suddenly, I want an abortion, you know? These are heart-rending choices. Government doesn't have a say in something that is so personal and something that affects somebody's life on that deep of a level. Government does not have a say. That's the woman, her family if she chooses, and her doctor, period. That's it. So that's a formative experience for me when it comes to this outlook. Roe doesn't just affect abortion. Roe affects many other decisions because in this country, how our laws are written legislatively, it's based off of precedent. And each case builds upon itself. And what Roe did was established the right to privacy. Not enumerated in the Constitution, but Roe made that legal leap. We have to set the precedent that we can assume that it's in there that the founders, the writers of the Constitution. You know, allude to it. They, you can make the assumption that they felt this was a right. And they used to make the road decision. is what gave us contraception, what overruled banning of interracial marriage, marriage equality for the LGBTQ community, and so much more. This isn't a one and done deal. These people are coming after what we now take for granted as the most basic of rights. So that gets into the other side of my motivation. It's not just policy. It's not just political. But after that decision was made, my sister called me up in tears, crying and begging me to fight. My sister is a member of the LGBTQ community. And she married her wife in Utah, was pregnant at the time that they got married from a non-consenting encounter. And in Utah, there was a law at the time called presumed fatherhood. that if you got married before the child was born and the child was born in wedlock, the father in this situation would be assumed to be the parent, it doesn't matter biology, and they get full parental rights. They put my sister's name on the birth certificate and thought all would be good, that this law would cover them. It didn't. And the biological donor, showed up and tried to sue for parental rights and take the child away from my sister, my nephew, her son, you know, blood doesn't matter, family. And she fought like hell, like our family did. And it was tough. And I mean, we spent thousands of dollars mental, emotional anguish and hardship. And my sister, God bless her, that state law changed in Utah to where it went from presumed father to presumed parent and gave that same right to same-sex couples. So this is why she was upset because she went through hell and back. And she's like, all of that can be undone. Now, if the Supreme Court continues further, like it's already indicated that it's going to, she's gonna lose her parental rights. How many families are gonna be torn apart by this ruling? And how many children of the future are gonna lose loving homes because of bigotry and intolerance? So people have lost this personal perspective and yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, and I think too, like, you know, your sister's in Utah and, you know, they'll, if what this decision sounds like, it'll change is that like each state can decide what they want. Right. And, and I wonder for you hoping to be a state rep in Massachusetts, what is, what will your role be in like the impact of these federal decisions on our state?
[Mossalam]: This is going to have to change doesn't come without a fight. And people here in Massachusetts think we're safe because we've got a Democratic majority in the House and in the Senate. And every once in a while, we may get, you know, a Democratic governor or, you know, get a Republican governor, as we have right now. Wake up call people. The row act in 2020 was vetoed by Governor Baker and passed that veto was overturned by just three votes. We had a three vote margin. You think it's safe, and it's not. That is an uncomfortable margin right there. So what happens when these lobbyists come to Massachusetts and start really cranking the screws? And not just with abortion, but keep in mind, state law can be changed by legislators. You may think it's one and done, and it's not. They can always go back and change the law. But now we're looking at, again, marriage equality. And we're looking at contraception. And we're looking at basic privacy rights that are going to go back to the states. So first and foremost, we've got to protect Massachusetts. And we can have zero doubt about anything being able to pass here in Massachusetts. But then we also got to consider this federal part. we can't just think about ourselves. You know, we've got 49 other states, you know, in this country, and women everywhere are going to be suffering the consequences from this disastrous decision. And the only way that we're going to put pressure on the federal government is if we build a coalition of states that are willing to work together to push back. And we need to get out of the defensive and go on the offensive. And that's when it comes to, a lot of this comes down to our constitution, to the constitution of the United States of America. And we're going to have to, you know, we need to call for a constitutional convention. If we need to make some amendments to our constitution, if we can't get our federal legislature to do what's right, which we already know it's in gridlock. These are the routes that we're going to have to do and we need to be prepared to take that fight. And so that's I'm telling you, people need to wake up.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I think some in states like Massachusetts, like you described, because I think we have a reputation for being or being pretty progressive. And a lot of those elected officials might be Democrats. Right. That we assume. that they're going to support some things like this in there that we can be like a little bit complacent sometimes and how we vocalize our support for these issues. And I think you make a great point and I did not know that that this that that was that like the codification of row in 2020. that only passed by three votes right and like I think these are tricky issues in terms of like they don't always fall down like party lines and there's a you mentioned like roman catholicism right that this is a very catholic state right and it's like traditionally been a very catholic state and so how we understand these issues those you know um Roe v. Wade, abortion, like women's rights and LGBTQ rights in a state that has that type of history. I think it's not always what we think it is. Right. So, I mean, I appreciate you bringing that up. And I think it's something to think about when you go to vote. Right. Like, I might vote for Democrats because that's the party that I align with. But what do I know about those Democrats? Right. We have a Democratic representative right now. And I don't know how he's voted on. I don't think it's like something that a lot of people know how he's voted on some of these things.
[Mossalam]: Yeah. That's why, you know, we did, recently we did a Twitter thread because we were letting people know that this is how, you know, our current representative who I'm challenging has been voting on these issues. And people were like, no, He doesn't believe that way or he hasn't voted that way. They don't want to believe it. And I'm like, okay, so you know people are accusing us of fake news, I'm like here's the receipts I don't like to make claims that I don't have data and proof. And so that's what we did. We did a whole Twitter thread about it where vote after vote after vote recorded, you know, in black and white, and people were just absolutely floored. And I was shocked at how, you know, much attention that one tweet got, basically. But now the the community knows and it's what's frustrating is we've been having this conversation on the doors and we get into this language of pro-life, pro-choice, anti-abortion, anti-life, whatever you want to go with it. But here's, I think, what it boils down to. And this is how I put it in terms when I'm speaking to people here in Medford. It is... Almost everyone I speak to believes that abortion is necessary on some level. Women have to have access. It doesn't matter your faith. It doesn't matter your culture. Like it crosses the lines everywhere. Like people understand that abortion is healthcare. They just have this misconception that it's, you know, one day a woman wakes up and says, I don't want this pregnancy. I'm gonna get rid of it. I'm like, no, if you really, want to be pro-life, and I think we should be claiming that title. If you really are pro-life, then you want to take care of that life and everybody impacted by it, everybody caring for it, every moment that that life exists, from first breath to last. And so the fact that we have children going to the doctors with UTIs because they're sitting in diapers, dirty diapers all day, because their family can't afford, you know, diapers and we don't cover it with SNAP benefits or any other benefits. It's a pure cash expense for the parents. And that's a lot, like babies go through a lot of freaking diapers. I got three, I know. That's shameful. Or what about, and people are shocked to hear it, that in this day and age, a woman can still lose her job for being pregnant. And the loophole, the carve out, is that if they're in that probationary period, when they're first hired, and it can be upwards 90 months, or I mean, excuse me, 90 days or six months, so three to six months, A woman could be in her initial probationary period when you first start a job. You find yourself unexpectedly pregnant and your employer finds out they can get rid of you. No questions asked.
[Danielle Balocca]: Sure.
[Mossalam]: And what about health care? Like for myself, my first pregnancy was in Utah. That's a Republican state. And, you know, they're better than most other Republican states because they actually have a little bit of compassion. But even then, Like I didn't have healthcare and because I didn't have access to healthcare when I was younger and I had a genetic disorder that went undiagnosed and caused a lot of problems during my first pregnancy, I almost died. They went out and they told my family that they were giving up and I wasn't going to make it. And I miraculously, you know, I was hemorrhaging and I miraculously stopped. And that was after they had already done more than everything that they could do. And that was a steep recovery. I was in and out of the hospital for a while. The condition that I have flared up really bad. I was in a wheelchair. And after a certain amount of time, they take your healthcare away because yeah, they give it to you while you're pregnant, but they don't give it to you for like postnatal when you're trying to take care of a baby. Yeah. I'm like, we're not taking a look at the whole picture. And so there were times when it was very difficult and I ended up with permanent damage to my body because I couldn't access the care that I needed. And that, and I was only able to have my two other children because it was here in Massachusetts, where I had more access to health care, which is, and I was able to see the difference like night and day, we don't have that in every single state. just people don't think about the complexity of this issue. And until you uplift women and relieve these burdens so that they don't have to think about this being a type of scenario where, oh, a child or my job, my ability to keep a roof over my head and food in my mouth. And if they have other children, be able to provide for their other children. or a life and death situation of, do I continue with my pregnancy knowing I'm a high-risk pregnancy and I don't have access to proper medical care? People don't think in these terms, that's really what's going through a woman's head. It's not like, oh, I just don't care about this life growing inside of me. It's really like you think about all these other things. And so once you put it in those terms, people really wake up, and they really see it. And we agree I'm like, I would rather as a legislator be supporting life and relieving these types of situations than just, you know, making everybody suffer and say yeah, you can't have it.
[Danielle Balocca]: And it sounds, Shelly's made this point a few times, I think that when we think about the creation of a potential life, there's most likely two people involved, right? And these, this, like the overturning of Roe, it only focuses on the pregnant person and how to like almost like criminalize their decision, right?
[Mossalam]: Yeah. But what about some of these guys who go around and take absolutely no responsibility and have how many children by how many different women? Where's their responsibility? You know, we don't hold them accountable. And what about the women who have been raped but didn't speak up? We know most rapes do not go reported.
[Danielle Balocca]: Right? Yeah. We talked about this on a different episode about how sexual assault is difficult to prove. And if that's the exception for abortion, how is that supposed to magically start working?
[Mossalam]: Yeah. I'm like, you know, this is a deeply emotional topic, you know, for myself and for other women. People don't realize how deeply seated these issues are and how widespread. And I'm gonna reveal a shocker that I don't reveal that often, but I have permission. Every single woman in my family, in my immediate family, has been sexually assaulted and raped. And none of them were reported or prosecuted. There are three of us.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. And I think, you know, Roe brings to mind like bodily autonomy, right? And like rights that we have over our own body and sexual trauma certainly overlaps with that, right? Like the ways in which people think they can control our bodies or, and in this legislation, like directly does, right? This is like somebody making a choice for us and taking a choice away from us. And I work in this field of sexual violence and I think what this decision in that same way, right? Like how we're taking choice away is really triggering for survivors, whether or not they've had to access abortion services or not.
[Mossalam]: Yeah. And it's, we don't, society doesn't have the proper perspective. And so I can guarantee you, I make a promise to every single woman, And I mean that, you know, whether, however you identify, you know, born woman or not, but you know, every woman, every member of the LGBTQ community, every marginalized person out there, I feel the pain. And the anger that's going through so many of you right now. I share that and I will fight like hell wherever I end up doing it, whether it's in the state house, like I'm hoping, or, you know, anywhere else that I can go after this, I'll be fighting like hell. Cause we're not going down without it.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, so I thank you for all of this, like for the personal sharing and the hopes for your position to be elected. I'm wondering if there's anything else that you were hoping to share with us today.
[Mossalam]: Just I really implore people wake up before it's too late and don't think we're safe. Don't make if your decision is coming down to you know, oh, it's everything else is okay and we're safe here in Massachusetts. We're not. You know, the moment that we stop caring about these issues, the moment we become complacent, we've just learned that's when it goes away.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, um,
[Chelli Keshavan]: Earlier while speaking, you were talking about coalition building. And I wonder in conclusion, if maybe you could speak to, I'm sorry, what that would look like and if the ROAC could serve as a template for other states. Sorry.
[Mossalam]: You sound like you got a lot of fun going in the background over there.
[Chelli Keshavan]: So much joy. But yeah, just if you could speak to what this coalition building look like, if there's space for templates, what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong?
[Mossalam]: Yeah. You know, I think we're going to have to look at those two came before us, you know, this is they formed. So whenever we have made changes to the Constitution, it's been by forming, you know, these coalitions, state by state, and bringing us all together. And that's what we're going to have to do. We're going to have to have delegations that are going to work with each other and build up the state coalition. Now we have, I think what's different between now and in the past is we have better communication, better travel. So it doesn't take us forever and a day to get across the country and communicate with other people. We have better messaging, better cooperation.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Is the flip side of that digital surveillance of women in the form of like period tracking apps, sort of planned parent visits, whatever it may be, those feel like moments to attack women?
[Mossalam]: They do. And so we're going to have to be You know, like I said, we're going to be very proactive about making sure that women are protected and I think the legislation that was recently passed here in Massachusetts is going to go, you know, good way towards that we need to work on education fronts to and let women know okay these services are safe. and your information is not going to be shared. These services are not safe. I saw a great Facebook ad recently by Attorney General Maura Healey where she was talking about crisis pregnancy centers to get the word out that these are not going to give you accurate information. These are not real reproductive health care centers. They're just going to give you their biased view and that's it. We need to do better about protecting women. Again, that's an education piece legislatively making sure that we're not cooperating with other states who are demanding this information. And then also making sure, I think this is going to come down to again, you know, a constitutional amendment, because if it's apparently, you know, even though the Bill of Rights says that your rights are not limited to what we've enumerated here, we just felt these needed to be specifically laid out. And even though that's what it says, apparently, That's what we're getting is just, it has to be said in language from the 1700s, which has like what to do with now. So we need to update. We need to update the document. And so this is gonna be a long haul. People need to get on board with it.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Really appreciate making the time for us. Shelley, any other questions?
[Chelli Keshavan]: Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your energy.
[Mossalam]: Thank you.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks to Nicole and Shelley. A full interview regarding Nicole's campaign will be coming out closer to voting day, which is September 6th, 2022. 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.