Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s13e21 Episode Script

1
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver, thank you so much
for joining us. It has been a busy week.
Europe got to enjoy a solar eclipse,
Nigel Farage
won a by-election so stupid
the candidate in second place, with
over a quarter of the vote, by the way,
was Count Binface.
And the Iran war dragged on,
with a series of humiliating news
headlines, including this revelation
about Trump's trip home
from last month's NATO summit.
New details of the elaborate
operation by the Secret Service
to covertly
swap President Trump's planes
amid fears
of an Iranian assassination plot.
The president had arrived aboard
his Qatari-gifted Air Force One,
but raised eyebrows by announcing
he'd take an older plane home,
sending the new plane ahead
to a British air base.
The Washington Post now reports
that the president immediately
sneaked off the plane
and onto a catering truck that whisked
him off to a smaller military jet.
In video from that day, you see
the president boarding with a wave.
But as the camera pulls back,
there's a catering truck below.
Five minutes later, the press
seen boarding the back of the plane
as that catering truck pulls away,
reportedly with the president
concealed inside.
Fantastic. The only problem
I can see there
is, next time he needs to escape,
he's not gonna be able to use
the catering truck trick again,
because everyone knows
about it now.
People are going to be suspicious
from now on
if they see a plane go one way,
a catering truck go another,
and an enormous man-sized
cake get wheeled away
by two suspiciously jacked chefs.
But while it clearly doesn't look great
for a president to be emergency-hiding
in a catering truck,
it looks even worse
when you remember a lot of other
people were still on that plane
that he was smuggled off of.
Still onboard the 747, though,
dozens of journalists
and White House staffers, as well
as Secretary of State Marco Rubio
and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
That plane lifting off
believed to be the intended target.
Yeah, not great! There were a lot
of innocent people on that plane,
and also Marco Rubio.
Meanwhile, for those actually having
to fight this war, it's been grim.
Just this week we learned
horrendous details
about conditions
on the USS Abraham Lincoln,
which has been deployed
for more than 250 days,
including over 200
without a port call,
which is apparently "more than any
other aircraft carrier in modern era."
Life on that ship
sounds like it's been desperate.
Families reportedly confronted
Navy leaders at town halls last week,
describing moldy showers,
broken toilets, food shortages,
and no soap or toothpaste.
Families of those on board
told the Military Times
at least two sailors have tried
to jump from the carrier.
Danielle Rappa's son
is on board.
He describes the overall
experience
as a scene out
of the "American Horror Story",
where he feels like everybody is
dead, but they don't know it yet.
Well, that's not good.
You never want to be in a position
where you describe your job
as a scene out
of "American Horror Story".
Honestly, if you absolutely
have to choose a Ryan Murphy show
for your workplace to resemble,
the obvious answer is "All's Fair".
Kim Kardashian, Niecy Nash-Betts,
Teyana Taylor, Naomi Watts,
Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close
in different shades of magenta suits,
as well as dialogue like this.
Carr, sweetie, how are you?
Never mind me, how are you holding
up, you poor, discarded cum-rag?
That's the Ryan Murphy production
you're gonna want to be stuck in,
not this floating fucking nightmare.
Now, Pete Hegseth has claimed
that the ship's conditions
are being "completely misrepresented"
by those who are actually
experiencing them, saying,
"We make sure that every ship,
every crew, every captain
has everything we can provide
at every single moment."
And if he means
"to go certifiably insane",
I'm inclined
to agree with him there.
But the administration's list
of the resources offered onboard
has not been reassuring.
A U.S. official tells ABC News
they have not seen an uptick
in mental health issues,
and say the Lincoln has a variety
of resources on board,
including one clinical psychologist,
five chaplains,
and three behavioral
health technicians.
They also have one therapy dog
on board named Captain Fathom,
whose job it is to ease
anxiety among the crew.
Holy shit, that is way too much
pressure to put on one dog.
Especially one with
a thousand-yard stare like that.
He doesn't seem like a therapy dog
so much as a dog
who desperately needs therapy.
I'm just saying, there is absolutely
a CVS that has a bottle of Lexapro
with Captain Fathom's name on it.
And look, there will clearly be
more to say about Iran going forward,
but for now, we're gonna dive straight
in with our main story this week,
which concerns pregnancy,
a great way to still not get
a seat on the subway.
Specifically, I want to talk about
something called "fetal personhood",
the concept that a fetus is,
from conception,
"a separate, unique human",
with its own rights
distinct from the person
it's rather unavoidably inside.
The concept is, unsurprisingly,
usually associated
with the anti-abortion movement,
and post-Dobbs, it's been
getting a lot more attention.
Fetal personhood
is a once-fringe idea
now at the center
of anti-abortion advocacy.
The fetal personhood movement
aims to grant full legal rights
and protections to fetuses,
and in some cases embryos.
About a third of states have
established fetal personhood
by law or judicial decision.
Okay, first, nice
"Horton Hears a Who" sign there.
Though you should probably know,
according to Dr. Seuss' biographer,
back in the '80s, he threatened
to sue an anti-abortion rights group
that used that quote
on its stationery,
after which they backed down.
Which is a little surprising, given
"stay out of my fucking business"
is not usually a message
these groups tend to respond to.
The fetal personhood idea
can be embedded in laws
in a bunch of different ways, and some
can initially sound appealing,
like ones that make it a crime
to cause the death
of an unborn child during
an act of domestic violence.
But once the law recognizes
a fetus as a separate victim,
if you get pregnant,
that same logic
can quickly be weaponized against
you, and in all sorts of ways.
Hundreds of women across the country
have been arrested
or lost custody of their children for
reasons related to their pregnancies.
Brittany Watts,
a 33-year-old Black woman,
says she went to the hospital
multiple times
after bleeding
during her pregnancy.
Watts returned home,
where she suffered a miscarriage.
Now she's being charged
with abuse of a corpse.
A woman from Alabama suffered
a miscarriage after being shot,
and now she's being charged
with manslaughter
for the death of her unborn child.
That is bleak. If you suffer
a miscarriage after being shot,
you shouldn't be charged
with manslaughter.
That's one of those sentences
I never thought I'd end up
needing to say out loud,
like "cocaine pollution
gives salmon wanderlust"
or "young Richard Nixon was hot."
Yikes, by the way, I would let that
guy break into my Watergate Hotel.
And that is just the beginning here.
Because over the years,
"fetal personhood" has been the basis
of legal cases involving everything
from a pregnant woman who
fell down a flight of stairs
and who was charged
with "attempted fetal homicide"
to a bonkers story
involving this woman.
She was in the middle
of a long delivery,
and was a professional doula,
by the way.
She'd had three prior C-sections
and hoped to avoid a fourth,
only to find the situation
suddenly out of her hands.
She was in her 12th hour of labor
in the hospital
when Cherise Doyley suddenly found
herself in front of a Florida judge
from her hospital bed.
Is this a real judge?
A nurse wheeling in a tablet
with the judge, doctors,
lawyers, and others on Zoom.
That was exactly when I found
out that we were going to court.
Now this is the craziest
thing I've ever seen.
Video obtained by NBC News
shows the 32-year-old Black woman
in her hospital bed pulled into
a virtual emergency court hearing
as Florida state attorneys
on behalf of the hospital
sought a court-ordered C-section.
Nobody is here to speak for me.
When Doyley asks if she can call
a lawyer or a patient advocate,
the judge says…
There's not a constitutional right to
counsel in one of these proceedings.
Holy shit,
that is a fucking outrage.
Every part of that is wrong,
including that it should be illegal
to make a woman giving birth
get on a video call of any kind.
I don't even like being on a Zoom
when I am not giving birth.
And for the record,
how, 12 hours into labor,
was she composed enough
to ask for counsel so calmly there?
She could've reasonably screamed
"shit, piss, cock, motherfucker"
and changed her Zoom background
into a million middle fingers,
and any smart judge would've said,
"You're right,
that's an entirely fair point."
Fetal personhood
isn't just a fringe idea,
it's been a quiet goal of the anti
abortion movement for decades now,
but it's been picking up real speed
in recent years.
In 2023, a group of anti-abortion
lawyers and activists
even explicitly set "a post-Dobbs goal
of recognizing fetal personhood."
And with this Supreme Court,
I frankly wouldn't bet against them.
So given all that, tonight,
let's talk about fetal personhood,
where the idea comes from,
all the surprising ways
in which it can be applied,
and where things
could be heading next.
And let's start with the fact
that the basic concept
of a fetus being its own person
with distinct rights is nothing new.
In fact,
here is one of its major proponents
laying out the argument
in 1984.
I believe that until and unless
someone can establish
that the unborn child
is not a living human being,
then that child is already protected
by the Constitution,
which guarantees life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness to all of us.
Yeah, there he is. It seems you cannot
trace the source of any modern problem
without a cameo
from this messy bitch.
He truly is the Forrest Gump
of societal ills.
But the thing is, Reagan could
believe that all he liked,
it still wasn't law
in the U.S.
In fact, when the Supreme Court
decided Roe v. Wade,
it explicitly rejected
fetal personhood, stating,
"The word 'person,' as used
in the 14th Amendment,
does not include the unborn."
However, it did leave
the door open a crack
by holding that the state has
an "important and legitimate interest
in protecting
the potentiality of human life."
And that was no small thing,
because it meant that as long as states
didn't explicitly ban abortion,
they were legally able
to expand protections for fetuses.
And, for years, many did just that.
Some states defined a person
to include a fetus
throughout their criminal codes,
while in other places, prosecutors
"expanded their use of child abuse
and neglect laws to police
the conduct of pregnant women."
But after Dobbs,
the guardrails fully came off.
Because state legislators felt that they
could push much more aggressively
for fetal personhood legislation
and with some creative arguments,
probably none more so
than the one this North Dakota
state legislator made last year.
We have to be brave enough,
righteous enough,
and have enough integrity,
not only to our oath of office,
but to all the claims of being
pro-life and to being Christian,
and actually do
what the word of God says.
And in case you don't know if a baby
at conception is human or not,
I would like you to show me
the first kangaroo or plant
that came out of a woman's womb.
What on Earth
are you talking about?
Obviously, no woman
is pregnant with a kangaroo.
I wouldn't blame any woman who
wanted to fool around with one,
especially this guy,
or indeed this one right here.
But that is not the point, is it?
The point is, here is
what's tricky about all of this.
One side is saying,
"Hey, a woman should have a right to
control what happens in her own body"
and the other is saying,
"So you think
you give birth to a kangaroo?!"
And I honestly don't know how
we meet in the middle there.
But the obvious consequence
of these laws
is that they treat
the individual carrying the fetus
as something
less than a full human.
And the very moment
you're pregnant,
you become
merely a means to an end.
And it is not like some legislators
have needed much
encouragement on that front.
During an interview about an abortion
law in Oklahoma in 2017,
this guy, its sponsor, referred
to pregnant people as "hosts"
and his justification
for doing so wasn't ideal.
When I use the term "host"
it's not meant to degrade women.
I actually went and googled that
and I went to Webster,
and I couldn't find a better term.
I mean, look, congratulations
on "going to Webster" or whatever,
but there are only a handful
of situations
where it's acceptable to call
a woman a host:
if she works front-of-house
at a restaurant,
if she invites you over for dinner,
if she has her own talk show,
or if you're talking about Annabelle,
host to the demonic spirit
permanently trapped inside her.
And the thing
about fetal personhood
is, it can be used
not just to limit abortion,
but to criminalize other conduct
during pregnancy
seen as jeopardizing a fetus in any
way, like drinking or drug use.
And look, no one is saying
that it's a great idea to drink
or take drugs while pregnant.
After all, you don't want
your kid to come out too cool.
But for many substances,
the risks to a fetus,
while real,
are actually far more complex,
and often far less clear-cut,
than the law assumes.
The problem is, the law can take
a zero-tolerance approach.
And unfortunately,
many hospitals drug test
pregnant women and their newborns,
often without their knowledge,
and in at least 27 states,
they're required by law
to alert child welfare agencies
about a positive test.
But that is a big issue,
especially given drug tests can
be notoriously inaccurate.
Just listen to this woman describe
what a nurse told her
right after she'd given birth
to her second child.
She told me that my drug screen
tested positive for opioids,
for morphine specifically.
Katie says the test results
didn't make sense.
She had never taken
any opiates or illicit drugs.
But that day,
before coming to the hospital,
she did have an everything bagel.
For nearly a month,
Katie was only allowed
supervised time with her children.
And although she was breastfeeding,
she had to leave her house at night.
I would leave the house,
and I would scream in my car
because I was so devastated
to leave her. Sorry.
It's okay. What was that like?
It was torture. I mean,
it was pain I've never felt before.
Katie, did you feel
that there was a risk
that if you didn't follow
everything you were told to do…
- You could lose your children?
- Absolutely.
Yeah,
all of that over a fucking bagel.
It should not be possible for your
life to get fucked up that badly
just based on what
you had for breakfast.
Unless of course, the breakfast
in question is Honey Smacks,
in which case, honestly, you kind
of deserve whatever happens to you.
You're a bad person.
And the thing is,
it's common knowledge
that those "drug screens are easily
misinterpreted and often wrong,
with false positive rates
as high as 50%."
But if you need
convincing any further,
please enjoy this lawyer
that they talked to for that story,
who brought a magnificent
visual aid with her.
Here's a cup of my urine, and if
I give it to you, you could test it.
Maybe it's positive.
But it can't tell you if I'm addicted,
I'm dependent.
And yet, for thousands of women
in this country, and families,
probably millions, a drug test
is used as a parenting test.
Okay, so, a few things.
First…
Not sure that's quite as exonerating
as you want it to be,
as "being able to produce
a jar of piss unprompted"
might be the most "definitely
on drugs" behavior I have ever seen.
And also, while I'm completely
on that lawyer's side,
I can't help wondering
if she's had a cup of water today.
And even if she has, would she
like me to get her another one?
And referrals to law enforcement
over alleged drug use during pregnancy
are not remotely uncommon,
one investigation found,
in a six-year period,
at least 70,000 such cases
across 21 states, a number which is
almost certainly an undercount.
And in many cases, the referrals
began with false positive results
from flawed drug tests.
But look, let's acknowledge
that sometimes,
a positive drug test does indicate
that someone has used drugs.
Well, to hear some lawmakers tell it,
we need to criminalize that,
because how else are we going
to encourage expectant mothers
to clean up their acts?
You use the carrot and the stick.
You know, the stick is,
"Hey, this is hanging over my head.
If I don't get clean,
if I don't get rid of this drug use,
then I'm going to go to jail
and I may lose my child.
But if I test negative,
if I do a good job of getting clean,
I'm going to get to lead
a normal life with my child."
Wait, that is just a terrible analogy.
Because if the stick
is the fear of going to jail,
and the carrot is "getting to lead
a normal life with your child",
then it feels like the scenario
that you are describing there
is the same
as the answer to the question,
"What has Owen Wilson
been up to lately?"
by which I mean, mostly "Stick".
But doctors will point out some
key flaws with that approach.
First, quitting drugs cold turkey
can cause complications
that trigger miscarriage
or an early labor.
And second, terrifying expectant
mothers with the threat of jail time
carries its own set of risks.
Scaring the mom to the point
that she's not coming to get
healthcare during her pregnancy
or not disclosing her drug use
so that she can get the support
and treatment that she needs, none
of those are protecting the baby.
Putting the mom in jail
and taking the baby away
is not protecting the baby.
There are lots of unsafe things
that women do during pregnancy.
I might recommend that they take
a certain medication for diabetes,
and they don't take it,
and their sugars are really high,
and that's very harmful
to them and their baby.
But no one's putting them in jail
or taking their baby away.
Of course! Right.
There are plenty of things
women shouldn't be allowed
to do while they're pregnant,
but we let them anyway,
like eating sushi, or bungee jumping,
or driving, or math, or is anybody
going to stop me right now?
I'm listing things that I, John, think
women shouldn't be able to do.
Someone should've jumped in
and stopped me by now.
None of you are my real friends.
That was a test and you all failed.
We are in a fight right now.
The point is, babies clearly do better
when their moms
go to doctors' appointments
and, ideally, are not thrown in jail
as part of a bullshit
"carrot and stick" approach.
And the way some of these laws work
in practice is an absolute nightmare.
That woman you saw earlier
is by no means the only one
who wound up dragged into court
over a state's concerns for her fetus.
Take what happened
to this Wisconsin woman,
who'd been using meth,
but when she learned she was
pregnant, immediately stopped.
She voluntarily
checked into a hospital
seeking help
for depression and other issues.
While there, a urine test came back
positive for drugs.
And when doctors asked her
about her past usage,
she was completely honest
with them, and for good reason.
My decision to tell the doctors
about my drug use
was solely so that
if I did anything wrong
and they could give me something
that would help my baby
because of what I had done,
I had no hesitation,
because he was the only thing
I was thinking about.
The ER doctor was like,
"Don't worry, all that matters
is that you're here,
and you're getting help now."
He's like,
"Your baby'll be fine."
He left the room
and it started from there.
Now, as you can probably guess, things
didn't go great from that point on.
Which shouldn't really
be a surprise.
Because "and it started from there"
isn't generally the lead-in
to an uplifting story.
It's an ominous setup, right up there
with "it was a dark and stormy night"
or "welcome, welcome,
welcome to 'Last Week Tonight.'"
And what followed
was a fucking nightmare.
Because when she tried
to leave the hospital, this happened.
When the social worker
came into my room and said,
"There's a hearing, we need you to
come to the conference room now",
it was a shock.
And then all of a sudden,
like, there's a speakerphone
in the middle of the room,
and she's putting a judge on.
This is the time and date set for
a temporary physical custody hearing.
The guardian ad litem for
the unborn child is Michael Schiffler.
Ms. Graf, what's the county's position
on where Ms. Loertscher is going to
be placed until the child is born?
I didn't know what was going on
and the first thing I said was,
"I don't want to talk
unless I have a lawyer."
The 14-week-old fetus had a lawyer
at this hearing
who was taking a position
adverse to Tammy
and was represented by counsel,
where Tammy,
who had asked for a lawyer,
did not have one and was denied one.
Yeah, the fetus had a lawyer,
but she didn't.
And remember, this happened
when she was just 14 weeks pregnant.
At that point, you may not even be
able to tell the sex from an ultrasound.
Honestly, if you tried to do
a gender reveal that early,
the closest you might get
is, "It's a plaintiff!"
And the state didn't allow
her to leave the hospital
on the grounds that doing so
was "contrary to the unborn
child's best interest."
In the end, after she refused
court-ordered inpatient drug treatment,
she was jailed for 18 days,
including about 36 hours
in solitary confinement,
which is arguably a weird thing
to do to someone
whose health you're supposedly
trying to safeguard.
And amazingly,
it can get even worse,
because under fetal personhood laws,
pregnancy loss can create
yet another path
into the criminal system,
with miscarriages and stillbirths
sometimes treated as suspicious.
There are multiple stories
of women being investigated
or even charged with crimes, including
murder, following a pregnancy loss.
Which is utterly bonkers,
given that every year in the U.S.,
there are approximately
five million pregnancies,
and of those, about a million end
in a miscarriage,
and over 20,000 end in stillbirth.
And some of the worst consequences
of everything you've seen tonight
have fallen on women
like Cherie Mason,
who tested positive for drugs
at the hospital after a stillbirth.
She wound up taking a plea deal
for manslaughter as a result,
not because she thought she was
guilty, but because, in her words,
"I knew the way
that it works here in Oklahoma."
She not only got
a 12-year prison sentence,
which took her away
from her other children,
she was also required to register
with the state
as a violent offender
upon her release.
And the whole situation is summed up
by her daughter pretty nicely.
It was up to the DA,
and he basically said they're
making an example out of her.
I actually said,
"My mom's more than an example.
Like, we need her here. If you want
to get to the core of the problem,
maybe make some kind of system
to where we can help people
with addiction a little bit more."
Sometimes I really don't think
that's what they want, though.
I don't think they want
to help people with addiction.
I think they just want to make
the people with addiction go away.
Yeah, that is fucking awful,
and honestly,
if that had happened to my mom,
I think I'd also have smoked
one K2's worth of cigarettes.
And look, those who push
fetal personhood will insist
that it's based on a principled stance
about the sanctity of life from
the moment of conception.
But there was an interesting
moment two years ago
that exposed a bit of a crack
in that argument.
And it concerned this bizarre
news story out of Alabama.
This morning, a first-of-its-kind
decision by Alabama Supreme Court
that could put families' access
to fertility treatments
in the post-Roe era at risk.
The court determining frozen
embryos qualify as people
under its state law, ruling
"unborn children are children
without exception based
on developmental stage."
The chief justice in a concurring
opinion quoting the Bible,
citing the sanctity of unborn life.
The case in question involved a patient
who managed to access the freezer
storing frozen embryos
at an Alabama fertility clinic.
The patient picked up
multiple embryos
and mistakenly dropped
and destroyed them.
The state's high court says
that patient can now be held liable
in a wrongful death lawsuit.
Okay, setting aside
the weird Mr. Bean antics
of that person
walking into a freezer
and juggling frozen embryos
for some reason,
that might actually be
a pretty useful logic test.
Because I would argue anything
that you can accidentally spill
just isn't a person.
Yet that ruling was following
the fetal personhood argument
to its logical conclusion.
Because, if every fertilized egg
is a person,
that would mean
that every IVF clinic,
which need to produce
a lot of embryos to ensure success,
probably then needs
to be shut down,
as they wouldn't just be
storing extra embryos
to maximize the chance
of successful implantation,
under that logic,
they'd essentially be warehouses
where human beings regularly die.
And we frankly don't need
any more of those,
given that Amazon has got
that beat nicely covered for us.
But in the wake of that ruling,
there was intense public outcry,
and Alabama suddenly
rushed through a law
aimed at protecting patients and
providers from legal liability
when embryos are damaged
or destroyed during IVF.
And I've gotta say,
it is pretty telling
that many of the, often men,
pushing for "fetal personhood"
are completely unable to defend
that double standard.
In fact, just watch
Senator Tommy Tuberville,
pictured here in natural poses
that scream "I've touched footballs",
get asked about that judge's ruling
right after it happened.
Do you have a reaction
to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling
on the fact that embryos
are children?
Yeah, I was all for it.
We need to have more kids.
We need to have
an opportunity to do that.
And I thought this was
the right thing to do but…
IVF is used to have more children,
and right now IVF services are paused
at some of the clinics in Alabama.
Aren't you concerned
that this could impact people
who are trying to have kids?
That's for another conversation.
People need… We need more kids.
We need the people to have
the opportunity to have kids.
Senator, what do you say to
the women right now in Alabama
who no longer have access to IVF
as a result of this ruling?
What do you say to them?
Well, that's a hard one,
it really is. It's really hard,
'cause again, you want
people to have that opportunity.
And that's what I was telling her,
we need more kids.
Okay, enough!
Can we please agree,
no more laws about women's bodies
made by men who've at some point
definitely googled
"when girl put in tampon, y not cum?"
Look, whatever the rhetoric used
to justify fetal personhood,
in practice, it effectively
treats women as incubators.
As that piss lawyer from before,
complimentary, by the way, points out,
they're effectively stripping women
of their rights and autonomy.
There is no way to add fertilized
eggs, embryos, and fetuses
to the Constitution without
subtracting pregnant women.
If we pass laws that treat
fertilized eggs, embryos,
and fetuses as if
they're entirely separate,
then women will also be subjected
to a permanent second-class status.
Exactly. Women would effectively
be second-class citizens.
Or as this asshole
likes to call them, "hosts".
Though, remember,
he looked it up in Webster's,
and apparently that makes it fine.
So what can be done here?
Well, in some states,
legislators have introduced bills
designed to highlight
how stupid these laws are,
like Mississippi's "Contraception
Begins at Erection Act",
which proposed imposing fines
of up to 10,000 dollars on those who
"discharge genetic material without
the intent to fertilize an embryo."
Which frankly means I'm about
to owe a lot of money,
because I've now seen this picture
and I need to do something about it.
But look, much more serious
solutions could include
states repealing or removing fetal
personhood language
embedded in state law,
or at the very least,
when they pass laws that recognize
the loss of a pregnancy,
do so without punishing
the person who was pregnant.
We could also end secret
drug tests in hospitals,
which, to their credit,
some have done.
At one in Connecticut,
doctors are now directed
to test only if doing so
will inform medical care.
And since that policy changed,
it's curbed unnecessary
child welfare reports,
which dropped by almost 50%
without harming babies.
In fact, since then,
not a single baby
came into the hospital
with uncontrolled withdrawal symptoms.
And I know this story has been
bleak and very scary.
So, if you are pregnant and live
somewhere where you're vulnerable
to the legal perils
that you've seen tonight,
you should know, organizations
like Pregnancy Justice
and If When How
run legal help lines
that you can contact
at these numbers.
I hate that that is necessary,
but we are where we are.
And with any luck,
we won't stay here for long.
Because look, even planned,
relatively low-risk pregnancies
are obviously life
and body-altering experiences.
And it does not seem radical to me
to want to be able to control
your own life and body
throughout that experience.
And hopefully, one day,
we'll be able to finally get to a point
where no one and nothing,
from idiot politicians
to fucking everything bagels,
can take that from you.
And now, this.
And Now: C-SPAN Hosts Have Just
One Request For Their Callers.
There's only one thing we should
be concerned about right now
and I believe that
it is January the 6th.
Turn your TV down, Ted.
You're already on.
People tend to feel
more comfortable around…
Wendy, you're gonna have
to turn down your television.
- Are you there?
- I'm here.
Okay, you're gonna have
to turn down your TV real quick.
- Hello?
- Yes, I'm here.
I'm on the air, huh?
Yes, you're on the air, but you gotta
mute your TV and talk on the phone.
I'm sorry. Shoot.
I just woke up to this,
so just give me like a second.
Let me turn this down.
Good morning, how are you?
Everybody good?
Everybody's good.
Go ahead, Ray.
Yes, I'm wanting to address the…
Leonard, I'm gonna put you on hold,
gotta turn down your television.
Go ahead, Jesse, just turn down your TV
and talk through your phone.
Jeff, you gotta turn that TV down.
It's best if you turn your TV down.
How you doing today?
Doing well. Turn your TV down
and just go ahead with your comment.
All right, Helen. Helen!
Helen, please turn down the TV.
- Listen and talk through the phone.
- Okay.
Randy, turn down your TV
so we can hear you, please.
- Okay, I'm sorry.
- It's all right.
I can't hear the program. You guys
keep cutting me off from the program.
I thought when you asked me
to turn my TV down
that I could hear the program.
Well, what's your question
or comment?
And then you can go ahead
and turn your TV back up and listen.
Okay, I'll give it when
I get to the person there.
Is that okay?
You're on with Thomas Hoenig.
What's your question?
Okay. I didn't know
I was on the program.
Good morning, Greta.
I have a pet peeve.
People, turn down your TV sets
when you come and talk.
Why do you think
that you sound intelligent
if you can't turn down your TV?
Moving on, before we go,
a quick update about soap operas.
You may remember, back in March,
after discovering Stephen A. Smith
has been a character
on "General Hospital" for a decade,
I offered myself to any soap opera that
would have me, on a few conditions.
One, I wanted to play a character
with a ridiculous name.
Two, I wanted a juicy storyline.
And three, I wanted to be slapped.
Well, as I've mentioned,
both "General Hospital"
and "Days of Our Lives"
came through with offers.
And both have now aired.
So, given that
my hot soap summer is now done,
I wanted to take a moment to let
you know exactly what happened.
And let's start with "General
Hospital," where I looked like this.
That's right, I got to act
while sporting hair that looks
like if L'Oréal sold a color
called "Midlife Crisis Black".
And to "General Hospital's" credit,
they met all my requirements,
and more.
First, my character
got to arrive via helicopter,
flanked by a pair of armed goons,
and I got to do a dramatic walk,
during which I bravely shot
in the general direction of a guy
who was already on the ground.
It's called "being an action star",
by the way.
Unless you're me or Vin Diesel,
you really wouldn't understand.
And then in my next scene,
I revealed my true identity.
Good morning, Agent Jacks.
- You're…
- I am indeed.
- You're the head of the WSB.
- Feel free to call me Z.
Okay.
What does Z stand for?
- It's my nom de guerre.
- Right.
Yeah. I played "Z",
the head of an international spy agency
that for some reason has agents
in the fictional town of Port Charles.
Quick side note, you might remember
we only stumbled into this
because one of our writers' mothers
is obsessed with "General Hospital".
So you'll be happy to know that
when Connie of Newnan, Georgia
saw my first episode, she texted her
daughter, I quote, "Very James Bond!"
And thank you, Connie,
but you're actually wrong.
And to be honest,
not for the first time, either.
Remember when you grounded your
daughter for stealing the cupcake tins
that had gone missing in your house?
You were wrong then, too.
She didn't steal those tins,
she didn't even touch them.
It was probably her brother.
And yet, she got the punishment.
And look at her now, using me
to roast your ass for it on television.
So "General Hospital" had already
met two of my conditions there:
stupid name, juicy storyline.
As for getting slapped,
well, they knocked that,
and me, out of the park, too.
'Cause it turns out, that agent's
mother was not happy with me.
I spent the whole night praying
that she was gonna be okay,
and I can't even get into a room
to check on her
because your agents won't let me.
An oversight, I'll have your name
added to the list of approved visitors.
I don't want to be added to the list.
I want my daughter back!
Then let me put this in language
that you will understand.
That ain't gonna happen.
Yes!
That had everything!
A slap, a dramatic close-up,
and me doing a voice so wrong
it is genuinely embarrassing.
That was my honest attempt
at an American accent.
I can't tell you why it's Southern.
I can only tell you
I was trying my hardest.
And frankly, I could have died
happy after that.
I got to have
the shit slapped out of me
after an iconic soap actor
screamed in my face,
"I want my daughter back!"
What more could anyone ask for?
And yet, the soap gods
smiled on me again.
Because this week, I also appeared
on "Days of Our Lives"
in scenes alongside soap legends
like Jackée Harry
and Susan Seaforth Hayes.
And the "Days of Our Lives" team
met my demands in a different way.
Because instead
of being an international spy boss,
they wrote me a character
a little more my speed.
I'm Devlin St. John,
chief city water inspector.
I'm the only thing standing
between this town
and a catastrophic plumbing failure.
A literal sewage apocalypse.
Yeah, they made me Salem's
chief city water inspector.
Which, let's be honest,
is perfect casting.
If you were gonna bottle my essence
and sell it as cologne,
it would be called,
"Chief City Water Inspector".
Now, as for the hair, I agree,
it's absolutely incredible.
It's been reported this week that it
is a wig I brought to set from home.
And while it wasn't
technically from home,
we did actually provide that wig,
and for good reason.
I've seen myself act. I knew the hair
was gonna have to do 90% of the work.
I'll be honest, I was going
for a healthy John Stamos look,
but instead it appears I ended up
looking more
like Tina from "Bob's Burgers".
And if you're wondering whether
I got slapped on "Days of Our Lives",
not only was I slapped by a man
wearing elegant silk pajamas,
I also got to slap him,
which felt utterly incredible.
But wait! I was also stabbed
with a syringe, and not once,
not even twice,
but three different times.
And if that wasn't enough,
this happened too.
- You're right not to trust me.
- What?
Oh, not again.
Please no, I don't want to…
Are you not entertained?!
Watching that makes me feel
the way I assume Matt Damon felt
after seeing
the first cut of "The Odyssey",
both proud and impressed
that my body could even do that.
Which, again, you wouldn't understand,
you're not an action star like I am now.
I wish I could take full credit
for what a feast that clip is,
but it's all thanks to
the "Days of Our Lives" team.
I only demanded to be slapped,
didn't say anything about being tased.
But even I admit it's pretty cathartic
to see me incapacitated
to the point of silence.
I won't get into all the twists
and turns that my character got into,
but in my final scene,
I got a hell of a send-off.
You're a breath
of fresh air, Mr. St. John.
You remind me
of that man on television
who calls himself a comedian,
but mostly just shouts the news
at a speed no human
can understand it.
I just wish we would have met
under different circumstances.
Good night, sweet prince.
Yeah, I got cryogenically frozen!
Meaning technically,
I can always come back.
In fact, neither show
ended up killing me off,
though to be honest, that doesn't
necessarily mean anything anyway.
It's soap operas.
No one ever really dies.
So a massive thank you
to everyone at both "General Hospital"
and "Days of Our Lives" for
welcoming me into your worlds
and making my soap opera
dreams come true.
I wish I could say
that being surrounded
by so many talented professionals
has made me a better actor,
but I think deep down,
we all know…
That ain't gonna happen.
That ain't gonna happen.
That is our show,
thank you so much for watching,
we'll see you next week,
goodnight!
That ain't gonna happen.
It ain't gonna happen.
Everything's gonna be okay.
I'm here to help.