WORLD Radio Rewind

LEIGH JONES: This is WORLD Radio Rewind: a 10-minute review of some of our news coverage and features from the past week on WORLD Radio. I’m managing editor Leigh Jones.

First up, the Texas Heartbeat Act. On Monday’s Legal Docket, Mary Reichard detailed oral arguments in the latest Supreme Court fight over Roe v. Wade. The Texas attorney general argued the state can decide for itself how to handle challenges to its own laws.

MARY REICHARD: The lawyer arguing on behalf of the abortion providers brought out the flip side: this law chills a woman’s right to seek an abortion.

Not particularly impressed with that argument: Justice Neal Gorsuch. Listen to his exchange with lawyer Marc Hearron.

GORSUCH: But do you agree that there are laws—defamation laws, gun control laws, rules during the pandemic about the exercise of religion—that discourage and chill the exercise of constitutionally protected liberties?
HEARRON: Yes.
GORSUCH: And that they can only be challenged after the fact?
HEARRON: I'm not sure that they—that all of those laws could only be challenged after the fact, but there may be some, Your Honor.
GORSUCH: Certainly, there are certain circumstances where that's true, right?
HEARRON: That's probably correct.
GORSUCH: So it’s a line drawing …

Justice Gorsuch references the general principle that to vindicate a right, you must first show you’ve suffered an injury from the denial of that right.

And that comes once a law is actually enforced. But nobody’s violated the law and then been sued over it yet. These cases are pre-enforcement lawsuits, asking that the law be stopped now.

Justice Elena Kagan thought the right place to draw the line is around legislative chicanery.

KAGAN: We would be inviting states, all 50 of them, with respect to their un-preferred constitutional rights, to try to nullify the law of that this Court has laid down as to the content of those rights. I mean, that was something that until this law came along no state dreamed of doing. Guns, same sex marriage, religious rights, whatever you don’t like, go ahead.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

LJ: Next up, vaccinating children. On Tuesday’s program, Caleb Bailey talked to two pediatricians about the COVID shot approved for kids as young as 5.

CALEB BAILEY, REPORTER: Dr. Sally Goza is a general pediatrician in Fayetteville, Georgia and the past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

GOZA: We have a much lower dose, it’s 10 micro grams as opposed to 30 for adults...

She says that so far, with adults and teens, any serious side effects manifested themselves within the first two months after vaccination. So parents shouldn’t be worried about long term effects in children.

Though the death toll for children with COVID is relatively low, Dr. Goza says parents should still take the threat seriously.

GOZA: The eighth leading cause of death in children is COVID. And so, you know, that’s our thing is that we have a safe and effective vaccine that can prevent this disease.

But not all doctors agree, especially when it comes to side effects.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan specializes in pediatric cardiology and has filled pediatric positions for decades around the world, including as chief of Pediatric Cardiology at the Children’s Hospital in San Antonio.

He’s worried about one side effect in particular.

MILHOAN: There’s an issue of myocarditis in kids who get the vaccine, especially after the second dose.

Dr. Milhoan says both the vaccine and natural immunity carry risk. Parents must decide for themselves what level of risk they’re willing to tolerate.

MILHOAN: I'm a pro Vax pediatrician, right? I'm not an anti-vaxxer. No, no way. Right? I vaccinated hundreds, if not 1000s of kids. I'm not afraid of science. I'm not afraid of data. As a physician, what I want to do is I don't want to hold back a medicine that will help somebody. And at the same time, I don't want to give a medicine that will potentially hurt somebody.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Caleb Bailey.

LJ: Next, caught in Ethiopia’s crossfire. On Wednesday’s program. Onize Ohikere reported on the escalation of violence between the government and opposition groups.

AUDIO: [Sound of chanting, singing]

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Thousands of pro-government supporters rallied in Ethiopia’s capital on Sunday. They vowed to stand with the military to defend the city against armed rebel groups marching toward it.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared a state of emergency last week as fighters with the Tigray People's Liberation Front advanced on Addis Ababa.

World leaders, including the United States, sent negotiators to Ethiopia to help broker a peace deal. Olusegun Obasanjo is the African Union's high representative for the Horn of Africa.

OBASANJO: The time is now for collective actions in finding a lasting solution to avoid further escalation of the situation.

The conflict started last November when Ahmed sent Ethiopian troops and fighters from neighboring Eritrea into Tigray. He hoped to topple the TPLF because it opposed his government.

After initial government gains, the TPLF retook control of the region and began expanding into neighboring Afar and Amhara. Ahmed responded with a brutal blockade that has sparked a severe humanitarian crisis.

Trisha Okenge is the Ethiopia country director for the Christian aid group Food for the Hungry. Okenge says the mothers she met earlier this year are struggling to explain the situation to their children, who never knew hunger until now.

OKENGE: And the the heartbreak that they felt as moms was so poignant to me, because I think it drives home to me the entire humanitarian aspect of this. I know that there are conflicting views. There are conflicting opinions about how the aid is being distributed, how people are benefiting from it, but at the end of the day, it's really those moms and those babies who don't have anything to do with the conflict. They just want to live.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

LJ: And finally, China’s hard court press. On Thursday’s program, Josh Schumacher reported on Beijing’s mostly successful attempts to bend U.S. celebrities to its political will.

JOSHUA SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Boston Celtics player Enes Kanter took to Twitter a few weeks ago to show support for Tibetan independence. He also wore shoes bearing the slogan “Free Tibet” during the Celtics’ game on October 20th against the New York Knicks.

Backlash came swiftly.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Mandarin]

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman called Kanter’s comments “not worth refuting.” But the Chinese streaming platform Tencent banned video feeds of all Celtics games in China.

Zane Zovak is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He says this kind of economic pressure is becoming much more common.

ZOVAK: So it seems to be a little bit of a template here for, you say anything about China or against the official narrative, and they're going to come out against you.

But show business isn’t the only business in which China has been bullying U.S. companies. Derek Scissors is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

SCISSORS: We've also had companies which have said, you know, either stated or used maps that imply Taiwan is separate from China, have been harassed by the Chinese. There have been informal boycotts organized, which are usually encouraged by the government...

Zane Zovak says compared to Beijing’s other forms of corporate coercion, spats with Hollywood and sports leagues may not seem like that big a deal. But if the Chinese government can pressure U.S. celebrities to say what it wants, it needs to be taken seriously.

ZOVAK: It's going to be one of those things, where if it's not taken super seriously now, you know, 20, 30, even 40 years down the line, then the international world may look very different than it does now.

Because whoever controls the message controls reality. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

LJ: That’s it for this edition of WORLD Radio Rewind.

We’ve posted links to each of the stories we highlighted today in our transcript. You can find that on our website.

Next week, we’ll take a gamble … and tell you about the influence betting is having on professional sports. And we’ll find out why more and more black families are choosing to homeschool their kids.

For the latest news, features, and commentary from WORLD News Group, visit wng.org. For WORLD Radio, I’m Managing Editor Leigh Jones.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.