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Big angry marches, slews of court litigation, misinformation and more.

A week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the nation seems to have exploded in protest.

Will it last until the mid-term?

Then, women take the lead in the insurrection investigations.

Are former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and Representative Liz Cheney, heroines today in the mold of Margaret Chase Smith, former House member and Senator who took on McCarthyism?

♪♪ Hello.

I'm Bonnie Erbe', Welcome to To the Contrary.

A discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, after the Roe decision, thousands of pro-choice men and women have taken to the streets in rallies and protests to secure our abortion rights state by state, and to provide funding for women who can't afford to travel for an abortion.

Meanwhile, crisis pregnancy centers are gearing up to counsel an onslaught of women.

These mainly Christian CPCs, don't provide abortions and don't have medical licenses.

Their work is to discourage women from getting abortions.

In Texas, two NBC producers visited a state and federally funded CPC and report being told abortions can cause mental illness and implied they could also cause cancer or infertility.

That is medically inaccurate information.

These clinics receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the states and the federal government across the country, including $110 million from the state of Texas alone.

A CBS News poll finds 67% of women oppose overturning Roe.

In the majority opinion, Justice Alito stressed The ruling could close divisions caused by abortion rights, but it appears to have created a fireball of division continuing full force, which is separating the nation more, not bringing it together.

Joining me today are former Representative Donna Edwards, Republican strategist Ann Stone Reproaction co-founder Erin Matson and Washington Examiner columnist Tiana Lowe.

And for the first segment, Genevieve Wood of the Heritage Foundation.

Are the pieces misleading people?

I don't believe they are.

Recent studies show that 2700 pregnancy resource centers around this country helped over 2 million individuals, the majority of them being women.

And they help them in numerous ways, Bonnie.

Yes, they offer counseling.

They talk to women about their options, but they also help them with material goods, meaning they give them parental training, they give them a lot of diapers.

So they're not just there before the pregnancy.

They're there after the pregnancy and they find help where they are.

(Bonnie) Wait, wait, wait Wait, wait a minute.

You say they're there.

Former Congressman Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, used to say the conservative interest in life begins at conception and ends at birth, at birth.

Do they pay for nannies?

Do they pay for women support for women while they're trying to go to work to pay for these children?

Do they pay for private school tuition or college tuition?

They don't pay for all those things.

And these are for individual centers (Bonnie) or any of those things right?

they offer.

They offer counseling.

They do in some cases offer childcare so that mothers can can go to work.

It depends on the center.

But the reality is, Bonnie, we as a society ought to try and help do that.

We shouldn't force women to have an abortion because they think they can't afford to have that child.

That is absolutely wrong.

We shouldn't be putting women in that place.

And as a matter of fact, there was a New York Times article on this, I think, from a couple of years ago that talked about one of the problems for young women in this generation is they have all these choices.

But one of the very choices they want the most is to have a child.

But they often feel like they can't afford.

It.

That is not what our society should be.

We should be making it possible for women to have children that they want.

Donna, your thoughts?

You were in Congress.

Why is federal money flowing to these so-called CPCs?

And by the way, there are many more CPCs out there at this time than there are abortion clinics.

Well, and, of course, we know that they are growing, especially in the and they will, especially in this post Roe environment.

Look, I think these CPCs are problematic for a couple of reasons.

One of which is the kind of information that is provided, as has been demonstrated by these visits to CPCs can be very misleading.

A lot of mythology about the effects of abortion, about causing mental illness, about causing breast cancer, about causing a whole set of things that really don't exist and are not medically based.

And so I think it's problematic to have federal funding and other and state funding of these entities when they're providing very misleading information to women.

And the fact is that Republicans in Congress and this is the truth, they want to cut SNAP programs, they want to cut education, they want to cut child care.

All of these things that it takes actually to raise a child, that as a policy matter, there are many members of Congress on the Republican side who will not support the kinds of things that are necessary after the birth of a child.

And so if a woman needs a choice let her go where she needs to to get an abortion.

Should you want one,.

Tiana?

Lots of these women, if you if you watch the reports coming in from women's health clinics around the country, they're are already mothers.

They have some of them, three and four children.

And they're already starving or not able to support these kids.

Should they be forced and will they be forced by overturning Roe to have children they can't afford, don't want?

And will not end up in a good situation?

Well, obviously, the answer to this is now it depends, because what the Supreme Court did is they've effectively democratized this issue to become a states rights issue in places like Mississippi, where you only had one functional abortion clinic, you shut it down.

You know, it's, and mind you, a lot of these purple states are not going to take an all or nothing approach.

A lot of these purple states like Florida are going to be like Germany or France, where, you know, the 15 week abortion cap that Ron DeSantis signed, everyone acts is very radical.

The Dobbs case was about a four It was about a 15 week ban that is still longer than they allow in France.

And Emmanuel Macron, the progressive president of France, campaigned on not allowing them to lift the 12 week abortion cap to 14 weeks.

So America is already at a very we are we are absolutely a global anomaly.

And how long we allow abortions to occur in.

No.

I mean, it's really North Korea and China that allows people to have abortions as long as us.

Erin, we are a global an anomaly.

Central and South America are opening up choice for women and we're going backwards.

Correct, Bonnie And in fact, after this horrible decision from the Supreme Court, which effectively said that due process under the law does not exist for women in this country.

What you had was actually European leaders stepping forward and expressing concern.

So we are an anomaly globally.

I'd like to go back, if I could, to these anti-abortion fake clinics because it's really serious.

This is the conversion therapy wing of the anti-abortion movement, and it is part of the core operating infrastructure of the right wing in this country.

And what they are seeking is state funds in order to build support for the right wing in the United States.

There's things that they do.

One, it's conversion.

And so you've already talked about it.

And Donna was outlining some of the slippery tactics that are used, including outright lies that go to people.

But two, it's also indoctrination when what Genevieve was calling counseling was, in fact, people who are oftentimes not licensed telling people they're going to go to hell because they had sex.

And third, it's surveillance.

And this is really, really scary.

We are now in an environment where people have real concerns about being criminalized for their reproductive behavior, including abortion, but also miscarriage.

And what you have is people who are not bound by HIPAA who maybe sharing information with prosecutors will lock people up.

And HIPAA, by the way, is a federal law concerning health rights, rights that people have.

Anyway.

Ann, you're, Ann you are sort of in the middle here.

You're a pro-choice Republican, but you are a big supporter of Justice Kavanaugh when he was Judge Kavanaugh being promoted to the Supreme Court and you said he would not you did not think he would vote to overturn Roe.

were you surprised?

(Ann) neither did Susan Collins.

I you know, whether or not he misled her in direct conversations they had.

I have to take her word.

She said he did.

And I think one of the reasons the decision was delayed is I think Kavanaugh really was reticent to vote on the part of the decision that actually overturned Roe.

He really felt that way.

We know that Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a concurrence in which he said, (Ann) right.

He would have not he would not have voted to overturn Roe.

He would have voted to uphold the Mississippi law with a 15 week ban on abortion.

And Roberts did vote against overturning Roe.

Right?

But Kavanaugh did not Kavanaugh did not I know, I think he would have been there.

I think that's one of the delays.

But be that as it may, let's go back to what we've been talking about here with the pregnancy centers.

You know, if they're truly putting out the kind of disinformation that we read about, the white hot spotlight has to be on them and they have to be forced to clean up their act.

Or what about ending ending government monies to these?

I mean, it's just.

Well, especially if they're providing disinformation, they shouldn't be getting any any government information but shine the spotlight there, clean it up.

You know, let's let's go forward let's look forward not talk about what they've done in the past.

Let's try to get everybody to clean up their act going forward.

The.

one of the real problems and one of the things people are waking up to is we no longer have a national fight on abortion, so to speak.

We have 50 fights on abortion, 50 fights that are going to mean more money being spent on the fight and not on women and their families.

50 fights, you know, where women in some states are going to have to worry, do I have any rights?

I also looking forward, want to look for commensurate things that men should have to be held to so that there's equal, equality on reproductive rights before the law.

Maybe there should be mandatory vasectomies at 13 that are reversible and men have to, you know, get government permission to to reverse them when they become of childbearing age.

But there's all, but, but let me jump in here.

There's already pretty heavily enforced nowadays, much better than two or three decades ago of state governments going and county governments going after the fathers of these children to kick in for support.

Now, that being said, there are plenty of women who the government just can't keep up with where their partners are.

Listen, listen, I I'm involved with a friend who's whose daughter in law from previous, you know, her ex from a previous marriage now owes her $250,000.

Last time he paid child support was months and months and months ago paid $500.

The courts have been giving them the runaround.

These people are desperate.

She has three children.

So don't tell me that they're enforcing because they're not.

You're a conservative.

You are a supporter of Donald Trump.

Why didn't the ruling somehow or why didn't the former administration say, we're going to get this money for you and we're.

the money men owe the women You can't Ignore the family security act.

And you can't ignore GOP proposals to make child support liable from the point of conception.

This is a fundamentally conservative argument.

Make men have responsibility for their actions.

No, it's actually it actually began under, I think, President Clinton.

several involved with this.

Romney, wants to use what remains of this salt deduction, take that away and fund the family security act Tiana which would do precisely this.

Let's let Ann finish.

And then I got to move on Ann, because we're about out of time.

The point again is let's look forward.

Let's.

And again I cited the thing about mandatory vasectomies let's hit men where they live so to speak to show what it means to have control over your reproduction.

And right now, one of the biggest problems I have is women are not equal before the law right now.

They aren't.

They come in third men.

The the fetus.

Fetus.

Wouldn't it be first fetus then men?

Maybe so.

Maybe so.

All right.

Now, one.

One last question for Erin, because and then we'll get to Donna in the next segment But Erin you run a pro-choice activist group.

Are women going to keep this motivation through November?

Are they what's going to happen in the midterms?

Oh, Bonnie, this is so much bigger than the midterms.

Yes, it will be a huge factor in the midterms.

But this goes to just a seismic shift.

Every day I'm hearing from people who are crying about their daughters and what has happened to them under the law.

And so I think what we're going to see is huge political shifts over the long term.

And there will be there will be direct action protests in the streets.

I'm leading one tonight.

There will continue to be work everywhere, from the polls to the streets to culture.

How do you keep it alive, though?

I mean, voters in America are very apathetic.

I once had a conservative friend who said, yeah, they they after 200 years, they don't you know, they're bored with voting.

We should be Israel.

And, you know, we're we're only a 40 or 50 year old country and 98% turnout.

But Americans, and particularly American Democrats don't go to the polls.

But, Bonnie, what is just happened is for so long, many people thought the abortion issue was somebody else's issue.

And that is no longer the case.

What we have is anti-abortion proposals right now to ban freedom of speech on abortion, anti-abortion proposals to ban the protection of state laws so that people can't go in and get abortions in other states.

That's in contravention of our Constitution and anti-abortion proposals that would actually make it illegal to talk about abortion.

So when we have those problems all together, I think that more and more people are going to wake up.

This is part of a broader, outsourced theocratic regime in order to support a descent into authoritarianism.

Thank you, Genevieve, for joining us for this segment.

Let us know what you think.

Please follow me on Twitter at To the Contrary.

From abortion rights to strong women.

Are women the only ones strong enough to stand up to former President Donald Trump?

That's a serious question dogging the January 6th hearings on the insurrection.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a young White House aide, told the House committee Trump wanted to appear at the Capitol during the attack.

She said he became irate, even violent, toward his Secret Service driver, who told him, no, he couldn't go to the Capitol during the insurrection because he wouldn't be safe.

She also reports Trump said VP Mike Pence should be hanged and that he knew the insurrectionists were armed but wanted them to march on Congress anyway.

The committee's vice chair is another Republican woman, Liz Cheney.

She's being lauded by some for being one of the few members of the GOP to condemn Trump's actions during the insurrection.

Donna Edwards So does it take a woman stand up to who, someone who appears to be a very angry, possibly violent man?

Well, I do think that the courage that was displayed by Cassidy Hutchinson is amazing.

I mean, that she in the face in early in her career, you know, keep in mind, she's got the rest of her life ahead of her.

And she has stood up to offer her testimony against one of the most lawless presidents that we've ever had.

And I think it took a lot of courage.

Liz Cheney.

Liz Cheney is like, you know, a dog with a bone.

She's not going to let go of this because.

Is she going to win reelection.

The polls show her.

Can I just tell you something, it doesn't matter, because what matters is the republic.

And I think she's made that very clear, that winning one election is is not going to be enough to save the republic.

And I think that she's come out on the side of trying to get to the truth, expose the truth, and to hold Donald Trump once and for all accountable.

And our system deserves that, deserves the courage of these of these women.

And how dare these men who were in the room, who were present at the time to stand behind and not come forward in the way that these two courageous women have done?

And that's not to say that I agree with their politics on like anything else, but I do agree with their their goal of saving the republic.

All right, Tiana, what do you think about this?

Does it take a woman to stand up to an angry man?

I would say that it doesn't take a woman, considering that the three people who I think we can thank the most for January sixth not devolving into something worse than it was were Brad Ratzenberger, Brian Kemp, and most importantly, Mike Pence.

It was Mike Pence who decided to stay there at the Capitol, who was adamant in the fact that no, Donald Trump did not win the election.

The election was not stolen.

That being said, you know, there is a very big difference between what Liz Cheney is doing and what and what Cathy Hutchinson is doing.

You know, Liz Cheney, she's going to be on the board of Raytheon come January 2023.

She'll be fine.

You do have a younger staffer.

You know, you're taking a 26 year old someone also at the start of their career.

And unfortunately, the January six committee did not do her any favors in A - making the center focus of her testimony, giving a dumping to all the journalists.

The essential piece was going to be the allegation about Trump trying to grab the steering wheel from the presidential SUV and then and then not .. And the net grab and some by some accounts grabbing the guy around the neck.

Now here's the thing by something else.

The problem is Cassidy Hutchinson said, who told her this story first hand.

And that person says that they never said that.

So you have to have get.

That the January six committee really ought to have corroborated that anecdote, and who told it to her before blowing her up to be a one of The New York Times?

That's a I'm not going.

I mean, you know, she's a she's a grown woman.

She's a professional woman, as I'm not going to say that they should have treated her like a child.

But just out of fairness to someone who's willing to put their career on the line.

You don't let someone voice an allegation like that publicly on primetime television without getting some sort of corroboration, which they did not do.

You now have two stories and it makes her look less question.

It is called congressional hearings, I believe, and it's not at this point, you know, Congress can't indict anybody here.

But, Erin, my husband is a litigator who has been watching these proceedings very closely.

And he and a lot of his litigator friends and my husband's litigated before the Supreme Court.

They believe that what has come out of the January sixth hearing and particularly the testimony of Hutchinson and the that the holding of the hearings, the co co chair of the committee, Liz Cheney, this is kind of force Merrick Garland, who has kind of been hovering in a corner somewhere to cut, to indict at least people very close to the president, possibly the president for for you know, for for helping mount an insurrection.

Because what these committee what this committee has done for me, who has not followed this issue closely, is show my God.

Trump.

I used to think Trump was just like some, Trump was in the White House And these, you know, you know, the white nationalists were doing all of this on their own.

But what the committee has shown is uh-huh Trump was orchestrating it.

Absolutely, Bonnie.

And if we're going to defend the United States of America as a republic, then we need to come together with folks from all political persuasions to deal with this.

And I do think it would be important that our country takes more actions than just simply holding hearings, some of which in prime time now.

Don't get me wrong, some of the most important things that have happened in Congress and certainly my lifetime, these particular hearings.

And I also would like to just note that it is notable that it is women who are leading the charge, the women who are who are tuning in to their patriotism right now on the Republican Party side.

And that's that's not an accident.

It's a pattern around the world that global defense of democracy often rests with women.

I think that is why we're also seeing huge attacks on women's rights right now.

I mean, it it it is will all of this matter at the ballot box come November?

And I think it's sad that, no, this won't happen.

Look, I'm someone who said that, on January sixth, I wrote a piece.

Yeah, this is impeachable and convicted behavior.

That's how you get rid of this.

But for I mean, you know, you have even liberal legal scholars saying that the problem is even just just the just the image of impropriety of Merrick Garland going forward with some sort of criminal conviction, however justified it is.

If Trump declares himself a candidate again, could make could be setting the stage for the next Trumps.

The election was rigged type thing, although quite frankly, if you look at these inflation numbers, if you look at 8.6% inflation, if you look at double gas prices since the beginning of this last presidency, Republicans won't even have to steal the next election.

They'll just get it the old fashioned way.

First of all, are women leading the way?

Well, within hours, Cassidy's testimony was debunked.

Civil service is now willing to come and testify that what she said is a lie.

The person who supposedly told her all this stuff is willing to come forward under oath and say what she told was a lie.

You know, I don't know what her agenda is.

I've done what job she's been promised, but she's going to turn out to be the Jessie Smollett or the new Michael Abbington of the media.

I think it's really sad.

I think she's going to be, you know, totally destroyed over this.

And in terms of the others, Liz Cheney, she was handpicked by Pelosi, not the Republicans, because they knew she would be like a dog with a bone going after Trump.

She hates him because he went after Bush and Cheney.

Let's put it this way.

They all have reasons to go.

They all have reasons to dislike each other Donna, last, a sentence or two.

What's going to happen in the midterms?

Cheney's gone and it will be gone.

But look, I think that there are going to be a lot of factors in the midterms.

Obviously, people vote their pocketbooks.

But I do think that this question of preserving and protecting the republic and the question of abortion rights are going to factor very heavily, especially in swing districts and swing states, that that's going to matter to independents.

It's going to matter to Republicans who have not slid off the deep end with Donald Trump.

And I don't buy the conventional wisdom about what the outcome of the election will be.

All right.. That's it for this edition.

Please follow me on Twitter and visit our website, pbs.org, slash to the contrary and whether you agree or think to the contrary.

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