Prepping for the Abortion Fight of a Lifetime—An Interview With Repro Rights Attorney Jenny Ma
"We actually anticipated every single question except for the first one."
What is it like being one of the attorneys getting ready for the most significant abortion case in decades?
In this week’s episode of Boom! Lawyered, Jenny Ma, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, joins hosts Jessica Mason Pieklo and Imani Gandy for a behind-the-scenes look at last week’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization arguments.
Ma, part of the legal team representing Jackson Women’s Health Organization, provides insight into how the pandemic has affected the case and how the CRR attorneys were ready for everything the justices threw at them—except for one question from Justice Clarence Thomas.
“There’s an emboldened heightenedness to the approach the antis are taking. And it just made me feel so much like, This is what our clients go through every day when they try to provide essential health care to their patients. And it just made me respect and love them all the more that they have to face this every single time they step into work. And it was just a version of that on steroids,” Ma said, describing the atmosphere outside the Supreme Court as her colleague Julie Rikelman argued the before the justices.
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