(film reel clattering) Welcome to Ethnic Media Services' weekly news briefing.

I'm Sandy Close, EMS Director.

Today we host a distinguished panel of speakers for a discussion on the possible end of abortion rights and the impact this could have on AAPI, Asian-American Pacific Islander women.

Really, all women but particularly AAPI women.

Asian-American and Pacific Islander women have largely remained invisible in the divisive fight over abortion rights.

As the Supreme Court prepares to release its opinion on the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization case.

At least 22 states are preparing to immediately gut abortion rights Our speakers today include Congresswoman Judy Chu, Democrat, California, who will provide videotaped opening remarks; Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington; Sung Yeon Choimorrow executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.

Now, turning the conference over to my colleague Sunita Sohrabji, associate editor of Ethnic Media Services.

Sunita?

- Thank you so much, Sandy.

And, thank you to all our speakers and reporters who join us today.

We start off with Congresswoman Judy Chu's videotaped remarks.

- I want to thank you for having me here to kick off today's press conference.

Right now, when abortion rights are under threat like never before, I want to say one thing loud and clear: abortion is health care and it is a right.

It is a right and a personal decision that no one should make other than the pregnant woman and her doctor.

Nearly one in four American women has had an abortion in her lifetime, including my colleague, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, the first South Asian woman elected to Congress.

She's told her story about how after an extremely difficult first pregnancy where her child was born premature and had significant medical needs, she found out she was pregnant again, even though she was on birth control.

She went to her doctor who told her there was no guarantee she wouldn't face another extremely difficult pregnancy that would be life threatening.

And, she just knew she could not go through with that.

But as a new immigrant to the United States, abortion was extremely stigmatized in her community.

She never even told her own mother for fear of the stigma and shame it would bring.

And, it was not until just a few years ago that she even told her story publicly, because even though, as she puts it, she does not regret her decision.

She was concerned, though, about the backlash she could face.

But, Congresswoman Jayapal was inspired to speak up by the relentless attacks on abortion in recent years.

And, these attacks culminated in the draft Supreme Court opinion that was leaked.

When I first read Justice Alito's draft opinion to overturn Roe versus Wade, I was disgusted, appalled and heartbroken.

But, I was not shocked.

I was not shocked because Republicans have been telling the American people that they planned to overturn this decision for decades.

This draft opinion is just the culmination of an organized anti-abortion strategy to strip away constitutional rights for millions of Americans.

So, I was gratified that Senator Schumer immediately announced that the Senate would once again take up my bill, H.R.

3755, the Women's Health Protection Act, which would enshrine the protections of Roe into law and prevent these state level abortion bans we are seeing in states like Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and so many others.

The House of Representatives has already passed this bill in September of 2021 by a vote of 218-211, making the Women's Health Protection Act the most supported abortion rights bill in the history of Congress.

Well, the Senate vote was held on Wednesday and just before the vote, I joined with dozens of my colleagues to march to the Senate to protest in support of abortion rights.

You see, we knew we were facing an uphill battle because even if we could get 50 Democratic votes, this bill is subject to the filibuster, a tool of segregation that lets the minority block the will of the majority.

And, we know protecting abortion rights is the majority opinion of Americans.

For nearly 50 years in poll after poll, a majority of Americans support access to abortion.

So, for that reason, we marched to the Senate, making sure that as the senators debated, if they wanted to stand up for our right to choose what to do with our own bodies, that they would hear from us.

So, even though the vote on Wednesday was not successful, it was not the end.

It was just the beginning.

We are just getting started in our fight to protect abortion access.

And, I am especially invested in this fight as I know that the impacts of these abortion bans are felt most acutely by communities of color, including the Asian-American Pacific Islander community.

20% of immigrants seeking abortion care in the U.S. are AAPI, a population that historically already has barriers to access and needed health care.

That's why we will march in support of abortion rights.

We will march for the right to make decisions about our own bodies, and we will march to the polls this November to protect the rights of every person in every state for their right to an abortion.

- Thank you so much.

We move on to Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who Representative Judy Chu introduced as the first South Asian American woman in Congress.

Congresswoman Jayapal, we're very honored to have you!

- Well, thank you so much to you for all of your work on this to the National Asian-Pacific American Women's Forum, and Ethnic Media Services and all the community leaders that are on this call, on this briefing, on such an important issue.

And I'm so grateful to my colleague, Judy Chu for her leadership in introducing the Women's Health Protection Act.

And, of course, the House of Representatives passed, as she said, the Women's Health Protection Act.

So, it really has been on the Senate to finish the work and to codify Roe v Wade.

Like many of you, like Judy, people across the country, I have been sitting in anger as well at this naked attempt by an extremist radical Supreme Court to strip away our constitutional reproductive rights.

Abortion is an extremely personal and sometimes a very difficult choice.

As my colleague said, I know this because I am one of the one-in-four women in this country who has had an abortion.

And, yes, I never planned to tell my story.

I don't think that we should have to.

But I do think as an Asian-American woman, it is important for me to represent by publicly telling my story, to represent the millions of Asian-Americans across this country who have been in a similar situation.

It is important that people hear directly from us and on the very diverse and different experiences that lead a person to make this choice.

And that is what it is.

It is the freedom to make our own choice.

Let me be clear.

If this leaked opinion does come to pass in the next month or so, abortion is not going to miraculously go away.

No!

All that this opinion will do is end access to safe and legal abortion, and the people who will pay the steepest price for this rollback are our communities: Black, Brown, Asian, indigenous, low-income folks.

Survivors of incest and abuse will also bear the brunt of this unconstitutional and unjust decision.

We are talking about millions of people across this country whose lives will quite literally be in danger because an extremist Court decided to politicize health care and overturn what was lawful and settled precedent.

Infringing on our reproductive freedoms will be a literal death sentence for millions of people.

We didn't get here by mistake.

As Judy said, this was the culmination of decades of insidious work by Republicans who have rigged the system in their favor.

We got here because two presidents who lost the popular vote appointed these extremist justices, these five justices, some of whom even lied under oath about Roe.

With the help of Republican senators who represented 40 million less people than their Democratic counterparts.

That's what the filibuster gets us is the opportunity for 40 senators who represent 40 million less people than their Democratic counterparts, 60 other people to be able to hold up a bill from even coming to the floor for debate.

The implications of overturning what was set precedent are far and wide-ranging.

If precedent no longer stands, then what other settled law will be overturned?

Are we going to see gay marriage or interracial marriage overturned next?

Will Brown v Board of Education, which desegregated classrooms, no longer be the law of the land?

The truth is we don't know what this minority-appointed Court will do next.

We just know that it's not going to stop at abortion.

And, the reality is that the system isn't broken.

It's working as intended, as they intended, at advancing the minority rule at our expense.

And, that includes the Supreme Court.

The assumption that the Supreme Court is some bastion of political neutrality is just false.

This court has shown us that it is political and it is extreme, willing to overturn lawful precedent to further a political agenda steeped in intolerance and hatred.

And let me be clear that when you read this opinion, what you see is the argument that Justice Alito is making is that there is no right that is actually clear and attributable unless it is named in the Constitution, a document that was written 200 years ago.

We saw the flawed system at work again when Republicans filibustered abortion rights from being codified into law.

I was in the room with several of my Democratic colleagues.

As an organizer, I helped lead that march across the Capitol of all of our colleagues who then sat in the Senate.

It never gets easier or less frustrating to watch Republicans obstruct the will of the people.

And the right to an abortion is the will of the people.

It is supported by the majority of the country: 80%, to be exact.

So, this doesn't mean that we give up.

These are our rights we're talking about.

This is existentially urgent.

We have to keep up the pressure and get something done.

Wednesday's vote made it clear that our current Senate is painfully out of step with the will of the people.

If Republicans were actually interested in saving lives, they would pass legislation that allows for universal health care and child care instead of trying to dictate what we do with our bodies.

And yet, we have every single Republican senator on the record against protecting this incredibly intimate, incredibly personal decision.

That includes the two supposedly pro-choice Republican women in the Senate, by the way.

In this most crucial moment for people's reproductive freedoms, they chose to vote against legislation protecting people's right to choose.

It is an abomination.

It is unforgivable.

I won't forget this, and neither should you.

We will fight to the very end for our freedoms.

And in the Senate, that means rooting out the cause for every single big legislative push the Democrats have tried to do.

That is the filibuster.

To codify abortion rights, voting rights and LGBTQ protections, we have to do away with this arcane Jim Crow-era rule that empowers the privileged few at the expense of the many.

And this midterm election will be one of the most crucial elections in our lifetime.

We have to elect a true pro-choice majority in the Senate, and keep and expand our pro-choice majority in the House.

We have to elect pro-choice candidates at every level of government to ensure that our right to choose is never infringed on again.

Because it is clear that this right cannot be left up to the courts.

It needs to be legislated.

It needs to be legislated quickly.

Lives depend on it.

And for the AAPI community across the country, it is so important that we hear your voices, your stories, and see your action on this critical issue.

- Thank you so much for your remarks, Congresswoman Jayapal.

I wanted to start out with a question.

There is a stigmatization of abortion in the AAPI community.

And I heard Congresswoman Chu saying that you did not tell your parents.

Have you told your family now?

And, what was their response?

- I did.

You know, before I wrote my op ed, I only talked about it when I came to Congress.

And the only reason I did was because these laws were getting passed and popping up in state legislatures across the country, abortion bans.

And, I felt I needed to use my platform to share my story and hopefully inspire others also to speak out and to really make it clear that abortion is an issue that happens in every community!

There is no community where this is not something that pregnant people are thinking about.

So, I told my mother and I told my daughter before I published the op ed.

I think my mother has recently seen me talking about it again.

She's still in India and she's heard me talk about some of the cultural stigma that I felt.

And she has felt badly, actually.

And I've told her to please not feel badly about it, that this is something that we have been you know-- we need to do the work within our own communities to change.

And, I think I made assumptions about how she might react.

I was afraid of how she might react or how others in the family might react.

And, I think that we just need to have courage to tell our stories, to talk to our loved ones, and to take away that stigma that does exist still in many of our cultures.

And, I think hopefully my telling my story and my sharing it-- And I was talking to Judy on the floor just before we-- before she had to leave, and she told me that she had shared my story.

She said she didn't know I was going to be here today, as well.

And, she said that it was just so important for the AAPI community to know that we have champions here with the same experience.

And, we are here for everybody else who is facing these same decisions today.

- Thank you.

Our first question comes from Meera Kymal of India Times magazine.

India-- Uh?

Meera?

- Yes.

Hi.

Thank you for being here, Congresswoman Jayapal.

So, my question is about how women get criminalized of seeking abortions, especially Black and Brown women who have limited access to begin with.

And the medical professionals who treat them are also treated as criminals in certain states.

Safe abortions is what we're going to lose.

And so, how do we safeguard access to reproductive care for women of color?

- Well, this is-- I think you've hit on, to me, the most distressing piece of this, which is both who bears the burden, the people that will bear the burden of these laws are people who can't afford to go across state lines, who can't afford to pay whatever it's going to cost for an abortion.

It is not, as you said, that abortions are going to go away.

It's just that safe and legal abortions will go away and it will be the people who are most vulnerable, who are left.

And so, I think there are a couple of things.

One is that as long as states like Washington State are not prohibited by a federal ban, which is, of course, what Mitch McConnell is talking about doing, is getting a Republican majority in the Senate and the House and a Republican president, and then pushing forward a complete ban on abortion across the country that would take precedence over states like mine, Washington State, which has preserved the right to an abortion in our constitution.

We are opening up our borders to our state's borders, to people from all over the country.

We will do everything we can to preserve the right for anybody in the country to get a safe and legal abortion.

But the only way that we can really fight this back is to get a full pro-choice majority in the Senate who is willing to either carve out an exception to the filibuster, which, by the way, we did for the debt ceiling!

We're able to do that for the debt ceiling.

So, it isn't that we don't ever carve out exceptions to the filibuster.

We should do it for abortion rights to codify Roe v Wade.

But we need to either do that, or we need to get a 60 vote threshold in the Senate, both of which rely on the ballot box.

So, we will use every way we can to make sure our states preserve these options to help women in every state get the access to reproductive care that they need.

But we need a legislative solution, and it's why your voice and your vote will be so important in November.

- Congresswoman Jayapal, thank you so much for joining us today.

And, we move on to Sung Yeon Choimorrow Sung Yeon, welcome.

We're so glad to have you here.

- Well, glad to be here.

Thank you, everybody, for being here, and Representative Jayapal and your team for making time for us.

I am the executive director here at the National Asian-Pacific American Women's Forum.

And again, I want to thank Sandy and your team for hosting us today.

We go by NAPAWF for our acronym.

It's is the only national organization that's committed to creating policy changes and leadership development specifically for Asian-American Pacific Islander women and girls by focusing on public policy that impact our lives and engaging our community members to become leaders to create change.

An important area of change we focus on is making sure AAPI women have access to full range of affordable, quality health care including reproductive health care, to make the decisions that are best for our bodies, our families and our community.

To underscore the remarks from Congresswoman Chu and Jayapal, we are at a critical point for abortion access and reproductive rights.

If Roe is overturned, as leaked Supreme Court opinion clearly suggests, it will threaten the lives of those who depend on abortion care the most, people of color who make up the majority or 60% of those who are having abortions in this country.

So, despite AAPI women being often overlooked in the abortion fight, this is an issue that matters to us and is and is a direct assault on our communities as well.

Abortion plays a critical part in reproductive rights for AAPI women.

National data reveals that 35% of pregnancies end in abortions for AAPI women, which makes us the second highest percentage among all demographic groups.

This life experience supports the fact that 7 out of 10 Asian-Americans support legalizing abortion.

85% of AAPI women also believe that we should have the right to make our own choices when it comes to our reproductive health.

And it's not an easy choice to make for AAPI women, especially when the path to seeking and having abortion is filled with deep cultural stigmas.

Within our own community, if not within our own family, as we've already heard in Representative Jayapal's personal story, we also have to confront language barriers when accessing health care.

66% of Asian-Americans and 30% of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders speak a language other than English at home.

Low rates of insurance coverage is also a significant barrier to accessing abortion care for our most vulnerable members.

The pandemic underscored for many of us the reality that AAPI workers, especially women, are overrepresented in the frontline and low-wage workforce including retail, restaurant and personal care industries.

And, it's more often the case than not that these frontline jobs don't provide health coverages, family, or sick leave making it difficult or impossible to save money or take time off work to have an abortion.

On top of this, AAPI women face the additional risk of criminalization when seeking abortion care because of racial profiling rooted in racism, anti-immigrant stereotype that sees AAPI women as preferring sons over daughters when choosing to end pregnancy.

For those of us working in advocacy and reproductive justice space, it confirms for us the need to continue to push, for fighting for legislation like the Women's Health Protection Act, which both Representative Jayapal and Chu talked about; EACH Woman Act, which would make abortion care accessible to people who currently are employees of federal government, and those who are on Medicaid.

And the HEAL Act, Heal for Immigrant Families Act, which would remove the five-year bar currently-- that exists for low-income families accessing Medicaid, CHIP, and other public benefits.

This would all ensure abortion access nationwide.

The majority of all voters support legalizing abortion.

We must and will continue to make our voices heard at the ballot and in the upcoming midterm elections.

Thank you.

- Our first question comes from Henrietta Burroughs.

Henrietta?

- First of all, there are those who say that abortion is murder.

It's taking the life of a human being who's in the making.

I'd like to know what you think about that, what you would say.

And also, shouldn't there be a-- a cry of alarm about the fact that 60% of the abortions are taking place in communities of color?

What does that say in terms of our society and the-- the feelings of women of color who don't want their babies?

- Thank you for your question.

So, first of all, I want to say that many of the points you're raising are points that anti-choice people make to, in my opinion, really distract from the conversation.

You know, I'll be honest and say that if people are really concerned about murder, there's a slew of ways we should be addressing this.

And, the fact that this is the singular issue we focus on when it comes to the topic of murder is not-- does not, you know, to me, demonstrate that people actually understand what sanctity of life and care for life mean.

So, I'm gonna make that comment on that question and leave it there.

In terms of what this-- what is wrong with our country, the fact that 60% of women of color are-- not 60% women are choosing abortions.

60% of abortions that are happening are... are being-- yeah.

I guess women of color are making those choices; demonstrates to me that this country has failed women of color in our health care, in our economic well-being and well-being in general.

You know, nobody wakes up one morning and says, 'well, let me go get pregnant so I can get an abortion.'

Abortions happen because we live in a society that has broken systems, whether it's bad sex ed, no sex ed and no-- no access to contraception; you know, financial inability to have, you know, have children.

There are a number of reasons why, health reasons.

There's a number of reasons why women make these decisions.

And these decisions aren't just about whether the woman does or doesn't want to have a baby.

There is a lot this country needs to do.

And that's why I've been saying.

You know, if you really, really care about reducing abortion rates, you should-- we need to invest as a country in scientist's-- fact-based scientific sex ed for everybody.

We need to make contraceptives much more easily available.

We need to make health care affordable and available.

We need to let women have paid leave.

We need to provide affordable childcare.

There's so many other things we can address before we start talking about what-- controlling women's uteruses.

So, what is wrong with this country is that we have a long ways to go to provide support and meaningful ways for all women to thrive, especially women living in low-income and women of color.

- Thank you to all our speakers and reporters who joined us today for this really important discussion.

We wish you all the best.

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