Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a podcast. The title isn't sarcastic. We actually talk
Speaker 1: about people we think are cool and who did things
Speaker 1: that we also think are cool. And you know who
Speaker 1: else is cool? Is my guest this week Samantha McVeigh,
Speaker 1: who is the host of Stuff Mom Never Told You.
Speaker 1: And it's not only my new best friend, but dear listener,
Speaker 1: she is your new best friend as well. Yes, how
Speaker 1: you doing? I'm doing so? See, this is the theme
Speaker 1: that I've been trying to run with. This is how
Speaker 1: I make friends by trying to tell them I'm cool.
Speaker 1: So this is perfect. So I'm going to be on
Speaker 1: the show about people would do cool stuff because I
Speaker 1: want to be cool, Like That's that's how it works, right,
Speaker 1: and then people want to be friends with me? Yeah definitely. Okay,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm relying on as well. At time, I'm
Speaker 1: going to channel this. Let's go yeah uh. And we
Speaker 1: also have Sophie with us, who is not only the
Speaker 1: producer of this show, but and the coolest and it's
Speaker 1: also basically the Pope of podcasts. Um. Yes, that's the
Speaker 1: charge of all podcasts. And much like the Pope she
Speaker 1: decides who lives and who dies. Yeah. Yes, and much
Speaker 1: like the Pope, direct tells us what's moral than what's not,
Speaker 1: even if we don't believe her half the time, and
Speaker 1: then we just act on whatever Sophie says instead of
Speaker 1: actually listening to her. Sorry, we painted you into a
Speaker 1: corner here, so I too, like fun hats Yeah it's true. Um,
Speaker 1: it's true, you do. Yeah, but you know it's not
Speaker 1: about me. Let's go, let's go. Okay, Okay, So today
Speaker 1: we're doing part two of our two part series on
Speaker 1: the Jane Collective, who are a badass crew of underground
Speaker 1: abortionists and pre Roe v Wade Chicago. And this episode
Speaker 1: will make approximately zero sense if you don't go back
Speaker 1: and listen to part one. So go listen to part one.
Speaker 1: We'll wait. Okay. So Jane offering abortions no longer reliant
Speaker 1: on crime guy Nick Mike, but are doing it themselves Mike, Nick, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mike next. Sorry, Um, and I'm just making sure we
Speaker 1: have both versions in so that we are correct. But
Speaker 1: we did forget the title sexy, so sexy Mike Nick
Speaker 1: sexy Nick Mike right, right, totally, Yeah, that is the
Speaker 1: title of the Yeah, like, yeah, um okay, So so
Speaker 1: Jane is offering abortions for every trimester. Uh, and this
Speaker 1: is like really not how to d I y an
Speaker 1: abortion podcast, although if those exists, you should go listen
Speaker 1: to them, but this is not one of them. And
Speaker 1: the techniques I'm going to be talking about are like
Speaker 1: fifty years old and are transmitted through me, who is
Speaker 1: an absolute lay person who doesn't have a uterus and
Speaker 1: is completely grossed up by the idea of the inside
Speaker 1: of my own body. Um Like, if I go to
Speaker 1: a training about how to apply a tourniquet, I what
Speaker 1: I do is I am pretend like I'm not there,
Speaker 1: and then learn the information. Um, so just keep things,
Speaker 1: pretend you're not there, and just learn. Yeah, exactly. And
Speaker 1: but it it feels important to me to understand some
Speaker 1: of the ways that people have historically and contemporarily go
Speaker 1: about ending unwanted pregnancies. For some weird reason, it just
Speaker 1: seems like really important right now. It's hard to say
Speaker 1: why as a person in Georgia, but many laws of
Speaker 1: floating I don't either. Yeah, it's so it's so weird,
Speaker 1: just someone in the air, I don't know. And and
Speaker 1: one thing I talked to when I was talking through
Speaker 1: this show with one of my friends is a reproductive
Speaker 1: rights justice activist person all of those words in the
Speaker 1: proper order um. One of the things that they were
Speaker 1: pointing out is that it's important not to present this
Speaker 1: dark age before Roe v. Wade legal abortion access matters,
Speaker 1: and we need to defend that. But we need to
Speaker 1: like soberly recognized that people can and have learned how
Speaker 1: to take care of not just their own health, but
Speaker 1: like on a community level and on a like a
Speaker 1: real level, UM, so that people recognize that they do
Speaker 1: have real options if we lose Roe v. Wade, right,
Speaker 1: so that it's not like your only option is to
Speaker 1: go to someone who's really sketchy, uh, because we need
Speaker 1: to instead fight to make sure that that doesn't become
Speaker 1: the case. So when Jane started, they were mostly doing
Speaker 1: a style of abortion called dilation and CURETAS or a
Speaker 1: d n C, especially for first trimester abortions. And what
Speaker 1: they do is they injected a local anesthetic and then
Speaker 1: they scraped the walls of the uterus with a loop
Speaker 1: shape instrument called a cut, and they then provided pills
Speaker 1: and injections to stop infection and bleeding, and they recommended
Speaker 1: a gynecologist, or they recommended getting a dialogical check up,
Speaker 1: and if you didn't have one, they recommended you won.
Speaker 1: And d n C, at least as it was performed originally,
Speaker 1: is a fairly dangerous procedure. It's it's not a bad procedure.
Speaker 1: It's important that people be able to do this, but
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it involves sharp objects in sensitive areas.
Speaker 1: And Jane was really fucking good at it. But it
Speaker 1: it seems like some of the worst ways that inexperienced
Speaker 1: abortionists UM funck patients up is with d n C,
Speaker 1: and especially also with herbal abortions, but we're not going
Speaker 1: to get into that on the show. Um and Jane
Speaker 1: didn't funk with herbal abortions. To my knowledge, d NC
Speaker 1: is still used today, although the term is a wider
Speaker 1: usage now basically to include things, um other than a
Speaker 1: sharp curet. They like suction curets, vacuum inspiration as it's
Speaker 1: sometimes called, where they vacuum things out instead of scraping
Speaker 1: them out. But to tell you about vacuum inspiration, I
Speaker 1: get to tell you about a bunch of other really
Speaker 1: cool people. Let's go with people who are complicated who
Speaker 1: did cool things for some of these people instead of
Speaker 1: people who I want to blanketly tell you are cool.
Speaker 1: Because Harvey Carmen was not an m d uh. Some
Speaker 1: reports claimed that he is a psychology doctorate, so he
Speaker 1: was technically a doctor. Others claimed that he just had
Speaker 1: a master's degree in theater, and while that is vastly
Speaker 1: that is it is. He might have had both. He
Speaker 1: might have later gone back and got a doctor a
Speaker 1: degree in psychology. I don't know. Okay, when he was
Speaker 1: still a student, he was practicing abortion in California and
Speaker 1: one of his patients died and he served two and
Speaker 1: a half years in prison for it. And I literally
Speaker 1: don't have a means by which to judge whether or
Speaker 1: not he was a responsible practitioner who happened to lose
Speaker 1: a patient due to the circumstances that he was forced
Speaker 1: into by criminalization, or whether he was a sketchy, fucking,
Speaker 1: shitty abortionist. I literally don't have a way to at
Speaker 1: least my information gathering powers did not answer this um.
Speaker 1: But he was an innovator, and which really doesn't answer
Speaker 1: the question of whether or not he was responsible or ethical,
Speaker 1: because just because you want to try new ship doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily make it good. Right. It's kind of like when
Speaker 1: doctors were practicing curing hysteria on women and we know
Speaker 1: what that led to, right totally. But one time, when
Speaker 1: he's in jail for practicing abortions, he invents a new
Speaker 1: abortion technique which has revolutionized first trimester abortions. And it's
Speaker 1: like largely the reason, as far as I understand, um,
Speaker 1: that we have safe first trimester abortions. However, when I
Speaker 1: say revolutionize and invented, you'll be shocked to know that
Speaker 1: Chinese doctors figured it out a long time early, um,
Speaker 1: and that information was not transmitted to the West until
Speaker 1: after Western practitioner figured it out, which happens time and
Speaker 1: time again. Every time you're like this guy invented a thing,
Speaker 1: You're like this, this guy invented it for the Western world.
Speaker 1: Credit for it, Yeah, totally, but he uh. He invented
Speaker 1: something called the Carmen canula, which is a flexible curet
Speaker 1: and it it basically allows vacuum aspiration. It allows the
Speaker 1: idea of using in this case originally a syringe to
Speaker 1: suck things out with a flexible tube instead of using
Speaker 1: a sharp, you know, curet and it dramatically reduces the
Speaker 1: risk of perforat and the uterus, and it reduces the
Speaker 1: need for anaesthesia to relax the cervix and it um.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a fucking flexible tube as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell. And and it gets called vacuum
Speaker 1: aspiration or the non medical term, and I'm gonna talk
Speaker 1: about this in a little bit is called menstrual extraction.
Speaker 1: The former, as best as I understand it is like
Speaker 1: the medical name, and the latter is it's dem class
Speaker 1: name used in different people by two women who immediately
Speaker 1: took upon his concept and improved upon it. Carol Downer
Speaker 1: and Laurie Anne Rothman were two of the most important
Speaker 1: underground abortion providers at the time. Yet they're rarely referred
Speaker 1: to as that because what they did is they invented
Speaker 1: and again I can't speak to everyone ever having done
Speaker 1: this before, but they invented a menstrual extraction. They took
Speaker 1: the existing vacuum aspiration and they added um both a
Speaker 1: one way valve in order to keep air from accident
Speaker 1: going into the uterus, and then also a jar mason
Speaker 1: jar that's attached to it so that more supterial can
Speaker 1: be removed at once, and so now you can do
Speaker 1: a full menstrual extraction, which is basically the idea of
Speaker 1: like you can pass all of your men sees all
Speaker 1: at once instead of waiting for it to slowly pass.
Speaker 1: And what happens when you do that is if you
Speaker 1: happen to be pregnant, and if with the first traemester abortion,
Speaker 1: you are suddenly no longer pregnant. Okay. And they didn't
Speaker 1: like advertise this as an abortion technique because that would
Speaker 1: have been illegal. Instead, they like were like, oh, groups
Speaker 1: of women could just all get together and provide this
Speaker 1: service for each other. Because it actually takes multiple people
Speaker 1: to use this device. You can't necessarily self administer it
Speaker 1: um just because of angles and I don't know UM,
Speaker 1: And I to be frank, I had never heard of this.
Speaker 1: And about half of the people I've talked to whom
Speaker 1: have unteruses had heard of this, and half of them hadn't.
Speaker 1: And I don't know other myself like that, not in person,
Speaker 1: like I obviously have seen the pictures of so as
Speaker 1: you're describing, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, okay, I get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it gets called their inventions called a dell M
Speaker 1: d E L space e M in case you all
Speaker 1: want to go look up how to do this kind
Speaker 1: of interesting thing. In V one, they invent this thing
Speaker 1: and then they downplay the abortion side of it. But
Speaker 1: they go to the National Organization Conference of Women, the
Speaker 1: NOW Conference in California one so they can announced this
Speaker 1: invention to the world, and um, they were like, hell, yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna love this. But instead the NOW organizers were like,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit much for a booth. I
Speaker 1: don't think you can have a booth for an abortion here. Um,
Speaker 1: And they're like, what does prevent structs? Right now? I'm
Speaker 1: putting words in their mouth. But and so they put
Speaker 1: up flyers saying, hey, come to our hotel room and
Speaker 1: we'll show you how to use this device. And everyone
Speaker 1: fucking loved it, right because it fucking ruled. And so
Speaker 1: they gathered this list of names and they went on
Speaker 1: this greyhound tour across the country giving presentations about the
Speaker 1: del M. And I just love how like scrappy it
Speaker 1: is that they like invent this thing that involves Mason
Speaker 1: jars and they don't have a car, so they're just like, again,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe a car, but they go on a
Speaker 1: greyhound tour and that that rules. And Lorraine has a
Speaker 1: quote from two thousand two that sums up the sort
Speaker 1: of de medicalization approach that was popular with a lot
Speaker 1: of the underground abortion access people before in n What
Speaker 1: did women do before there were doctors. Let's stop the
Speaker 1: humiliation of trying to persue aid the powers that be
Speaker 1: to legalize abortion. Let's just take back the technology, the tools,
Speaker 1: the skills, and the information to perform early abortions and
Speaker 1: be in charge of our own reproduction. And once again,
Speaker 1: you'll be shocked to know that this device is having
Speaker 1: something of a comeback in the modern era. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And so Jane didn't use the Dell M specifically as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, but they did use the
Speaker 1: Carmen canula extensively, and I think in generally in combination
Speaker 1: with vacuum aspiration. They also, and this gets into the
Speaker 1: sketchier side of some of it, they use another one
Speaker 1: of Carmen's inventions that was a lot less successful. They
Speaker 1: use something called the super coil. I'm actually curious if
Speaker 1: you heard of this. I'm trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: known this is. And I don't think so. But it's
Speaker 1: one of those I'm like, as you describe it, I
Speaker 1: may know of it. I'm not trying to put you
Speaker 1: on the spot. Yeah, I'm trying to be like yeah,
Speaker 1: because I'm sitting here like, Okay, We've gotten through several
Speaker 1: devices and I think I'm glazed up. But yeah, you
Speaker 1: going no, no, no, So the super coil is not
Speaker 1: around today, um because it is a bad idea as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, and it was meant to
Speaker 1: revolutionized second trimester abortion. Basically, he was like, I have
Speaker 1: revolutionized first trimester abortion and made it easier for lay
Speaker 1: people to do it. Now I want a revolutionary second
Speaker 1: trimester abortion. And so the super coil involves coiling up
Speaker 1: like like tightly coiled plastic rings basically attached to a
Speaker 1: string that are inserted into the uterus and then left
Speaker 1: to expand um so that they could be pulled out
Speaker 1: and then clear out the area as they you know,
Speaker 1: causing the I did not know what this is horrifying though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've had Sophie. Um. Yeah, so my
Speaker 1: last interaction with Robert when Sophie was them talking about
Speaker 1: a birth control that attached itself and tore out people's shooters.
Speaker 1: So this is amazing. I feel like we've comfort circle.
Speaker 1: We definitely have come full circle. That them on that
Speaker 1: episode with Robert was like one of the like I
Speaker 1: it like makes me itchy. I'm like it was so terrifying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I still see people post, but yeah, like that, we're
Speaker 1: back here to something that goes out, expands and tries
Speaker 1: to pull things out of people's vagina. So I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. We're back that certain things. Samantha, I love
Speaker 1: me to dissociated with this. Let's keep going. This is amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm now like, yes, this is my world,
Speaker 1: let's go. This is the This is the darkest chunk
Speaker 1: of this episode. I believe even later they get arrested
Speaker 1: and it's not as dark as this chunk. So they
Speaker 1: helped Carmen test it. They sided with him in debates
Speaker 1: to come, and they were probably wrong about it. It
Speaker 1: was meant to help lay people provide abortions, but it
Speaker 1: was it was probably too good to be true. Basically,
Speaker 1: like they were. At least one person I read argued
Speaker 1: that basically they were like sucked in by the idea
Speaker 1: of like, oh, we have a nu miracle device. This
Speaker 1: rules because they had just gotten a numerical device from
Speaker 1: the same guy. Not numeracle but not number, but miracle
Speaker 1: device that is new. Um. So he goes and tests it,
Speaker 1: and he first tests it through and with international planned
Speaker 1: parenthood in on Bangladeshi women at a large scale, and
Speaker 1: it I'm not aware of it killing anyone, but it
Speaker 1: did not do incredibly well. Uh, and there were a
Speaker 1: lot of complications. I would say it sounds like I
Speaker 1: could cause permanent damage, which is kind of the horror
Speaker 1: stories people tell that our anti choice about the permanent damage,
Speaker 1: and this seems to follow suit, because I can't imagine
Speaker 1: something just at that point in time being like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's self working. It just expands and grabs the right things,
Speaker 1: but doesn't exactly. And Uh, there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: arguments about or I've seen a couple of different things
Speaker 1: about whether or not Jane was involved in using this
Speaker 1: or testing this. I do believe they did use this
Speaker 1: successfully for a number of abortions, and again, their overall
Speaker 1: results were that they were as good as any medical
Speaker 1: facility at that time. Right right, Um, But anyway, this
Speaker 1: is a darker saying that they were involved in, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that makes me question did they give the
Speaker 1: people who came in, the patients and clients a choice
Speaker 1: on what kind of procedure they could have? Uh? And
Speaker 1: I know they were pretty good about giving like risk
Speaker 1: statistics and let them know aftercare and all of that.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if there was like a moment of like,
Speaker 1: you have these options, now, which would you like to do?
Speaker 1: I I would like to get off of them the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt of that around that, But I
Speaker 1: I don't know. And because I honestly did not know
Speaker 1: this part of this history, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a little alarming. You don't want to start
Speaker 1: testing things. And when you have someone testing on a
Speaker 1: different group of people, you know it's probably not good,
Speaker 1: which is the history of all medicine essentially. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's a whole different rabbit hole that I will not
Speaker 1: do as a negative Nelly moment though. No, No, I
Speaker 1: mean like, and this is like, this is the most
Speaker 1: warts and all that I'm going to get around this,
Speaker 1: and even this is like a complicated thing. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I read one of the
Speaker 1: black women who volunteered for this was like basically defended
Speaker 1: her position being like I'm paraphrasing, but like if I'm
Speaker 1: kidding me saying that I can't consent to this just
Speaker 1: because I'm a black woman, you know. And so there's
Speaker 1: this like I'm reading biased reports, right, I'm reading people
Speaker 1: who are trying to make positions to either claim that
Speaker 1: this was this terrible thing that people did or this brilliant,
Speaker 1: brave thing that people did. And I don't have anything
Speaker 1: near the right position to understand what isn't is an't
Speaker 1: ethical for for what happened here, and like what level
Speaker 1: of informed consent was available? Um, but I'm also under
Speaker 1: the impression that a lot of their other options were worse, right, Um,
Speaker 1: So we come back to the fact that there's so
Speaker 1: many things that pushes people to a certain point, and
Speaker 1: when it's not accessible and it becomes looked out as
Speaker 1: again unlawful, then people are pushed to the point that
Speaker 1: is is extreme. So you do what you can, and
Speaker 1: people being in that point, we are going to choose
Speaker 1: what they think is lesser evil for them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's not the case like that he shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: be even that conversation. Yeah, totally, And and so as
Speaker 1: a Carmen. He kind of disappears after this whole fiasco.
Speaker 1: He's like, I try to invent a thing and it
Speaker 1: didn't work, and he kind of his trub was called.
Speaker 1: At least from my my sloping at this point, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a medical doctor, right, You're saying that he's either
Speaker 1: maybe maybe in psychology, but also maybe just theater, Like
Speaker 1: he just did a thing. However, as as a different
Speaker 1: states would legalize abortion, he was so well known that
Speaker 1: he would be invited to come participate in legal abortion
Speaker 1: areas because he was a really experienced abortionist. Um, but
Speaker 1: that also empowered him to do all of these things
Speaker 1: that a real messy and so it's just like kind
Speaker 1: of interesting that like this is the person who did
Speaker 1: the thing that got safe first trimester abortions available, you know,
Speaker 1: um right, I mean some good did come of it, right,
Speaker 1: and now we have chemical abortions for first foremaster that
Speaker 1: are are safer and better than this method is as
Speaker 1: far as I understand the circumstances, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's so many things to this in this conversation about
Speaker 1: what this looks like when it is not considered healthcare
Speaker 1: and why it's so blase, and yet some good did
Speaker 1: come of it, but some bad to come of it.
Speaker 1: And then there's this need of like understanding it is healthcare. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally okay, But but who is cool? Yes, I will,
Speaker 1: I will go on. I don't know him to say,
Speaker 1: is another abortionist to popularize some ship that Jane wound
Speaker 1: up using a guy named Robert Spencer. And Robert spend
Speaker 1: who was a true believer and he was not a grifter.
Speaker 1: He was a doctor and actual medical doctor and the
Speaker 1: coal fields in Ashland, Pennsylvania, and he cut his doctor
Speaker 1: in teeth inventing new ways to treat black lung and
Speaker 1: coal miners um, including a lot of pioneering work and
Speaker 1: I don't know a pronounce this where broncos scopy, bronchios
Speaker 1: is taking cameras down people's throats, I don't know, looking
Speaker 1: at people's throats, and and and he did experiment with
Speaker 1: black lung. But this is also a situation where like, oh,
Speaker 1: these coal miners are dying and no one here is
Speaker 1: like paying attention to black lung except me. And so
Speaker 1: he's very well liked, this doctor in this town. And
Speaker 1: then sometime in the early twenties he starts a coal
Speaker 1: miner's wife is like, Yo, I'm pregnant. I'd really rather
Speaker 1: not be uh, And I tried calling Jane, but the
Speaker 1: number is an active yet or something. I'm like forty
Speaker 1: years too early. So he um, he performs an abortion,
Speaker 1: and then he just starts performing abortions in this town.
Speaker 1: And he single handedly performs something like forty thousand abortions. Um.
Speaker 1: He died in nineteen sixty nine before his work could
Speaker 1: become legal, and his wife burned all of his records.
Speaker 1: I guess to either protect his legacy or maybe his
Speaker 1: staff or maybe herself. I don't know. And he uh. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the entire town's economy, like huge chunk of the town's
Speaker 1: economy relies on this guy because people are coming from
Speaker 1: all over the place to get abortions here, and they
Speaker 1: like staying at hotels and ship but the hotels didn't
Speaker 1: some of the hotels at least didn't let black patients stay.
Speaker 1: So he built accommodations so that black patients could still
Speaker 1: come and get abortions in this town. He was arrested
Speaker 1: three times for providing abortions. One of the times he
Speaker 1: was arrested at least was because a patient died. Um,
Speaker 1: they died from anesthesia problems. And you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: a doctor. I know that anesthesia is a complicated thing,
Speaker 1: especially eighty years ago. You know, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: like lay judgment on him for this, but he was
Speaker 1: acquitted two of the times he was arrested, um, because
Speaker 1: I think everyone in town was like, you can't convict
Speaker 1: this guy. What are you what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Like this is a guy like this guy were like
Speaker 1: abortion yeah yeah, and like um, and he also had
Speaker 1: union protection. The United Mine Workers had his back, okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're like union miners did not funk around back
Speaker 1: then as our boy, don't touch you. Yeah. And his
Speaker 1: quote about why he why people liked him. I've been
Speaker 1: here since nineteen nineteen. I dare say I've helped out
Speaker 1: half the town, even on the abortion end. There's probably
Speaker 1: one of my patients related to a family in half
Speaker 1: the town. I think most of the town would stand
Speaker 1: up for me. That's just like I think they would
Speaker 1: stay up at me. I think I think we're cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so he's seventy nine years old. He keeps going
Speaker 1: into retirement and then coming out of retirement. Because people
Speaker 1: need his help, right, because he's really fucking good at
Speaker 1: his job, and he provides abortions for cheap And I'll
Speaker 1: get to that. Um. And he's seventy nine and he's
Speaker 1: on he's waiting awaiting trial for a third time, and
Speaker 1: he dies of old age while like actively practicing. And
Speaker 1: he was performing three to four abortions a day right
Speaker 1: up to the end. Um. There's this whole article from
Speaker 1: Village Voice from nine I think it's called the Death
Speaker 1: of an Abortionist, and it's a journalist who travels down
Speaker 1: there to basically just to meet him, just to be like,
Speaker 1: you are amazing. You are the reason that people feel safe,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. And he charged the cheapest rates, some
Speaker 1: of the cheapest rates of anyone. His first abortions cost
Speaker 1: five dollars, and then there's the cost of drugs, and
Speaker 1: overhead went up. At the end. He was charging two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars in the late sixties, but again most abortions
Speaker 1: were costing six hundred to two thousand dollars. He was
Speaker 1: this like lovable weirdo. He treated everyone kindly. He covered
Speaker 1: his office and like weird weird plaques from tourist traps
Speaker 1: and the Village Voice journalist who showed up. She asks him, like,
Speaker 1: why did you perform abortions when the people first asked you?
Speaker 1: And he said, because I could see their point of view? Mhm,
Speaker 1: And I just I love that as an answer, you know, um,
Speaker 1: just like basic human empathy. And his name never really
Speaker 1: appeared until he died. His name like didn't really appear
Speaker 1: much in print. I think one place Dockston or whatever,
Speaker 1: but he was always just printed as the legendary doctor
Speaker 1: s and okay. And he popularized a technique or using
Speaker 1: something called I don't pronounce this word loundbacks paste loan
Speaker 1: backs paste two to help dilate the cervix. It's like
Speaker 1: a soft soap um is not currently in use, but
Speaker 1: but Jane used it and was very glad for it.
Speaker 1: It helped make their whole anesthesia process much safer. And
Speaker 1: they I don't know whether they made their own or
Speaker 1: got it from Robert Spencer, because Robert Senser was making
Speaker 1: his own because it was no longer commercially available. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think he's cool too, and I really
Speaker 1: like that Jane was building from this was part of
Speaker 1: this larger framework of people who were like, how do
Speaker 1: we do this like absence of like the medical industry,
Speaker 1: how do we actually like figure out how to do
Speaker 1: this safely and well? Right? Actually caring about their patients.
Speaker 1: That's revolutionary. Yeah, totally. God, I wish I wish that revolution.
Speaker 1: It's stuck. Yeah, you know who does care about their patients?
Speaker 1: I'm ready. Well, potatoes, I've been I've been trying to
Speaker 1: get advertised by potatoes. I don't know how potatoes have
Speaker 1: become doctors, but I think potatoes are great. And um,
Speaker 1: I want to be sponsored by entirely wholesome things. So
Speaker 1: if you hear anything unwholesome in the ads, that was
Speaker 1: a mistake. It's Robert's fault. It's Robert's fault. Agreed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so here's some ads for potatoes and maybe some
Speaker 1: other stuff. And we're back and we're discussing whether or
Speaker 1: not we should actually expand our list of sponsors to
Speaker 1: include kittens. I mean, I think, I think yes, I
Speaker 1: mean it's good to diversify. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: important that we talk about kittens, and right, I think
Speaker 1: so we just have to make clear that we're advertising
Speaker 1: the concept of kittens and puppies, not the people who
Speaker 1: tradition really go about selling kittens and puppies. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's very clear. Not not a kitten mill or puppy
Speaker 1: bill type situation. Rescue is the idea of just cuddling
Speaker 1: with some kittens or cuddling with a dog maybe, or
Speaker 1: at least looking at cute pictures. Yeah, while one kitten
Speaker 1: is in one arm and one puppy is in the
Speaker 1: other armaid when kittens and dogs are friends, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to introduce my dog to more cuts.
Speaker 1: It's actually never gone. Well, so I actually my dog
Speaker 1: does not love cats either. My dog loves the castle,
Speaker 1: love the dog, that's fair. He does not know how
Speaker 1: to play. So so I want to quote a little
Speaker 1: bit at length from why Jane Collective did this work.
Speaker 1: It's from a statement about why they did is a
Speaker 1: pamphlet that they gave to prospective clients. Abortion as a
Speaker 1: social problem. We are giving our time not only because
Speaker 1: we want to make abortions safer, cheaper, and more accessible
Speaker 1: for the individual women who come to us, but because
Speaker 1: we see the whole abortion issue as a problem of society.
Speaker 1: The current abortion laws are a symbol of something subtle
Speaker 1: but often blatant oppression of women in our society. Women
Speaker 1: should have the right to control their own bodies and lives.
Speaker 1: Only a woman who is pregnant can determine whether or
Speaker 1: not she has enough resources economic, physical, and emotional at
Speaker 1: a given time to bear and rear child. Yet at present,
Speaker 1: the decision to bear the child or to have an
Speaker 1: abortion is taken out of her hands by government bodies,
Speaker 1: which can have only the slightest notion of the problems involved.
Speaker 1: The same society that glamorizes women as sex objects and
Speaker 1: teaches them from an early childhood to please and satisfy men,
Speaker 1: views pregnancy and childbirth as punishment for immoral or careless
Speaker 1: sexual activity, especially if the woman is uneducated, poor, or black.
Speaker 1: Our society's view of equal opportunity means that lower class
Speaker 1: women bear unwanted children or face expensive, illegal, and often
Speaker 1: unsafe abortions, while well connected, middle class women can frequently
Speaker 1: get safe and hush hush d n c s and hospitals.
Speaker 1: Only women can bring about their own liberation. It is
Speaker 1: time for women to get together to change the male
Speaker 1: made laws and aid their sisters caught in the bind
Speaker 1: of legal restrictions and social stigma. Women must fight together
Speaker 1: to change the attitudes of society about abortion and to
Speaker 1: make the state provide free abortions as a human right.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that. There's so many things
Speaker 1: that like it just applies today. I know we're talking
Speaker 1: about that, but m but the problem is because it
Speaker 1: is women centered typically, and especially during that time, people
Speaker 1: see that as being a less important in conversation has become.
Speaker 1: It made it a moral ground even though it's very
Speaker 1: political obviously. But yeah, I do love I do love
Speaker 1: that sentiment and and we still need that sentiment. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I I like like sometimes when I get lost in
Speaker 1: the weeds about like this is how they did this
Speaker 1: one thing, and this is how they did this other thing.
Speaker 1: And then instead of just kind of like here's like
Speaker 1: a hundred people who got together to commit felonies to
Speaker 1: try and keep people safe, it's just like that's always cool,
Speaker 1: you know, like like and there's always something I don't know,
Speaker 1: So I like hearing the the why they did it.
Speaker 1: But speaking of felonies, this is not an ad transition.
Speaker 1: I'm not advertising felonies on the I'm probably advertising felonies
Speaker 1: on this show, but not from the point of view
Speaker 1: of a sponsorship not trying to get money for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you gotta go and get them your own money,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. So, so Jane is this big open
Speaker 1: secret and everyone knows about it. They advertised and they
Speaker 1: had security procedures in place, but clearly the police knew
Speaker 1: about them, And most of the reporting about Jane basically
Speaker 1: says the cops didn't bust them because the cops kind
Speaker 1: of liked them. They were clean and safe and no
Speaker 1: one was dying, so so why bust them? Right? To me,
Speaker 1: this this fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the police, especially
Speaker 1: the Chicago Police Department. In a nation of corrupt police
Speaker 1: department's Chicago like consistently stands out as one of the crookedest.
Speaker 1: And the other thing you hear is that police put
Speaker 1: up with it because the wives of police and the
Speaker 1: wives of politicians were amongst their clients. And this feels
Speaker 1: more plausible to me. But I suspect that politicians wives
Speaker 1: at least could afford a trip to New York, and
Speaker 1: so I feel like there's some kind of like. To
Speaker 1: be clear, I think crime is cool. But the same
Speaker 1: accounts also say that mafia didn't come after them for
Speaker 1: similar reasons. They're like, oh, well, they're not really making
Speaker 1: a profit, so why would the mafia care? And this
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like if that doesn't sound like the police,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't sound like the mafia. Um, So this
Speaker 1: is amazing, all of this, all of this moment is amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm just I'm enjoying this entire thing, all right.
Speaker 1: And the other part of this is because they don't
Speaker 1: see this as an issue for them, because at that
Speaker 1: point in time, I think the majority of the police
Speaker 1: were men. Yeah, just speaking those it was a woman's things.
Speaker 1: Also kind of the same level of like not talking
Speaker 1: about periods and being shameful about women's bodies. So it
Speaker 1: was we're going to pretend that you don't exist because
Speaker 1: it's easier for us to you ikey, even though I
Speaker 1: mean to be frank, the majority of the times kind
Speaker 1: of like today when we talk about abortion, uh and
Speaker 1: abortion rights and abortion being healthcare, men typically outside of
Speaker 1: the morally loud like this isn't just whatever, I just
Speaker 1: don't care because it has nothing to do with them,
Speaker 1: and it's just gross and it's like, uh, it's women's issues,
Speaker 1: so would rather just ignore it and doesn't think it's
Speaker 1: necessarily important. Of course we've got the religious bits. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: this is actually it is actually that helps sell me
Speaker 1: on it better because like all I can see, I
Speaker 1: am again really not trying to accuse anyone who might
Speaker 1: be alive of any kind of crime, but it seems
Speaker 1: like the mafia might have been getting a share out
Speaker 1: of this. I don't know again, like no judgment of
Speaker 1: what are people need to do to keep keep the
Speaker 1: ship running? But but yeah, because because everyone knows about
Speaker 1: this and no one's doing anything about it. But but
Speaker 1: the thing you're saying and also about like basically people
Speaker 1: being like we're just not gonna touch it is also
Speaker 1: completely possible. Um. And then the way it all falls apart, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't actually really fall apart. The way that some
Speaker 1: people get in trouble can be told a couple different
Speaker 1: ways of run across one probable story and then one
Speaker 1: maybe story. One day in three a Catholic woman comes
Speaker 1: to get an abortion, and at the time I actually
Speaker 1: behind the Bastards did a better podcast. But this never
Speaker 1: remember exactly when the Protestants started carying about abortion, but
Speaker 1: for a while, like only the Catholics cared. Catholic woman
Speaker 1: comes in to get an abortion, and she was a
Speaker 1: mixed minds the whole about the whole thing. A Jane
Speaker 1: volunteer named Jeannie Galatz or Levy spent a long time
Speaker 1: talking with her about it and like counseling her, and
Speaker 1: later she's really bitter about the long time she spent
Speaker 1: talking to her about it. Her sister in law, the
Speaker 1: patient's sister in law, was there with her, and her
Speaker 1: sister in law called them in, And what I've heard
Speaker 1: is that she didn't call him into the police station
Speaker 1: like in the district where they like seeing as friendly,
Speaker 1: but instead called them into a different district, and so
Speaker 1: subtly bad things happen. But that's that's that's the story
Speaker 1: I hear most often told. Another account is that the
Speaker 1: anti abortion lobby was trying to get some arrests in
Speaker 1: to do some damage on the legal front because Supreme
Speaker 1: Court was about to see Roe v. Wade and which
Speaker 1: spoiler alert legalized abortion federally across the U. S and
Speaker 1: a seven to two ruling, So maybe someone wanted to
Speaker 1: get some abortionists on trial and hurry. And then there's
Speaker 1: a third story which comes from the person who's very
Speaker 1: critical of their super coil testing, that the bust happened
Speaker 1: on a day that they were planning on doing super
Speaker 1: coil testing, and that it was like related to all
Speaker 1: of that. I tend to believe that the Catholic story best,
Speaker 1: but I feel like there's something I actually don't believe
Speaker 1: any of these stories. Frankly, that's what I I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is. Yeah, we just know that they
Speaker 1: got rated, and we don't know how it began. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be any of the stories. But that's the
Speaker 1: one I've heard too, is the Catholic Catholic women have
Speaker 1: accorded them, but any physical reason. Again, it was coincidentally
Speaker 1: around and I will use a quotes more coincidentally around
Speaker 1: uh ro versus Wade and then the big backlash and
Speaker 1: back and forth and controversy with that. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I would. I would put the most likely
Speaker 1: is the combination of the first two things. Is the
Speaker 1: Catholic woman and um and some people trying to get
Speaker 1: some shipped on going on. I don't know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they get rated um May Third two, Genie is working
Speaker 1: at the front and she's caring for three children left
Speaker 1: behind by a patient. When she hears a knock at
Speaker 1: the door. She thought it was another Jane who had
Speaker 1: just like dropped off some snacks, come back to to
Speaker 1: drop off more snacks, or maybe forgot something or something,
Speaker 1: and instead it was cops, really really tall cops. Genie
Speaker 1: is like let them in and told everyone in the
Speaker 1: waiting room, these are the police. You don't have to
Speaker 1: tell them anything. And then Genie, describing the event, says,
Speaker 1: they were really tall, really weird. I developed this whole theory.
Speaker 1: I love crackpot theories. I intend to be a crack
Speaker 1: pot when I grow up. This is Genie, not me,
Speaker 1: although it is also true of me. I love no
Speaker 1: I know, yeah yeah, yeah quote. I intend to be
Speaker 1: a crack pot when I grow up. My theory is
Speaker 1: that you had to be really tall to be a
Speaker 1: homicide cop. These were homicide cops because abortion was a homicide,
Speaker 1: and they were homicide cops who hated being there. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not easy to make homicide detective. You have to
Speaker 1: be really good. It's not even political, like taking the
Speaker 1: sergeant's exam. You have to really do something, and they
Speaker 1: do it because they want to. And by and large,
Speaker 1: what they do is track people down who kill other people.
Speaker 1: And they think of themselves as good guys and they
Speaker 1: hated being there. This was not their kind of crime.
Speaker 1: End quote. That is an interesting theory. I really like,
Speaker 1: there's so many observations about just the male appearance, that
Speaker 1: these characters are so like that they're all tall, very
Speaker 1: tall though I know right all the all the cops
Speaker 1: are like five ft seven, you know, right average, but
Speaker 1: they're tall because I'm four ft totally, or maybe they
Speaker 1: like sent there like there are three people who are
Speaker 1: you know, six ft six over to go arrest everyone?
Speaker 1: Um uh. And so they detain everyone at the front
Speaker 1: and they started asking everyone questions. And the way they
Speaker 1: figured out who the Jains were, apparently is that when
Speaker 1: they asked the James questions, the James refused to answer.
Speaker 1: And while this did get them separated out for arrest,
Speaker 1: it it probably saved them later in court, or at
Speaker 1: least it was very helpful in court. Their lawyer later
Speaker 1: thanked them, was like, I'm so glad you all didn't
Speaker 1: say anything, right And patients, though, were asked all kinds
Speaker 1: of questions and they largely answered. One question that left
Speaker 1: the cops completely confused was they kept asking how much
Speaker 1: the Jans charged, and everyone gave wildly different answers. The
Speaker 1: police came, I guess, maybe expecting a mafia style for
Speaker 1: profit enterprise, and they didn't find one. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, the cops arrived at the place and arrest
Speaker 1: everyone there. And apparently they showed up and they were like,
Speaker 1: where are all the men? Though, you know who's doing
Speaker 1: the abortions, right, And so I guess they actually really
Speaker 1: didn't know Jane inside it out, you know, if they
Speaker 1: think all these things, um and so at least they
Speaker 1: probably weren't infiltrated, right, if this is what the cops
Speaker 1: think and spies. Yeah, I did to think that, like
Speaker 1: the cops know everything, right, because we talked about how
Speaker 1: we live in a pen opticon and we're all being
Speaker 1: studied all the time or whatever, and then like every
Speaker 1: now and then the cops are just like, they don't
Speaker 1: know ship. I want to tell a completely off based
Speaker 1: story about all of this. Right, one time, my friend
Speaker 1: was being um investigated as the leader of international anarchism
Speaker 1: by the FEDS and never mind, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: tell that story, Okay, So um, there's so many levels
Speaker 1: of understanding why I'm like, yeah, I have I have
Speaker 1: a cookie cutter, vani little life. And I'm really sad
Speaker 1: that I'm not a part of this. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be investigated because I do not have the anxiety
Speaker 1: to go through an investor. But just knowing someone, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are. Yeah. Well the spoiler there is no leader
Speaker 1: of international anarchism. It goes against the whole idea. And
Speaker 1: eventually Defense figured that out. But the more personal details
Speaker 1: about it, I'm not going to get into. You're not
Speaker 1: You're not gonna do that, okay, yeah, but so okay,
Speaker 1: So they're all thrown into patty wagons. They're taken off
Speaker 1: to jail, and Genie says that, Um, when they were
Speaker 1: taking off to jail in the patty wagon, all the
Speaker 1: all the other women in the in the patty wagon
Speaker 1: sex workers who kept everyone in good spirits by just
Speaker 1: like telling fun horrible stories about their lives or whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: and I really like that they were there to keep
Speaker 1: everyone's um spirits up. And then in the pattiwagon, the
Speaker 1: Jains all pulled out all the index cards with all
Speaker 1: of the patient info and ship and they ripped them
Speaker 1: up in the little pieces, passed them out and ate them,
Speaker 1: which is great badass, and they only spent one night
Speaker 1: in jail, probably because their middle class white women. Uh
Speaker 1: one of them, I think one of them, who was
Speaker 1: a nursing mother, was let go that night because she
Speaker 1: had to go home and feed her kids. Uh. And
Speaker 1: Jeannie talks about how the cops like treated them all
Speaker 1: well as fellow middle class white people while being rude
Speaker 1: to any of the patients who ended up in jail
Speaker 1: and all the other people and all the other women
Speaker 1: in jail, which yeah, I guess doesn't really surprise anyone
Speaker 1: who's listening to us. But in jail, they all all
Speaker 1: the only food they got offered was Bologney sandwiches, which
Speaker 1: which Jeannie couldn't eat, presumably because she was vegetarian. And
Speaker 1: the reason that I include this is because one time
Speaker 1: I was arrested at this anti IMF demonstration in d C,
Speaker 1: thirty years after all this ship and two thousand two,
Speaker 1: and they gave us all bologna sandwiches and we all
Speaker 1: just like sat there and like laughed at or bologna
Speaker 1: sandwiches because we were all fucking like vegans and vegetarians
Speaker 1: and Ship, We're like, what are we gonna do with this? Um?
Speaker 1: And it was it was mostly a bad experience. But
Speaker 1: I was only in jail for like thirty six hours.
Speaker 1: Um uh, possibly because I'm middle class and white and
Speaker 1: I don't know, so I didn't get to eat in
Speaker 1: jail and sucked. But whatever. I just like that this
Speaker 1: has been like a true thing forever. Is that like
Speaker 1: when hippies and activists and ship get arrested, they're like,
Speaker 1: what funk am I gonna do this? A bologna sandwich? Um?
Speaker 1: So they get let out on bail. Uh, And they're
Speaker 1: each facing a hundred and ten years because the eleven
Speaker 1: counts of homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide in the
Speaker 1: case that will be known as the Abortion seven. And
Speaker 1: at least according to Genie, Jane kind of distances themselves
Speaker 1: at this point from them and they, I guess, like
Speaker 1: as like they were like, oh, it's the strategic necessity,
Speaker 1: We're going to keep going. And Jane did keep going
Speaker 1: while the trial was ongoing. But it still doesn't sound
Speaker 1: good to me, honestly, um and Genie at least felt
Speaker 1: really betrayed. According to the interview I read with her,
Speaker 1: the rest of the feminist movement kind of though had
Speaker 1: her back. Um there was a defense committee formed with
Speaker 1: the sick name of the Abortion Task Force the a
Speaker 1: t F, and several of the arrestees were part of
Speaker 1: an organization called Leche League, which is a pro nursing organization. Nursing,
Speaker 1: I guess was out of style at the time, and
Speaker 1: le had their back, which fucking rules that the like
Speaker 1: the Mother's Association was like, yeah, of course we're defending
Speaker 1: these abortionists, you know. Um, And I don't really know
Speaker 1: what the distancing looked like because several the Abortion seven
Speaker 1: actually went back to work for Jane while they were
Speaker 1: out on bail, which is also fucking badass, and they
Speaker 1: spent a while finding lawyer. Most of the lawyers they
Speaker 1: found were terrible. One guy was very movement focused and
Speaker 1: wanted them to basically go to prison. Was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be martyrs for the cause, you know, And
Speaker 1: they're like, we don't like that very much. This is
Speaker 1: not actually their plan um And so finally they settled
Speaker 1: on Joeann Wolfson, who one to count calls the Queen
Speaker 1: of the Hopeless, and she once ran away from home
Speaker 1: to join the circus and like work with elephants and ship. Okay,
Speaker 1: so her brother was an attorney to who once got
Speaker 1: sentenced to seventy years in prison in after pleading guilty
Speaker 1: to racketeering in an anti corruption case in Chicago. That's
Speaker 1: all a ton of the judges, lawyers and cops sent
Speaker 1: away for organized crime ship. So mafia and corruption ship
Speaker 1: just runs deep. And anyway, so this is their lawyer
Speaker 1: and she is the what I do know about her,
Speaker 1: She was the right lawyer for the job, and she rules. Um,
Speaker 1: she saw rov Wade on the horizon and she was like,
Speaker 1: all right, here's the plan. Let's delay this ship as
Speaker 1: long as possible. And the court was fine with that
Speaker 1: plan too, because frankly, they saw the writing on the
Speaker 1: wall and they didn't want to waste court resources on it.
Speaker 1: So in January, the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth
Speaker 1: Amendments guarantee the right to privacy included the right to
Speaker 1: have abortions and a very I had my lawyer friend
Speaker 1: try and explain this whole thing to me recently, and
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade is like complicated as a from a
Speaker 1: legal perspective, but it worked for now for good. We'll
Speaker 1: see maybe, but time you're listening to this anyway. Whatever,
Speaker 1: So prosecutors knew if they wanted, they could come after
Speaker 1: them for practicing medicine without a license, but they decided
Speaker 1: was more trouble than it was worth, and they really
Speaker 1: just didn't want to make a fuss out of it.
Speaker 1: That said, also, my lawyer friend was explaining to me
Speaker 1: that most Supreme Court decisions are not retroactive. But basically
Speaker 1: they're like this ship. As far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: they're like, this ship is way too political. We don't
Speaker 1: want to touch this case. So they made the cut
Speaker 1: of deal. We don't charge you with practicing medicine without
Speaker 1: a license, you don't ask for your medical equipment back,
Speaker 1: and the Jane seven said, oh my god, yes please.
Speaker 1: They took their deal and the charges were dropped. The
Speaker 1: end of Jane. That's the name of my little section
Speaker 1: in the script. Rovi Wade fucking rules, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to pretend like it doesn't. The fact that it's
Speaker 1: under threat is fucking bad. You know. I hope that
Speaker 1: this doesn't sound like we're talking from distant utopian past
Speaker 1: when you all hear this episode come come out, because
Speaker 1: this episode will probably come out about a month after
Speaker 1: we record it. But it's it's not enough, and that
Speaker 1: the women of Jane knew that right. Because abortion was legalized,
Speaker 1: but it was also re medicalized. It went back in
Speaker 1: the hands of mail doctors. It became it tied once
Speaker 1: again into an inaccessible medical system that treats women like
Speaker 1: bodies like cars to be fixed. Jane actually continued for
Speaker 1: a few weeks after the ruling, but everyone was just
Speaker 1: so fucking exhausted and burned out and the fire was gone.
Speaker 1: And ironically they were afraid that they might catch charges
Speaker 1: for because the for profit medical industry might lead the
Speaker 1: charge for on them for practicing medicine without a license.
Speaker 1: They threw a funcket We're done now party, and and
Speaker 1: Jane was over after their funcket We're done now party,
Speaker 1: which is the way I'm praising it. And people miss
Speaker 1: the intensity of it. Jane activists Ruth Sergill put it
Speaker 1: like this. For the people I know, it was the
Speaker 1: single most intense period of our life. And when it stopped,
Speaker 1: there was something missing, and you couldn't find anything to
Speaker 1: do that carried quite that energy for a long time.
Speaker 1: But you know what does carry energy is potatoes. And
Speaker 1: you should eat food of some type, whatever type you like.
Speaker 1: But it is healthy and good and that's why we
Speaker 1: advertise it on this show. The concept of potatoes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all potatoes. All potatoes are great as well as whatever
Speaker 1: is that being advertised. And we are back and so
Speaker 1: this this intensity leaving, uh, it's something that I think
Speaker 1: is familiar to a lot of people are involved in activism,
Speaker 1: especially like more intense activism. I'm guessing that anyone who
Speaker 1: was radicalized by the demonstrations has has felt this when
Speaker 1: you leave this moment of intensity, But people keep going right. TRM. Howard,
Speaker 1: the black civil rights leader who is the first abortionist
Speaker 1: the network called. He kept providing abortions now legally and
Speaker 1: his his private black owned practice offered abortions for fifty
Speaker 1: dollars less than what local hospitals charged. The Defense Committee
Speaker 1: with that sick name, the A t F. They switched to,
Speaker 1: becoming a new group that also had a sick name,
Speaker 1: Health Evaluation and Referral Services HERS. It's a shitty name,
Speaker 1: but it's a great acronym. And I feel like they really,
Speaker 1: I don't know, they started off with not strong naming game,
Speaker 1: but I think that they over the course of time
Speaker 1: they figured it out again. There yeah, so so hers
Speaker 1: and Heather Booth, Jamee's founder. They went on to start
Speaker 1: the Chicago Abortion Fund in Chicago, which is a nonp
Speaker 1: fit that is still around today and it's a simple, clean,
Speaker 1: honest name that does what it says on the tin.
Speaker 1: And as the host of Cool People did Cool stuff,
Speaker 1: I appreciate a thing that just does what it says
Speaker 1: on the tin. So I want to talk about some
Speaker 1: of the other direct action abortionists who have who have
Speaker 1: come since, because this need continues right and there are
Speaker 1: there are millions of people who have done this kind
Speaker 1: of work. Probably as long as there's been legal restrictions
Speaker 1: on abortion, there have been people fighting against it. You
Speaker 1: talked about some of them actually at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the show, and I'm hoping you chime in with more
Speaker 1: of them as I as I go through some of
Speaker 1: these um and I want to do more episodes about
Speaker 1: more of these people, or I think people can listen
Speaker 1: to other podcasts that talk about it too. Um Yeah,
Speaker 1: So normally a stick with people in the past for
Speaker 1: this show, but this issue just feels too important to
Speaker 1: me right now to not include some of these. So
Speaker 1: there's Women on Waves, which is a Dutch organization that
Speaker 1: was started by the physician Rebecca Gonpert, and she used
Speaker 1: to be the ship's doctor aboard a green piece ship
Speaker 1: and she was like, oh, boats are fucking cool, which
Speaker 1: is my paraphrasing, not a direct quote. So she got
Speaker 1: a boat and she headed out to various countries with
Speaker 1: active abortion practices. She loads up patients on shore heads
Speaker 1: twenty miles out to sea. And since it's Dutch ship,
Speaker 1: Dutch laws and effect, though even the Dutch are a
Speaker 1: little wary about the whole thing. And the ship is
Speaker 1: only authorized to provide the abortion pill uh, non surgical
Speaker 1: abortions to pregnancies up to nine weeks. And they don't
Speaker 1: just provide abortions, they provide education, contraception and education. And
Speaker 1: the first place they go is Ireland, because, um, you
Speaker 1: don't have to go very far from the Netherlands to
Speaker 1: go to a country that had terrible abortion laws in
Speaker 1: two thousand one. Ironically, Ireland is liberalizing as abortion laws
Speaker 1: just as the US is regressing. And this this boat
Speaker 1: is super contentious. And also it's contentious when you tell
Speaker 1: people who have ships that they're called boats, because they
Speaker 1: don't like that. Um, they like to be like, this
Speaker 1: is a ship not a boat, but I think it's
Speaker 1: funny because boat is a cuter name. So Portugal blocks
Speaker 1: women on waves from approaching with a fucking warship. And
Speaker 1: then in Guatemala they make it less than a day
Speaker 1: before a warship comes and pushes them out to sea.
Speaker 1: And oh and then you actually we talking about Poland
Speaker 1: earlier women on way this once fluid drone carrying abortion
Speaker 1: pills into Germany from Poland. In case anyone needs any ideas,
Speaker 1: um and Rebecca Gomperts goes on in to form a
Speaker 1: nonprofit called aid Access that focuses on helping pregnant people
Speaker 1: self managed their own abortions with abortion pills, which are
Speaker 1: generally a combination of I don't know how to pronounce
Speaker 1: these words. I'm terribly sorry, Maybe you do, myfi press
Speaker 1: stone and my supposed at all. These are the primary
Speaker 1: abortion pills that people are taking right now to end
Speaker 1: first trimester abortions and sending them through the mail in
Speaker 1: the US and to other countries that are increasingly criminalizing abortion.
Speaker 1: And they feelded about fift requests in the first year
Speaker 1: that they were operational. At least one organization is bulletproofing
Speaker 1: vans getting ready to help people safely leave Texas to
Speaker 1: get to states where they can get the healthcare they need.
Speaker 1: They're like part getting ready to park the van's right
Speaker 1: outside the border of Texas. And and frankly, what isn't
Speaker 1: isn't legal doesn't dictate what is and isn't safe. Right.
Speaker 1: During the fifty years we've had Roe v. Wade in
Speaker 1: the US, abortion workers have regularly risks and sometimes lost
Speaker 1: their lives in order to help people terminate on wanted pregnancies. Receptionists,
Speaker 1: security guards, and clinic escorts have all been murdered, kidnaps,
Speaker 1: attack threatened, you name it. Um. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I bring that up, I hate ending on this
Speaker 1: kind of darker note, But the one of the reasons
Speaker 1: I bring that up is because we can have this
Speaker 1: concept that direct action abortion can only happen when it's illegal,
Speaker 1: and that's just not true. Um. Like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: In one southern city I lived in, there were for
Speaker 1: years there were no clinic escorts because the people, um,
Speaker 1: and clinic escorts for anyone who doesn't know, are the
Speaker 1: people who wait outside a clinic and shield patients from
Speaker 1: the abuse from anti choice protesters. And there are no
Speaker 1: clinic escorts in this town because all the escorts have
Speaker 1: been followed home and had their windows shot out. And
Speaker 1: and my sister does clinic escorting, and I just want
Speaker 1: to shout her out. She's a direct action hero from
Speaker 1: my point of view, even if what she's doing is legal,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, totally. I only did it once. It
Speaker 1: was a long time ago in Louisville, Kentucky and base
Speaker 1: sickly as I understood it, I was told by the
Speaker 1: punks in town. They were like, the anti choice protesters
Speaker 1: here are like really scary, so they want the scary
Speaker 1: punks to come be the clinic escorts, you know, because
Speaker 1: like normally, if you don't have really bad protesters, you
Speaker 1: kind of don't want the scary people to come to
Speaker 1: like help escort people in. But when people are really threatening,
Speaker 1: then you call the really threatening looking people. Which when
Speaker 1: I was twenty, I was a very threatening looking person
Speaker 1: just by being a punk. Um. I love it. I
Speaker 1: love the best the threat punk that's right, come here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we were all like full of ourselves, like twenty
Speaker 1: year old anarchists who are like we'll do anything, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And the world needs lots of angry twenty year olds. Also,
Speaker 1: unfortunately it also needs a lot of the angry twenty
Speaker 1: year olds to stop. It depends on what they're angry about, really, right,
Speaker 1: I mean just a reminder, I mean, I just want
Speaker 1: to put this also sad little fact in here. Even
Speaker 1: after a Road versus Weight in the Supreme Court in
Speaker 1: ninety seven, we had the High Amendment which is in
Speaker 1: place and has never gone away um, which acts restricts
Speaker 1: funds UH for health care and access, which means pretty
Speaker 1: much the it's a very classist and racist amendment making
Speaker 1: sure those who really probably are the ones that need
Speaker 1: it and need this help and need this choice, are
Speaker 1: the ones that can't get access to safe abortion and
Speaker 1: safe reproductive care in general. And then that has always
Speaker 1: been in place, and it has not been removed, and
Speaker 1: it has not even come close to being removed, and
Speaker 1: could have been and should have been by some administrations.
Speaker 1: But that's something to remember too. Yeah, but that's part
Speaker 1: of the problem is we have other things that yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: now we are supposedly yeah, we supposedly have the right
Speaker 1: to do so, but we don't have access to do so.
Speaker 1: And that's a conversation we need to have in pretending
Speaker 1: like it's actually free and it's not or not actually free,
Speaker 1: that is actually accessible and it's not, and and who
Speaker 1: that truly affects and why it's such a bigger conversation,
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that the gag rule exists,
Speaker 1: which uh, Title ten came in trying to help out
Speaker 1: to get those funds, and then we have the gag
Speaker 1: rules saying like, well, no, I guess individuals can choose this.
Speaker 1: So it gets so convoluted and there's so many policies
Speaker 1: and amendments on top of each each other that it
Speaker 1: becomes almost impossible to know what is accessible in what
Speaker 1: is legal. And yeah, just because it's not legal doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you can't get it or you should be. But
Speaker 1: like that's this whole whole conversation in this bigger picture
Speaker 1: of like we're coming coming back to the basics. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but we because we were never unable to unravel the
Speaker 1: details that really, uh find us for those who want
Speaker 1: to get that ability to just have a choice. And again,
Speaker 1: reproductive care is not just an abortion. Like there's just
Speaker 1: a whole bigger conversation. Once again, the fact that the
Speaker 1: cob will city for black women, it's higher like, it's
Speaker 1: just there's so many conversations and what these policies are
Speaker 1: and who they truly affect, and why these policies are
Speaker 1: in place. It's supremacy, patriarchy, those things. The reason we
Speaker 1: keep harping on these two were these three words, and
Speaker 1: people get piste off about it because it's true. There's
Speaker 1: no other I'm sorry, I'm sorry it bothers you, and
Speaker 1: that you've been benefiting from that. Fuck you is still true. No,
Speaker 1: I ran finished, No, no, no, I incredibly, this is
Speaker 1: part of why I'm really excited that you're the guest
Speaker 1: for this um is the High Amendment. Is that the
Speaker 1: thing where like I know that like at least for
Speaker 1: a while, there was only one abortion clinic in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and it was because you weren't allowed to have an
Speaker 1: abortion clinics. Hallways must be exactly and I'm making this
Speaker 1: number up thirty one inches wide, whereas a normal clinic
Speaker 1: has to have thirty three inch wide things. And so
Speaker 1: they would do this ship where you like cannot have
Speaker 1: any a clinic that is anything other than abortion clinic,
Speaker 1: which means that it is entirely financially unstable and impossible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it starts stripping things. Essentially, the High Amendment really took
Speaker 1: away the funding, so any public funding could not go
Speaker 1: into it. So if you had accessibility too, so if
Speaker 1: you say, yes, we offer abortion air, then you're automatically
Speaker 1: stripped of it. You cannot get government funds period. So
Speaker 1: any kind of like services that would take medicaid, a
Speaker 1: mate of care, you cann't go to their uh get
Speaker 1: abortion because that was restricted for government funds. So like
Speaker 1: it absolutely was a classics law, which just continues the
Speaker 1: previous status quo where the rich have access to reproductive
Speaker 1: health and then and it's so sneaky. It's so sneaky
Speaker 1: because people don't know about it much like they really
Speaker 1: think they have access because it's a liberal state. But
Speaker 1: High Amendment, Yeah, reproductive care is so much more than
Speaker 1: you as you said, reproductive cares so much more in abortion,
Speaker 1: and like a lot of it is also about like
Speaker 1: the ability to choose to have children, right, right, people
Speaker 1: who have children. This is a high risk thing for
Speaker 1: many many people and they need that care. Um And
Speaker 1: there's a reason why people died in childbirth and it
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to be because there are advancements that can
Speaker 1: prevent that, but people can't afford that like that, that
Speaker 1: in itself is that conversation, and we don't actually care
Speaker 1: about those who are giving birth, like to make sure
Speaker 1: they're healthy. That's not pro life. Yeah, totally. The hypocrisy
Speaker 1: of all that stuff can like keep me up at
Speaker 1: nights sometimes because I try to have empathy with people
Speaker 1: I disagree with and it it short circuits my empathy
Speaker 1: because I I can't understand it because it makes no
Speaker 1: fucking sense that you're like claiming to be you know,
Speaker 1: this one thing and then you just don't give a
Speaker 1: ship about people when they actually have children, and like,
Speaker 1: I love that. That's why you quoted that doctor from
Speaker 1: what was the Kentucky Pennsylvania Well, yeah, that's the same that.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding Pennsylvania because it's just seeing their perspective
Speaker 1: that that is the true point of it. And this
Speaker 1: conversation of a late term abortions, A majority of the
Speaker 1: people who are having late term abortions are not by choice. Uh.
Speaker 1: Typically they have been preparing for their child um and
Speaker 1: I know many of people who were anti choice for
Speaker 1: the longest time when they had to be put in
Speaker 1: that situation and understanding, Oh, this is still technically an abortion.
Speaker 1: They may have different terms for it. Um. Realizing that, oh,
Speaker 1: and then costing thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars,
Speaker 1: putting their lives at risk, coming back to being pro choice,
Speaker 1: realizing what this conversation and what these types of laws
Speaker 1: really hurt and who they really hurt, and how damaging
Speaker 1: it is. Um, because there's this mystic religious moral background
Speaker 1: that in order to demoralize and demonize those who even
Speaker 1: talk about it as an option. Yeah, the moral crusaders
Speaker 1: are just being used as useful idiots by people who
Speaker 1: want to do this other ship and they like get
Speaker 1: people riled up into being like this is what is
Speaker 1: moral and they're like okay, and you run off and
Speaker 1: go do the thing, and like that's not what the
Speaker 1: people controlling those people and give a shit about any
Speaker 1: of that stuff. This is not about that. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: they're just you're being used if you made it this
Speaker 1: far and you're you're moral anti yeah, um, just more
Speaker 1: than in the first episode. Yeah, we're going to we're
Speaker 1: on this length so you know they know, no y'all know, right,
Speaker 1: but yes, thank you so much for bringing this because
Speaker 1: I love talking about this history. Yeah, I definitely learned
Speaker 1: more because I was like, what what is that? Things
Speaker 1: I didn't want to know and things I didn't want
Speaker 1: to know, So thank you for giving me that blend. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I yeah, I was realizing. I was like, this is
Speaker 1: a thing that some people know a lot about and
Speaker 1: some people don't know about it, and like, I'm really
Speaker 1: excited that more and more information is coming forward and
Speaker 1: people are coming more and more aware about Jane Collective
Speaker 1: and all of the people who have done this kind
Speaker 1: of work because like, because we fucking need it, and
Speaker 1: and we've we've already said that a bunch of times
Speaker 1: on the show, but it just it feels worth repeating.
Speaker 1: Is that, like we need to know that we can
Speaker 1: like be brave and do the right thing, you know,
Speaker 1: and we need to know that the means by which
Speaker 1: to do it, uh do the right thing, we can
Speaker 1: have those means. We can figure that out, you know.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, well, well, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: And I am a new best friend. Yeah, well you
Speaker 1: so many new best friends also because all the listeners,
Speaker 1: but I want to be more of the best friend
Speaker 1: than them. Um, any any plugs at the end here? Uh,
Speaker 1: Like I said, on the last episode, which I hope
Speaker 1: you listened to and you stayed around for the second part.
Speaker 1: I'm on stuff mom never told you a podcast with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. You can get it wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your podcast. We are on Instagram, in on Twitter.
Speaker 1: We don't we don't type. Is that this is how
Speaker 1: old I am. We don't post a lot. I don't
Speaker 1: type things on there a lot, but we're there and
Speaker 1: we love getting messages. Um. I'm also on the social
Speaker 1: media's obviously not very good at it on Instagram with
Speaker 1: mcmay Sam and Twitter Sam McVeigh because that's how creative
Speaker 1: I am. And you can see pictures of her dog. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much all it is pictures of my dog.
Speaker 1: So you like that, come on check it out and
Speaker 1: then we'll be back next week on Monday and one
Speaker 1: stay wherever. Talk to you all soon by listeners. Cool
Speaker 1: People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media. Or more podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit
Speaker 1: our website cool zone media dot com, or check us
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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. M HM