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host: let's start with the texas abortion case. guest: the court desaied to allow an unconstitutional taking of women's rights to go forward until they can finally get around to making a decision on the merits. the court decided to hear a challenge against s.b.-8 on november 4 but that's just oral argument. instead of staying the law, reverting it back to what the constitution requires it to be, while they wait for those arguments, the supreme court allowed texas' unconstitutional bounty hunting scheme to go forward until they hear the case. they'll hear the case in november. but on december 1, they're hearing a whole different challenge to roe v. wade coming out of mississippi. i don't know what they will do

but there is a big chance they'll decide bolt of those cases together sometime in june and that texas' law will at least be legal until then. i believe that the -- we can talk about what i believe in terms of how they'll decide it later but i think procedurally it's very likely that they will decide both texas and mississippi at the same time next year. host: how could they decide both at once? what are they deciding? guest: i think that there are two different kinds of problems here. one is the frontal attack on roe v. wade and planned parenthood v. casey and a woman's right to choose. that's coming out of texas which is asking the supreme court to overturn roe v. wade and mississippi that has a ban that's more traditional, doesn't have bounty hunters. i believe the court is trying to do this. i believe the reason why

republicans have tried to stack and pack the court over the past 30 years is to get enough justices to overturn roe v. wade. i believe they have the votes to do that. however, i don't think they're going to say we overturn roe v. wade that would make peopling anally. instead they'll accept that -- the mississippi 15-week abortion ban as some kind of mumbo jumbo reimagining of planned parenthood v. casey and our current abortion rights. the thing going on in texas that i do think they'll eventually get around to stopping is the bounty hunter business. you can't violate the constitution by deputizing private citizens to do the work for you. we just can't have a society if that's what they're going to do, right? even though i think they agree with what texas is trying to do in terms of violate the

constitution i don't think they agree with how they're get, and the constitution. i think that eventually, whether it's november or december or june or some point in the near future i think eventually scoa tus -- scotus will get around to stopping the bounty hunter system if that can go forward it's hard to have a sort of laws where that's a thing we can do. host: why? as it's written in your opinion, what could private citizens do? guest: just take it to its logical conclusion. look, i don't like the second amendment very much, i don't think it's been interpreted correctly if i'm in a blue state and i say you know what, i can't as a state do anything to do gun regulation but any private citizen that just wants to go -- want to sue everybody who has a firearm for $10,000 go right on ahead. any private citizen that wants to sue smith & wesson or remington every time there's a school shoot, go right on ahead.

that's a thing that you can -- you couldn't do that. that would be violative of law and of constitutional standards and it would be done specifically to subvert the constitutional standards, right? if you can think about the second amendment, or a fourth amendment case, i'm the state not violating your weekly searching your house i'm just saying that dog the bounty haunter can do it. you expect have a society that way. i think eventually the texas theme of deputizing private citizens to enforce and unconstitutional rule, i think that eventually has to go away even if overall in the mississippi case, the supreme court does eventually overturn roe v. wade or significantly weaken abortion rights to the point that they are basically nonexistent in red states that want to take them away. host: on the texas law from the associated press reporting, they quote kim behrline schwartz a

spokesperson for texas right to life. she's happy toe law remains in place. she says quote, the law will continue to save an estimated 100 by bys behr day and the justices will discuss whether the lawsuits are valid in the first place. your reaction to saving babies? guest: that's not what they're doing, they're controlling women. they're forcing women, some of them victims of rape and incest, forcing them against their will to carry a person to term. that's not saving babies, that's barbaric if you ask me. so i don't agree with what -- how she's framing the debate here. again, we have a law on the books. we have constitutional standards on the books that are supposed to try to address this. the reason why roe v. wade draws, just to be clear, the reason why roe v. wade draws the line at fetal viability is because legally that's the only

place it makes sense to draw the line. at the point where the fetus can live outside the mother, can live without the mother's generosity and largess, ok. at that point, you have a legitimate interest or could argue you have a legitimate state interest in the health, safety and future of that fetus. but beforehand, before, when the fetus is attached to the mother and cannot do anything, cannot survive, without the mother's nutrients, bloodstream, whatever, like, that has to be an internal bodily autonomy choice for the woman and anything less is nonsensical at the -- as a legal proposition. if we start from the premise that women are people, then the right to their own bodies has to be one of the very most fundamental people rights that we have. host: what are some other key cases you're watching this term

from the supreme court? guest: oh, so, by june we're going to be in situation where you will have more rights if you own a gun than if you own a womb because the other thing the supreme court is doing is massively recalibrating, pun intended, gun rights. currently there's a case called state rifle company versus new york, they're trying to make it so gun licensing is unconstitutional. is a new unconstitutional violation of the second amendment they just made up. now not only does the second amendment allegedly protect the right to bear arm farce militia, now it also protects the right to bear arms for self-defense, not what it says, and that because you have a right to bear farms self-defense gun licenses and gun permitting for a concealed carry weapon to car you ry your gun outside the house is also unconstitutional. that's the new move from the conservatives and i think they have five or six votes on the

supreme court to do it. that's a huge case that's coming down. i think also will be decided in june. there are some death penalty cases that are also big this term if you remember at the end of trump's term, the guy went on a killing spree, the supreme court had a couple of opportunities to look at live death penalty issues wherein the biden administration, even though biden has allegedly, he's allegedly anti-death penalty his justice department is continuing the procedural posture of killing various people. that case has been heard already. we're waiting on the decision for that. look. the conservatives didn't steal a seat on the supreme court for nothing. they didn't rush to fill a seat after the election had already started for nothing. there's a reason why they put these justices on the court and all those -- and they're about to do that now.

and we are now living in a time of consequences. and this term will be one of those consequences of having conservatives control the supreme court. we're going to get more deaths. more gun rights. and fewer women rights. host: you also wrote a piece about president biden's supreme court commission. he created this to look at possible changes to the supreme court. you say the final report about to comeout, you say the commission is designed to fail. why? guest: it was a complete waste of time. everything i just said by the way. a conservative sitting at home will be like, yeah, that's what we want. everything i just said is what democrats are like, that's not what i voted for. how do we stop this? and the only way to stop that is to reform the court. the only way to stop everything i just said is to engage in supreme court reform. and expansion. and biden instead of taking that energy and taking that -- those ideas and kind of rolling with

it, he sent it off to a commission to die and they effectively killed any momentum and any hope of really changing the way the supreme court works while biden is president. the commission was stacked with law professors and advocates which are great people. i know some of the people on the commission. they're really smart people. but they're law professors and advocates, advocates who have to go in front of the supreme court every day to argue for their clients. a person who has to go argue in front of john roberts on thursday is not the guy ument on monday being like, maybe john roberts shouldn't have so much power. that's not how it works. the commission had no court reformers on it. biden's commission for supreme court reform had no court reformers on it. which tells you what that commission was all about. and their report, their draft report is just -- it's gobbledy gook. some commissioners believe this

while others believe that. it's not designed to advocate. it's not designed to inspire. it's not designed to move the needle. it's not designed to make recommendations. think about it this way. the supreme court is the only way in the country that operates without ethics rules. that could be a reform. but instead of we are looking at ethics reform, the supreme court commission didn't touch t didn't even study it. this reform, this commission was designed to do nothing to give biden cover for doing nothing. they have done their job very

well. host: the president's commission on scotus was established by exec executive order in april, 180 days to study the legality of reform proposals. expanding the number of justices. 36 legal scholars, loirs lawyers, and federal judges held more than 17 hours of discussion. their mienl report was due. sippedy in woodbridge, illinois. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. i want to make one comment than then i'll ask a question. i had an abortion before i hit my 20's. after i hit my 20's, i'm 67 now, and i pray every day of my life for the lord to forgive me for what i have done. i want him to tell me if this is true or not. when they passed it in 1973 i believe my government, now i realize what they have done is

they shaped it and crammed it in the constitution. so i have paper in hand right now. tell me where in the constitution or any papers that gives a woman a right to kill an unborn human being? i'll write it down and look it up. thank you. guest: ok. we are not killing an unborn. we are talking about a woman having rights. the first place i would look for an abortion right is the fourth amendment which says the government cannot legally search and seizure your stuff. i would count your womb as your stuff. shouldn't have the opportunity to seize your womb and use it for their benefit. that's number one. i would look at the 14th amendment which says there is an equal protection clause that men and women have been to be treated equally. if a man has complete control over their reproductive system through the whole nine month period, why can't the woman have complete reproductive control over heresies tell?

i would look at the 14th amendment. another place you look is the right to privacy. the constitution specifically say there is a right to privacy? no. but we can infer that there is a right to privacy from all of the other amendments which don't make sense without a privacy right. then we have the ninth amendment which says, not all the amendments listed in this list are the only rights that we have. that specifically contemplates amendments not listed. if all those, that's the classic argument for the right to choose, if all of those don't work, i would offer you this 13th amendment which says clearly that in cannot be forced by the government. if you want to tell me a person who is pregnant can be forced against her will to do that labor for free, i'm going to tell you that that is a point and click violation of the 13th amendment. 14th, 9th, 13th.

host: roe v. wade, what was decided? what did the justices point to? guest: they pointed to the rights to privacy. the right to privacy which was first articulated in the right to birth control. never forget the attack op abortion rights and attack on the birth control are the same attack. they are coming after the same constitutional under pinning. the right to privacy was first articulated in griz wold -- griz walled -- grizwaldv. connecticut. because of all these other rights that wouldn't make sense without a right to privacy, there must be a right to privacy in the constitution. if there is a right to privacy in the constitution, then, again, this is important, then the state has -- still has a legitimate interest in the health and safety of the fetus, but that legitimate interest cannot attach until the fetus is viable.

until 24 weeks. there is not abortion on demand. that is not the legal landscape that we all deal with. what we have is before viability we treat the woman as a full person. after fetal viability, we allow for some state legitimate interest. after the fetus can survive without the mother we allow for some state interest into how that fetus moves on, goes on. the point it can be extracted from the mother and have some kind of chance of survival, we then have a state interest. that is what roe decided. when you move the line from where roe is, fetal viability, to any time before that, six weeks. you might not have to say i'm obliterating roe, but you are. you are obliterating the legal line that we have drawn in this country of viability. and you are just getting into morality. my morals. your morals.

if the law is simply a contest of whose proper ralt wins -- whose morality wins, we can never find peace f we keep the law the scientific line, the fetal viability, we can move forward. host: indianapolis, paul, an independent. caller: good morning. i'm a long-time follower of dorsey day. i tend to agree with the nation on a lot of social justice issues. i am afraid i have to part company here on the abortion issue. the roe v. wade wasn't decided on human life. the justices admitted like all medical schools in the united states, i spent 40 years looking at this, the human life actually begins at conception. what they said was, that the fetus was not a person, that the

mothers didn't have rights -- didn't have rights that the mother was required to observe. in other words, there is really no -- if a fetus is not a person until actually separated from the mother, there shouldn't be any legitimatations on abortion. limitations on the abortion. the state's interest is in keeping enough citizens so the supreme court did not recognize the fetus as a person at that point. any time they chose to change

that that the fetus was a person, those rights, all rights would attach to conception. guest: first of all, paul, i would encourage you to not have an abortion amendment f you don't believe is moral, then i would encourage paul to not have an abortion. that would solve his problem. number one. number two, all right, let's talk fetal person. paul said fetus is not considered a person. there was no personhood rights. but he wants to change the law from viability to conception. ok, paul. think that through. if the -- if a fetus is a person at conception, are they a citizen at conception? does everybody conceived in the united states get citizenship status? are they in the census? do they have a right to health care? what personhood rights are we giving them at conception? here's the -- people who scream loudest about fetal personhood

and life at conception are the people who paradoxically do not want to give rights to born alive children that we have in this country. these are the same people who would throw down the term anchor baby when a migrant person has a child in the united states, thus granting that child citizenship. then we should have two tier, three tier, multitier citizen process. if you believe that a fetus is a person at conception, then surely you must believe in some kind of universal health care and universal access of that fetus having a chance to start life, surely you must believe in mandatory paid maternal leave for all nine months while the woman is doing all the hard work of making this person you believe became real at conception. once you go down the fetal to

personhood thought process, there are entire sweeps of rights that we give to born alive persons. the fetus at conception get a social security card, paul? think it through. if what you'll find, what i found in my travels is that the people who are most lilg wilk to make this argument are -- willing to make this argument are the least willing to extend rights and compassion to actual children who are alive in this country. host: lucy in bloomington, indiana, democratic caller. caller: hi, c-span. thank you. i totally agree with you. i think these people that are going after women's rights don't realize these women that are going to have abortions are going to have abortions

caller: i wanted to comment on how the laws are not being put towards our former president, why not? what is going on in our country and our voting rights are being tortured. stepped on every day. i don't know what to do anymore. i call my senators. i call my -- the other people. they just -- they write me letters. they support the people that,

you know, were the insurrectionists. host: let's hear from our guest. guest: clarify one point about abortion and then move on to the department of justice. women of means are going to georgia or louisiana to still get reproductive services. if they outlaw abortion in louisiana and georgia, they'll go to california and new york or canada or sweden or someplace rational. like women of means will always have an opportunity to access their rights. that is a huge part of what's going on here. one of the reasons why texas can get away with such a restrictive rule against women rights is they understand that most women of--the women most likely to vote republican know if they have to access reproductive rights they can go somewhere else and access it. it is black and brown women, poor women most impacted by the

laws. in terms of what to do about prosecuting the insur insurrectionists. insurrectionist the. at some point the department of justice has to get involved. we have seen the department of justice do a credible job so far for the most part of prosecuting the actual people who breached the capitol. but as i said before, prosecuting the person in the horn hat with no shirt, that's easy. prosecuting the -- those people were the easy part. prosecuting the people who helped those people, who funded those people that's the hard part. that's where you have to talk hard truth to power. and so far we have seen myrrhic gar lapd have nothing for -- marek garland have nothing for those people.

heal bring his foot down i got into the capitol my little confederate bag. but the guy who funded that guy, the congressperson allegedly potentially who helped that guy, merrick garland ain't got nothing for him. that's my o problem with how the justice department has been prosecuting or lack thereof the insurrection. yes they are looking into all this and trying issue subpoenas. that's great. that's a political thing. i don't mean political like a dirty word thing. that is the political process trying to understand what happened. there is also the legal process. where the department of justice is supposed to be in there protecting us from terrorism and garland isn't doing that because the people who funded and helped are perhaps a little bit too much for -- too big for merrick garland to chew. that's problematic. host: mike in houston, texas, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. hi, thank you. i love c-span.

a lot of views, you don't get that from people like jack dorsey because they are not permitted. on twitter and such. sir, i want to ask. where do our rights come from? i wanted to start with that. i think people -- in talking about rights for a long time and i'd like to know. would you agree with me that our rights come from god? guest: no. caller: o ok. they don't come from god. if i understand correctly what you're telling me when you say know with your certified teud when it's self-evident that all men are created equal, so forth, our founding documents indicate that our rights are self-evident and that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit happiness. you may frown, you may disagree. it is irrefutable that's what it is. it is incontrovertible. our private property rights come from government. it is not based on what you want to do with my money.

when you want to create a health care system and reach for my wallet, that's when your rights end, sir. you don't own me. the government doesn't own me. we loan our power to government. government doesn't own our power. we loan it to the politicians. they are servants to us. you are not going to create rights. we have -- guest: you give alls to the poor not in my back beyond a reasonable doubt. you are claiming that your rights and your understanding of government comes from god. which preaches nothing but charity. 2340g but charity did you did you nothing but charity in every book that allegedly written by god. they preach nothing but charity. now you're saying how dare the government take my money and give it to people who need health care. what are you doing, man? no, i don't believe rights come from god. i believe rights come from a human experience and rationality. that's called the enlightenment. we went through this phase where we believed everything came from god.

we called those the dark ages. and people applied rational thought again and that's how we got things like the written constitution of the united states government. of course i don't believe the rights come from god. in part whose god are we talking about? are we talking about a christian god? yawway, allah, sheeba? whose god? once you get into those places, it becomes a much harder thing. i want to have a society. and the entirety of human experience that the easiest way to have society is to take god out of your laws and put thought in where it should be. that is what our constitution tries to do. is it perfect? absolutely no not. do i think everything the founding fathers wrote down was wrong? no. the founding fathers were slavers and colonists, don't think they were wrong about lots of things. the idea we should have a nation based on secularism and that would allow all the people to

believe whatever they wanted is still fundamentally a good idea and fundamentally the idea we should be still working towards today as opposed to throwing it out of the window for some kind of thee og kracy. thee ok acy. the people who want that the most always think their deity is going to win. history says, oftentimes they are wrong. host: morgan, nashville, tennessee, independent caller. caller: yes. i wanted to say that this is about idolization of the flesh. and these people who are willing to deny the spirit, because that's what they are doing, you could kill the holy spirit. the fetus is formed in the spirit. it's delivered in the flesh. but it's the -- if the flesh is gone, that spirit lives. and it never goes away.

it's infinite. it will have its course no matter what. guest: ok. cool story. that's a fine thing to morally believe. that's not a legal argument. and that cannot be a legal argument to force somebody to give birth against her will. i don't know what else to tell you. we can all believe what we believe. i believe some things. you all believe some things. we can all believe what we believe. but at the point where you're going to use your belief to force a raped victim to carry her assailant's seed to term against her will, we have now crossed the barrier between what we can believe in a secular, normal society and crossed into the barbarism of thee ok acy. host: we have to leave it there. justins correspondent with the nation. follow him on the nation.com,

twitter@the nation. and elienyc. thank you very much for the conversation. guest: thanks for having me. >> yous us house returns to session today at 5 p.m. eastern to consider legislation to award the congressional gold medal to service members who died in the august 26 terrorist attack during the u.s. evacuation from afghanistan. later in the week, we are expecting legislation on family violence prevention. when the house comes back into session at 5 p.m. eastern, live coverage here on c-span. >> download c-span's new mobile app and stay up-to-date with live video coverage of the day's biggest political events from live stream of the house and senate floor and key congressional hearings, white house events and supreme court oral arguments. even our live interactive morning program, "washington journal," where we hear your voices every day. c-span now has you covered.

download the app for free today. >> president biden today traveled to new jersey to discuss his agenda. was joined by new jersey governor murphy new jersey congressman bill pascrell. [applause] plieb: -- president biden lon hello -- hello new jersey. thank you. [applause] president biden: lieutenant commander. governor murphy, so many of the