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Emily Wales Is Interviewed About Planned Parenthood; Holiday Travel Chaos; Companies Support Employees Needing Abortions. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 27, 2022 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:32:45]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: The head of Planned Parenthood is calling the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe, quote, horrific, stressing that poor women and those living in rural areas will be among those most affected by this decision.

The daughter of Jane Roe, the woman from that historic 1973 ruling, agrees.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELISSA MILLS, DAUGHTER OF "ROE" IN ROE V. WADE: Someone telling you what to do with your reproductive rights and someone having their hand on you telling you when and where and how you need to live your life, as a woman, you know, we have to take care of ourselves.

And sometimes we have to take care of ourselves in that way, and that should be our decision, nobody else's. Nobody. Especially not a man.

My mother would just be devastated, just hard to believe that now her grandkids aren't going to have the same rights as we've had for 50 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: We are joined now by Emily Wales, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.

Her organization covers facilities in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas. Three of those four states, I should note, have now effectively banned abortion.

Emily, thank you for your time this morning.

EMILY WALES, INTERIM PRESIDENT AND CEO, PLANNED PARENTHOOD GREAT PLAINS: Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: We are seeing a host of companies, big corporations across America, come out and say, if your state is banning abortion or limiting it too much for you, we will fund your ability, give you the time you need to travel somewhere else. The issue is the people affected most by this are the poorest among

us. So, many of them won't be employed by those companies. So I just wonder what calls your teams are fielding from those women.

WALES: That's exactly right. I think it is a really powerful statement to have companies standing with people in this moment to protect their reproductive access and choices. But it doesn't create real access for many of the patients we see.

Starting on Friday, we have been fielding calls and making calls to patients, especially in Arkansas, who expected they'd be able to come in, get health care, and now realize that's not an option at the local level.

Many of those patients will figure out how to get to Illinois or other states, but some of them will not. And the logistics of overcoming hurdles like overnight trips, hours away from your children or from work, it is overwhelming to many of the people we serve.

[09:35:00]

SCIUTTO: And, listen, it remains an open question as to whether some states might pass laws that criminalize travel for that.

So, I wonder, is Planned Parenthood focusing now on lobbying for national legislation, guaranteeing abortion rights? And would you consider legislation that set the time limit lower than Roe had set? Perhaps, 15 weeks.

You have a number of European countries who allow it primarily in the first trimester. Is that a position that Planned Parenthood would support for the possibility at least of getting national legislation passed?

WALES: Legislation at the federal level is really important, but I think at this point we have to be realistic that the fight is going to happen at the state level. Kansas, one of the states we serve, actually has a state constitutional amendment that's up for a vote on August 2nd.

Kansas currently has a state protection for abortion, but it is under risk. And we're hopeful that Kansans see how critical it is to act now to protect their individual freedoms.

As far as a limitation on the timing of when abortion happens, at the end of the day, we trust our patients and medical providers we work with to know what's best for the people they're serving.

I think it's not a moment, necessarily, to compromise. Our rights are individual, and they are deeply personal, and we want to fight for every patient to have the access they deserve.

HARLOW: The majority opinion, as you know, in the Dobbs decision on Friday, essentially said this doesn't affect any other substantive due process right. So this doesn't affect the ruling in Griswold versus Connecticut, a right to contraception. But that is just it. I mean that's just what Justice Alito is saying.

We know Justice Thomas wants to see all of those substantive due process rights reassessed.

Given that, is Planned Parenthood, as an organization, more broadly preparing for a day when federal -- a federal right to contraceptives could be overturned, and that decision returned to the states?

WALES: It's absolutely something that we're preparing for internally. And we also are hearing already from patients who are confused. It is nothing new to us in the four states that we service at Planned Parenthood Great Plains to have legislators who do not know the science and the reproductive organs that they're attempting to legislate.

We have patients right now who are confused about whether certain types of contraception are still legal. The answer is, yes, they are. You can still come to us. Our doors are open. But I think we are expecting a wave of attempts to limit reproductive rights even further.

SCIUTTO: Looking forward, and looking back, frankly, have you been satisfied with the Democratic Party's efforts legislatively and even in the courts with the nomination of Supreme Court justices in terms of doing what it can to protect your interest in preserving abortion rights?

WALES: We have to do better. I think for far too long we have tried to be reasonable and explain exactly what's at stake using nuance and a calm approach. And right now what we're seeing is that people are terrified. And the terror is real because the harm is going to be real.

We have to communicate very loudly that this is government interference at the most extreme. It is the government literally standing between you and your doctor and saying, you cannot get this health care. We do not trust you or your family to make these decisions.

And we have to be honest about that. That's the world in which we live right now. I, as a Missourian, have fewer rights today than I had on the morning of Friday. And I don't think there's any reason right now to be calm about that. But we have to channel that into action. And that's what we're going to do.

SCIUTTO: Emily Wales of Planned Parenthood, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

Still ahead this hour, airlines are warning of July 4th travel chaos, imagine that, after hundreds more flights were canceled this weekend. What's coming next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:38] HARLOW: Fourth of July weekend coming up, of course expected to be a busy one again for travel. AAA is expecting a record number of drivers despite really high gas prices.

SCIUTTO: That could be because of continuing problems with delayed or canceled flights. Boy, we've seen a lot of that.

CNN's Pete Muntean joins us now.

I wonder, Pete, I've got to say, virtually every flight I've taken in the last six months has been delayed for some reason. And often times the staff will say to me, we just don't have a crew, right?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION AND TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Their own (ph) flight crew, they're coming in. You know, they're squeezed. And we've heard this many times. Those problems aren't going to be solved in the next weeks. So, do we expect a similar scene on the July 4th weekend?

MUNTEAN: The issues are not going away, Jim. You know, the pressure is on airlines to perform, not only from the federal government.

You know, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the airlines that they must have their act together over the July 4th weekend. But also there is this pressure from passengers after these two consecutive weekends of massive cancellations.

Look at the latest numbers from FlightAware. More than 600 flights canceled on Saturday nationwide. More than 800 on Sunday. We just hit 700 cancellations nationwide today.

And we know that bad weather is coming from the East Coast and airlines got a lot smaller over the pandemic, so when those two things mix, it makes a really bad cocktail and the cancellations go up and up.

In fact, Delta Air Lines really has been leading the pack in cancellations. It accounted for about a third of all cancellations nationwide just yesterday.

[09:45:03]

There is this statement from Delta that sort of lists out the different reasons for the cancellations. Not only are there increased worker sick calls across a couple different work groups Delta says. Remember, the pandemic is not over. But also there are these weather issues.

And then there is the issue of air traffic control. And this is really interesting, Jim and Poppy, because the airlines are putting some of the blame here back on the federal government.

The FAA, though, insists that it does have enough air traffic controllers, it has staffed up, and it is actually moving controllers around to some of those delay and cancellation hot spots. No doubt, this weekend is going to be huge. United Airlines says its

bookings are about 92 percent of where we were during the July 4th holiday back in 2019, before the pandemic.

And we just hit a new pandemic era air travel record, even ahead of this weekend, 2.46 million people screened by TSA nationwide just yesterday. So, it's going to be a big weekend. The big question now is whether or not it's going to be a smooth one, Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Yes. Will you get there or will your flight get canceled? I saw so many cancellations on that board yesterday at the airport.

Pete, thanks very much.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

HARLOW: Still ahead, the fall of Roe versus Wade could have severe economic consequences for women across the country. Now some corporations are stepping in. We'll tell you who and what they're doing, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:50]

SCIUTTO: Since the draft of the opinion that eventually did overturn Roe v. Wade leaked, corporations have been stepping up to say they will support employees and their family members who may need to travel to get abortion care.

HARLOW: After the ruling came down Friday morning, more companies announced that they will provide financial assistance as well for their employees.

Our Vanessa Yurkevich reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When Alana Edmonson unexpectedly got pregnant with her partner at 21, she had a choice to make.

She was working a low-wage retail job in Seattle while dreaming of getting her Ph.D. at Yale. She made the tough decision to have an abortion.

ALANA EDMONSON, HAD ACCESS TO ABORTION SERVICES: I knew that I would be stuck in a cycle of poverty that I was already trying to get out of.

YURKEVICH: The Supreme Court dismantled 50 years of precedent when it overturned Roe v. Wade, returning abortion laws to states.

There will be significant economic repercussions. Women denied abortion access who gave birth were more likely to experience increased poverty lasting at least four years, compared to women who received an abortion, according to the University of California San Francisco.

EDMONDSON: It would just be very, very difficult, especially with, like, the price of day care. I mean even feeding somebody else.

YURKEVICH: Twenty-six states will likely ban abortions. Those states already have lower wages, barriers to health care, and less funding for social services, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The impacts would be felt most by women of color.

ASHA BANERJEE, ANALYST, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE: When women are not able to complete their education or get the job they want, this has severe economic consequences, yes, for them, but this loss of economic potential of possibility will have ramifications for the state economy, the national economy as well.

YURKEVICH: The anti-abortion group Right to Life cites public assistance efforts in five of the 26 states likely to ban abortion aimed at helping pregnant women and new moms.

And now dozens of corporations are stepping in, providing protections for employees in those states.

MIRIAM WARREN, CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER, YELP: I think for any employer that cares about issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, to stay silent on such an issue is really just not OK.

YURKEVICH: Yelp, which calls the SCOTUS decision a denial of human rights and a threat to workplace gender equality, said before the ruling it's covering travel and health care for employees, family members, and partners seeking an abortion anywhere in the U.S.

YURKEVICH: Do you think it's both an asset for retention of employees and then also an asset for attracting new employees to the company?

WARREN: I think it's both. It has really been a wonderful recruiting tool in terms of prospective employees saying, I want to work at a company that is out there and loud about what they believe in and what they care about.

YURKEVICH: Edmonson went on to realize her dream and moved to Connecticut to get her Ph.D. in literature at Yale. She says she feels lucky to have been able to make her own choice.

EDMONSON: Thinking outside of myself, it felt very scary for other people who can get pregnant who might not have the option to live their dream if they wanted it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YURKEVICH: And according to the University of California San Francisco, women who sought an abortion and went on to have one were more inclined to make more ambitious goals for themselves, they went on to became more financially stable and they were likely to want children in the future.

And that is exactly the case for Alana Edmonson, who you just heard from. She still wants children, just at the time she didn't feel like she could financially support a child.

And we did reach out to Right to Life to try to get some economic data supporting their anti-abortion stance. They didn't have anything to share with us.

But, Jim and Poppy, we heard from so many companies over the last couple days on their stance, providing financing to support women who want to travel to get an abortion. But what about low-wage workers?

[09:55:00]

Many of them do not work at a company like Meta or Netflix.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

YURKEVICH: Well one company, Levi's, telling me, that in addition to supporting their employees, they're going to be making donations to reproductive rights centers and to organizations who then put women in touch with abortion access. So, they're going beyond just supporting their own employees, they're supporting other women in need.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Some are. Doesn't cover the whole population. And enormous implications across the board.

Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much.

YURKEVICH: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: In just minutes, the Supreme Court is set to issue a new set of opinions, this after overturning Roe v. Wade. Consequential decisions happening as Americans wake up to a country, frankly, significantly changed by the high court in two major decisions really on guns and Roe v. Wade, in less than a week. There are more decisions to come. We'll bring it to you live coming up.

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