building a better bay area moving forward finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. hi there. i'm kristen z. you're watching getting answers live on abc 7. we always ask experts your questions every day at three to get answers for you in real time today. we have a best-selling science fiction author who argues that living life as a straight white male is like playing a video. came on the lowest difficulty setting we'll ask author john scalzi to explain that analogy as well as why he doesn't fear losing book sales by speaking out on controversial issues. also bay area bakeries and restaurants are reacting to the supreme court's ruling that overturned roe v wade by putting messages into their products the owner of the wildly popular boy chick bagels in berkeley will join us along with a co-owner of

kay fico an italian restaurant in san a scale but first even as the supreme court rules that abortion is not a constitutionally protective right legal challenges are being mounted in the many states with trigger laws that would severely restrict or ban abortion outright lawyers and doctors are also trying to process questions such as can a state ban people from getting abortion pills from out of state or can states that a certain life begins at fertilization band contraceptives joining us live now is michelle goodwin chancellor's professor at see irvine and founding director of the center for biotechnology and global health policy as well as author of policing the womb invisible women and the criminalization of motherhood professor goodwin. thanks so much for being here. thank you for the invitation to join you you published an op-ed in the new york times this weekend. the headline is no justice. alito reproductive justice is in

the constitution. can you explain? yes, well in this opinion which mirrors almost verbatim the leaked draft opinion justice alito and the majority kind of play hopscotch through history. they say that it was egregious for the row court to take into account history in the fact that abortion had not been criminalized and even the programs had practiced abortion benjamin franklin wrote about how to have a successful abortion and what they failed to attention to even though they say they're originalist and textualists is that there is originalism in the constitution that protects individuals bodily autonomy from not only slavery but involuntary servitude and what they fail to take into account was that when the drafters of the constitution the 13th amendment were reviewing it analyzing it figuring out what they were doing. they paid very specific attention to the ways in which

black women had. forced into involuntary servitude by their wombs that black women were forced into reproduction. they were sexually assaulted they were raped senator charles sumner from massachusetts was nearly beaten to death in the halls of congress two days after giving a speech about black women being subjected to these kinds of cruelties and yet the supreme court makes absolutely no reference or mentioned to the fact that the 13th amendment abolished exactly what they're sending. into the united states right now, you're talking about involuntary and servitude at a time. we're talking about when black women were slaves and their slave owners had control over their body. and of course did not want the abortion because they wanted more slaves, but let's talk about how that involuntary servitude would play out today perhaps in the case of underage girls or women. yes. well today what this turns into is that with this dobps opinion 26 states are set to ban

abortion in whole or significantly so and many of them make no exceptions for cases of rape or --. that means that a nine year old girl a 10 year old girl will be forced to carry her rapist pregnancy to term and not only that then be a nine year old mother. 10 year old mother that is if she survives the pregnancy that the states are mandating that she bears and i think one important point to note was that during slavery. it was not just that these were private owners of individuals, but there were cities that actually owned people to or government agencies that that did in some part the majority of slavery was private, but there were instances in which the government was certainly involved and today to your point. we see the meant explicitly involved in mandating that women girls people can become pregnant carry these pregnancies to term unless they can get to a state

like, california. look you call this ruling and the restrictive laws that are being passed the new jim crow or in fact you say jane crow. can you talk a little bit more about that? yes, while the new jane crow meaning that this is a time in which we really see a tale of two different countries within one, you know during the period of jim crow. there was a second-class citizenship that was tolerated in law and and in fact satisfied by rulings in the of the supreme court and plus ev ferguson where the supreme court said that there can be separate and equal at the same time. we know that that wasn't true and today we have separate but equal in the space of states where you have some free states like, california, new york, illinois, colorado that are sanctuary states where an individual can go and have her bodily autonomy and privacy respected and yet there are

other states where that just simply isn't the case and in the backdrop of this there's significant physical and psychological pain. the united states is the deadliest place in the industrialized world for a person. pregnant it ranks 55th and already the supreme court is said in 2016 that women are 14 times more likely to die by carrying a pregnancy to term than by having an abortion this kind of barbarism and cruelty ue of a new jane crow. not that different than jim crow and some might say even worse. like because of this will we see, you know, if we're talking about the possibility of children being forced to give birth or anybody against their will there is some talk of whether this violates international human rights laws. what is your take on that? well, this is the this is a strategy. there are a number of strategies coming forward and one. is that the united states has to

abide by the treaties that it has signed on to and that those treaties have precedential value and they have a value that preempts then what would be national or state laws? so it's one of the strategies and part of that strategy is that internationally? it's been recognized that the right to be able to terminate a pregnancy is a human right now. that's one strategy. senator elizabeth warren has suggested that president biden should enact or should adapt adopt an executive order draft an executive order that would allow for abortions to be on us federal lands already. this is in place because even before roe v wade us military actually mandated that women have abortions rather than continue their pregnancies if they wanted to stay in the military what she suggesting is that then this should be expanded to people who those states interesting argument look in terms of you know, whether this is a violation of human rights international rules that

the us assigned onto if that is the case could nations potentially sanction sanction the us over such violations. well again, this has been this is something that it has never been tested before but it's possible that there could be some types of sanctions. i will tell you that that's unlikely because the us in its trade relations and other relations with nations still holds the power of the pocket and for that reason there may be nations that would be discouraged from trying to exert a certain level of pressure on the united states when it relates to these issues now that said alarm bells have rang all around the world and there have been leaders of countries around the world that have expressed their shock and their concern about what this means in the united states for women, generally and particularly for the most vulnerable of them in the united states.

professor goodwin, you know, this may be a little philosophical but it is a question. a lot of people are wondering about because we're coming up on july 4th independence day celebrating the birth of the united states. how can we nourish the united part of our country? this is a very good question because these issues can't be seen in silos whether we're talking about the dobbs case and abortion the bruin case involving the second amendment or the january the investigation of the january 6th insurrection and attempted coup to overturn a fair election. all of these are in company with each other and i think one of the challenges in our country right now is to overcome. the the growing aspect of white nationalists and white supremacy in the united states that sadly underlies so much of what it is that we see today including let us not forget five years ago the

death of heather higher who was one of the most recent deaths due to white supremacy in our country and all of it really does connect. professor michelle goodwin. thank you so much for your insight in time today. thank you. coming up next best-selling science fiction author. john scalzi will join us live. stay with us getting answers continues after the break. continues after the break. ent, continues after the break. ent, i wondered what my case was worth. so i called the barnes firm. when that car hit my motorcycle, insurance wasn't fair. so i called the barnes firm. it was the best call i could've made. atat t bararnefirmrm, our r inry a attneysys wk hahard i could've made. atat t bararnefirmrm, to get you the best result possible. call us now and find out what your case could be worth. you u mit bebe sprisised ♪ the barnes firm injury attorneys ♪ ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪

advocates are urging men to be allies and speak out on abortion for those who have a platform such as celebrities or authors the choice to do so carry some risk including losing their fanbase or sales, but the author of the new york times bestselling book the kaiju preservation society says unapologetically that he will

because mine and he urges others other authors to do so as well john scalze joins his live now from ohio where he now lives. hello, john. hi chris, how are you? i'm you know, yeah same for you. i'm sure. like full disclosure we've known each other since you're a movie critic days from the fresno b. so right i'm just gonna tell people a little bit about you you do live in ohio now, but you're actually from the bay area you were born in fairfield, right? that is correct. i was born in fairfield at travis air force base and then i lived in california for all my life up until the late 90s when i moved away, but i still love a california and it's still a place that most my family is in so i think about it all time while you're welcome back anytime. just let me know when you're in town, but you know folks might have read your award-winning sci-fi books man's war or red. it's where maybe they've watched

love death and robots on netflix, which has episodes adapted from your stories, but they may not know that you blog and tweet a lot about all sorts of things and lately serious things including your pro-abortion rights stance. so yesterday you tweeted a response to a facebook post being shared in which one author tells other authors not to take political positions because your job is to entertain not alienate have your readers and this is part of your response thread, but let's talk about this. is this something you worry about losing readers or sales? not really and i will tell you why one thing i've been doing this literally for almost three decades when we first met each other. i was working as a newspaper columnist one of the things that i would do would be express political opinions, so it's not something that's new to me. it's not something that i ever worried about was going to be penalized, but the other thing that i think that that is more important is we not our jobs we

are. i we are people who exist in the world doesn't matter whether you're a writer or a personality or a doctor or a bus driver everybody who is an american citizen and everybody who lives in the united states has a right to be able to speak their mind. it's a constitutional right and also it's a right that just everybody should feel free to exercise now in my particular case and in have a lot of riders there. is that concern that if you make an argument for or against any particular contentious topic that people are going to get angry with you. then they will never read you again. and you know, here's the thing about that. i sincerely believe that. the universe of people who are going to read you is so vast and the number of books that you are going to sell within that

universe is going to be contained within that that no matter what you will always be able to find people who will find your books and who will enjoy those books. that being the case just say what you need to say if you believe that it is something that you need to say. all right. well, i do encourage people to check out your whole tweet thread. there's a lot there to dissect and and really think about okay, but i also want to focus on a blog a post that you put up recently in which you reflected on the 10-year anniversary of another one of your posts. that really went viral you titled it and we have that straight white male the lowest difficulty setting there is that is definitely a video. metaphor but explain what you mean by that as a straight white male well what i mean by that is i was looking for a way to discuss the issues of privile os that straight white men have without using the word privilege because as soon as you use the word privilege a people just sort of lock up, right? they just don't use that word. so what i was saying is like

look, here's what it is when you are playing the game of life as a straight white man. you're on the lowest difficulty meets setting which means that tasks are easier to complete. the non-player characters are going to be more sympathetic and helpful to you that things that difficulties that you encounter you will be able to find easier workarounds. it does not mean that it's easy that it can still be difficult. you could still have a hard time playing the game, but you are still playing at a level that the tasks are easier to complete than someone else who has different settings and and this i mean but people who are minorities people who are gay lesbian trans and so on so forth and that video game metaphor was useful and it was able to spur a lot of conversation.

and years really but in the wake of the supreme court ruling last week. can you expand on that metaphor further? yeah, i mean one of the things that really i find distressing is that it's not even a question at this point to continue on this metaphor whether or not straight white men are on the lowest difficulty setting or not. it is is the game of life so to speak being changed as it is being as it is being played to make it more difficult for other people and answer is obviously. yes. this is a you know to use another metaphor for video games. this is like code injection that makes things more difficult a woman cannot focus on the equality. much of her life is dealing with

the things that she was able to previously have as rights you've made the game more difficult for that person. which means that the person who benefits the most are who can benefit the most are the people whose difficulty doesn't change at all this. if you make it harder for someone else to keep up with you. then you've made the game less difficult for you relatively speaking and that's not fair. john we could probably talk for a whole half hour, but i think that's all the time we have for today. thank you so much for joining us really appreciate it and good catching up with you. yes, it's always great to hear from you. take care. all right coming up next bay area businesses are taking action in the wake of roe v. wade being overturned find out how you can join their cause how you can join their cause next o ♪ from the mountains to the coast, ♪

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welcome back a number of bay area businesses wasted no time turning their anger into action after roe v. wade was overturned friday from putting messages onto their products. donating the proceeds to organizations supporting those seeking abortion services joining us live now to talk about their efforts emily winston owner of bojack bagels and matt brewer co-owner of kay fico emily and matt. thank you so much for your time today. thank you. i'm going to start with you emily upon roaming overturned. you went to a rally on friday and you brought a sign and that sign actually had a bagel analogy. what did it say? it said my whole but yeah with the bagel as the o my business. and i i just was like i want to go and i want something that ties into bagels and i so on

social media that really took off there was a huge reaction and then it turned into actually a t-shirt fundraiser, right? i had people asking me to make a t-shirt. so i did i found customink has a great fundraising function on their website. so i designed that up and post it and yeah, people are people are digging it. they're buying it. i was hoping i set 150 as the te goal and we're over halfway there just 24 hours in so it's the response has been awesome. i'm very very excited. great. and where is all of it going to thood? it is all all the proceeds are going directly to planned parenthood. okay. all right, matt came fico is also donating funds. give us the details of what you guys are doing. well, i mean we were able to we immediately decided we want to actors after seeing the palatable shift and the frustration and the anger from our team and wanting to support women all across the country.

we donated this 10% of our sales from this past weekend 7,500 to arc southeast in an effort to get money to towards those who are most immediately impacted and conveniently make an impact. okay. not sure if this is accurate, but i think i saw that you're supporting a group that's providing services in georgia. is that right? and if that is right, i'm wondering why georgia? how did you select that? well, we actually chose our southeast which provides services funds and logistical support to those seeking abortions and georgia, mississippi, florida, alabama and mississippi, i believe and again we wanted to target. you know, we're in california. we have much better policies here, and we wanted to support those who are in some of the most challenged states. look, you know, can you talk about why it's important for each of you as a business owner to take action and do something emily. what are your thoughts on that? you know, my business is a lot about just me personally.

it was kate was born out of my desire to have the bagel i ate growing up and so it everything about it feels very personal and and this is a big issue for me. it's something i care about quite a bit my mother had an abortion a year after i was born because she felt she wasn't ready for another child yet. so it's always it's been something that i was raised with as being a very important life choice for women and so that it was just an immediate thing. i'd like to do something use my business as a platform for something i believe in. what about you matt? what do you think? this is something new an area that we supported in the past or planned parenthood through fake sales within the bay area and just something that affects our entire team and we want to show support it affects women bodily autonomy freedom of choice privacy laws. it's such a real ruling that can

have such devastating devastating wide reaching effects on women's health immediately that it was important for us to act and act quickly. there's going to be plenty of other opportunities for organizing voting and but it felt like we need to do something right away. matt actually is shave kay fico considering another fundraiser or another effort. we're certainly going to be evaluating that for us. it was just what can we do right now, but we will be working with our team to see what we can do on going got it and is the se sales also ongoing emily it is it's open for another 13 days before that closes and and they run the whole print at one time. so i would love to to blow that goal out of the water. i'd love to sell 15,000 shirts and we'll get it up on our social media right away. excellent. you're supporting each other. that's fabulous. okay, so emily do you order that on the boy chick bagels website or you? website. yes, it will be it'll be the first thing on that website and and click over to their because

it's a on customink. but yes, we have a link through there and also through our instagram. we have a link. all right. well, i gotta say those are absolutely the best bagels in the whole world. i do go on your sometimes when it comes to my area when you do the deliveries, i order then but now i think you're in a lot of different stores throughout the bay area. so awesome awesome and congrats and it's nice to know that a business you enjoy their product of is also trying to do good and youtube matt. i haven't been to the restaurant, but i certainly will congratulations on all that you're doing. thank you. thank you, and we'll

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way, stay right here. we're going to break in soon on our 24/7 live stream with our live coverage from oakland

police about this weekend's sideshow incidents if you're not streaming with us download or open the abc 7 bay area streaming tv app to tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. a major amtrak derailment. the trail from l.a. to chicago. reports of multiple fatalities and dozens of injuries. the images coming in at this hour. the train hitting a dump truck in missouri. multiple cars derailing. video showing passengers inside trying to force open a window. passengers on top of the wreckage, waiting for help. the train with 243 passengers onboard. alex perez with late reporting. tonight, the list of states immediately banningmeheou overturns roe versus wade. mississippi certifying today, soon making it a felony to perform an abortion. anti-abortion rights groups taking aim at abortion pills.