FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | October 12, 2021
On the Issues with Michele Goodwin is a popular, issues and policy-focused podcast featuring feminist analysis, insightful conversations and exciting guests. This is the first podcast from Ms. magazine, a legacy feminist publication. In each bi-weekly episode, host Dr. Michele Goodwin and special guests will tackle the most compelling issues of our times, centering feminist concerns about rebuilding our nation and advancing the promise of equality.
A new episode—15 Minutes of Feminism: The Dark Money behind the Abortion Bans (with Cecile Richards)—is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and MsMagazine.com.
In this episode, Dr. Goodwin and former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards discuss the dark money underwriting anti-abortion laws like Texas’s near-total abortion ban, S.B. 8, which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy with no exceptions for rape or incest and places a bounty on those who aid or abet people who want to terminate their pregnancies.
Richards is one of the minds behind the Abortion Ban Accountability project, which is calling out corporations who fund legislators who stand against abortion rights and LGBTQ rights. While the #OffTheBANWagon campaign aims to put pressure on several companies, one is singled out in particular: AT&T. The company has spent almost $700k financing the campaigns of the primary sponsors of S.B. 8 in Texas—all while claiming “one of the company’s core values is gender equity and the empowerment of women.”
You can find a full transcript of the episode here, as well as a few excerpts below:
“You’re either aiding and abetting the perpetrators of these atrocities, or you’re saying, you know what? As an employer, as a responsible community citizen, as a business provider, we are actually going to take a position and take a stand against essentially the ending of rights of millions of people in the state of Texas.” —Cecile Richards
“The whole history of reproductive access and the fight for reproductive rights has almost exclusively fallen on women and of course, with Black women as in every important issue really being on the cutting edge and on the front lines.” —Cecile Richards
“It’s the responsibility of everyone to be engaged, and that includes companies that live in, do business in, take advantage of a state like Texas. And there is no time like the present.” —Cecile Richards
Meet the Host of On the Issues: Dr. Michele Goodwin is a frequent contributor to Ms. Magazine and on MsMagazine.com. She is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and also serves on the executive committee and national board of the ACLU. Dr. Goodwin is a prolific author and an elected member of the American Law Institute, as well as an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Hastings Center. Her most recent book, Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and The Criminalization of Motherhood is described as a “must read.”
About Ms. Magazine: Co-founded by Gloria Steinem in 1972 and published by the Feminist Majority Foundation since 2001, Ms. magazine has been a trusted, popular source for feminist news and information in print and online for nearly 50 years. Ms.’s time-honored traditions of an emphasis on in-depth investigative reporting and feminist political analysis have never been more relevant, bringing a new generation of writers and readers together to share news, analysis, research and strategies for fighting back and moving forward, for shaping the future.
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If you would like more information on the On the Issues with Michele Goodwin podcast, or to schedule an interview with Host and Executive Producer Michele Goodwin or Executive Producer & Ms. Executive Editor Katherine Spillar, please email press@msmagazine.com.
Launched in 1971, Ms. is the most trusted, popular source for feminist news and information in print and online with a tradition of in-depth investigative reporting and feminist political analysis. Ms. is wholly owned and published by the Feminist Majority Foundation.
