Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of reproductive justice? Yeah, that's like abortions, right.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, but there's so much more to it.
Speaker 1: Dehmate Pico. Okay, I'm listening.
Speaker 3: Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora.
Speaker 1: S Hi, Senora.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Senora sex Ed Senora Sex Said is not
Speaker 2: your Mommy sex Talk. This show is la platica like
Speaker 2: you've never heard it before. With each episode, we're breaking
Speaker 2: the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in LATINX communities.
Speaker 1: Latinas have been hyper sexualized in popular culture, but notoriously
Speaker 1: denied sex education. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between
Speaker 1: Latinas from gen X to Gen Z, covering everything from
Speaker 1: puberty and body image to representation in film, television, and music.
Speaker 2: Just a reminder that in this show, a Senora is
Speaker 2: a woman with a lot of life experiences and stories
Speaker 2: to share. Maybe she's in her thirties, maybe she's in
Speaker 2: her forties or fifties or older. Maybe she's trans, maybe
Speaker 2: she sits.
Speaker 1: We are your hosts and producers, Viosa and Mala.
Speaker 2: You might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Lokatra Radio.
Speaker 2: Since twenty sixteen, we've covered all kinds of topics, ranging
Speaker 2: from politics, to mental health, current events, and of course sex.
Speaker 2: We still have so much to learn, though, and we
Speaker 2: hope you listen to each episode with the Senoras and
Speaker 2: Senoritas in Your Life, Chapter twenty eight, abortion is Healthcare.
Speaker 2: In today's episode, we sit down with virgin She is
Speaker 2: the daughter of Mexican parents who grew up in the
Speaker 2: barrios of northeast Los Angeles. She is a mother, daughter, sister,
Speaker 2: and wife who believes in the power of stories to
Speaker 2: heal and to liberate. Virginia shares her experience accessing abortion
Speaker 2: care at the age of seventeen and later at forty eight.
Speaker 2: She also shares what sexual education looked like in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies and how she got involved with California Latinas
Speaker 2: for Reproductive Justice. Here's our interview with Virginia.
Speaker 4: It's a wonderful. It's just an honor to be here
Speaker 4: and be able to talk about these important issues. Quite
Speaker 4: often we don't share in public.
Speaker 1: On Senora Sex said, we love to start by asking
Speaker 1: what did conversations around sex and sexuality look like for
Speaker 1: you growing up.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's important to note my birth year,
Speaker 4: So I was born in nineteen sixty two, which was
Speaker 4: you know, pre Roe v. Wade. And I was born
Speaker 4: to a mother who she wasn't conventional, but she did
Speaker 4: have some values about sex and sex before marriage, and
Speaker 4: she thought it was really taboo. So she wanted to
Speaker 4: educate me about what sex was and menstruation. But I
Speaker 4: think she wanted to she really emphasized that sex was
Speaker 4: something that occurred in the marriage relationship, and so we
Speaker 4: didn't really have conversations about relationships, or about passion, or
Speaker 4: about sexuality, or about even pleasure. That I didn't learn until,
Speaker 4: I would say, even way in my forties, because those
Speaker 4: conversations just were taboo, and so I didn't really feel
Speaker 4: comfort with my body until you know, I was or
Speaker 4: I already had children, and I started to hang out
Speaker 4: with young people who had a different perspective. So people
Speaker 4: who were born more in the seventies and eighties had
Speaker 4: a more open worldview and a more nuanced understanding about
Speaker 4: their sexuality. So I learned a lot from them.
Speaker 2: What were some of the things that you learned from them.
Speaker 4: About masturbation, about self pleasure, about how it's possible to
Speaker 4: self pleasure, which is something I didn't really grow up
Speaker 4: learning about I thought that that had to come from
Speaker 4: the outside, from external, from another person, and not something
Speaker 4: that I could do for myself. So that's what they
Speaker 4: taught me.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you learned like about pleasure and masturbation.
Speaker 1: Was there a specific person, a specific moment that comes
Speaker 1: to mind?
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I don't want to name this person, but I
Speaker 4: was in a reading group with a bunch of like
Speaker 4: twenty something women. I was like the grandmother of the group,
Speaker 4: and they had real open conversations about masturbation, about vibrators,
Speaker 4: about self pleasure. And this was probably ten ten years ago,
Speaker 4: and it had a huge impact on me after that.
Speaker 2: Based on your experience growing up and the information your
Speaker 2: mother gave you, and maybe any sex that you learned
Speaker 2: in school or from friends, did you approach your first
Speaker 2: sexual experience with an understanding that pleasure with something that
Speaker 2: you deserved and should receive.
Speaker 4: Not at all. No, I didn't really. I wasn't really
Speaker 4: interested in sex until maybe in my early twenties. Although
Speaker 4: I did have my search sexual experience when I was seventeen,
Speaker 4: but it was be from peer pressure. It was because
Speaker 4: everybody was having sex and I felt like I had to,
Speaker 4: Like Mark, that box. But it's not like I was
Speaker 4: having these you know, sensations that I wanted to or
Speaker 4: or really a strong desire to. So I can't say
Speaker 4: that it was a pot I really cared about the person,
Speaker 4: but I can't say that it was pleasurable. And that
Speaker 4: didn't come until I was a bit older and I
Speaker 4: started to learn a little bit more about asking for
Speaker 4: what I needed and what I wanted. So that came
Speaker 4: with time and came with you know, each relationship and
Speaker 4: each experience. But that that, I mean, I just can't
Speaker 4: emphasize enough, you know, the self part of it, because
Speaker 4: we don't think. We grow up thinking that it has
Speaker 4: to come from someone else has to give us something
Speaker 4: and we have to give them something, and we don't.
Speaker 4: We don't learn that there are things we can do
Speaker 4: for ourselves that are really important and worthy and valuable
Speaker 4: and satisfying.
Speaker 1: Can you just describe what you have here in front
Speaker 1: of us, and like where it came from.
Speaker 4: So my mother, she's a huge fan of Anne Landers,
Speaker 4: and so she gave us I have two sisters, so
Speaker 4: these were used by my oldest sister and me, and
Speaker 4: then my younger sister. She gave advice about all sorts
Speaker 4: of issues and problems people were having, and my mom
Speaker 4: really looked to her because she was wise enough to
Speaker 4: know she didn't want to replicate what her mother had
Speaker 4: taught her, and so she looked to who was popular
Speaker 4: at the time to give advice. And so she gave
Speaker 4: me something called teenage Sex and ten Ways to Cool It.
Speaker 4: And I just realized that she was preaching abstinence, you know,
Speaker 4: and looking back at this, it was published in nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty five, and looking back at it, I can see
Speaker 4: that she was trying to teach me how to control
Speaker 4: myself and how not to feel, you know, all my
Speaker 4: emotions and all my desires. And my mother saved these booklets.
Speaker 4: When I helped her clean out her garage. She we
Speaker 4: came upon these, and I decided to keep them because
Speaker 4: they're such a marker of a time period that honestly,
Speaker 4: I thought had passed. But now I feel like, you know,
Speaker 4: people want to take us back to this period where
Speaker 4: we are, where our sexuality is repressed.
Speaker 2: We hope you're enjoying this conversation. Stay tuned. There's more
Speaker 2: to come.
Speaker 1: And we're back. We hope you enjoyed the break and
Speaker 1: are ready to listen to the rest.
Speaker 2: So how did you get involved with working with c LRJ,
Speaker 2: the California Latinus for Reproductive Justice and what does your
Speaker 2: work look like now with them.
Speaker 4: I got involved with the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice
Speaker 4: when I was working on the documentary film No Mas Bevez.
Speaker 4: We were looking for an organizational partner who could inform
Speaker 4: us about the topics we were addressing and perhaps use
Speaker 4: the film for the work that they were doing to
Speaker 4: promote bodily autonomy. We were also interested in looking at
Speaker 4: because the film looks at the unwanted for sterilizations of
Speaker 4: Mexican women at the La County Hospital in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 4: and we were looking to put this history, this tragic history,
Speaker 4: in the reproductive justice framework that cier l r J
Speaker 4: advocates for. So the idea that you want to protect
Speaker 4: women's right to terminate a pregnancy at the same time
Speaker 4: protect their right to have as many children as they
Speaker 4: want to and to have them in a safe and
Speaker 4: healthy environment amazing.
Speaker 1: And Nomas Bevez was a big deal when it came out,
Speaker 1: and I think it was very groundbreaking diving into that
Speaker 1: history that unless you maybe like study Chicano Studies or
Speaker 1: you're from La May. You may have never heard about
Speaker 1: the sterilization program that took place here in California. What
Speaker 1: was your role in the documentary and how did it
Speaker 1: come to be.
Speaker 4: I learned about that case even though I grew up
Speaker 4: in La born and raised in Los Angeles. I learned
Speaker 4: about the case when I was a graduate student and
Speaker 4: I was working with doctor Vicki Deuis, who is a
Speaker 4: Chicano historian, and she taught that history. So I wanted
Speaker 4: to learn more about it because I was so appalled
Speaker 4: and angered that the county hospital is two miles from
Speaker 4: where I live, and I had not learned about all
Speaker 4: the activism around this. I was definitely appalled about the
Speaker 4: abuse and the violation, but also about not learning of
Speaker 4: the heroism that the women who challenged the hospital engaged
Speaker 4: in their heroism, their activism, their bravery, and then the
Speaker 4: chic got a feminists who were a part of it.
Speaker 4: Was really a dynamic history. But I wasn't satisfied with
Speaker 4: just writing about it. I was really wanted. I really
Speaker 4: wanted to bring this history to a wider public, and
Speaker 4: just by luck, I live very close to the director
Speaker 4: Rene Tajimapenya and just by luck, we both had two
Speaker 4: young babies we were taking care of, so we met
Speaker 4: because of our kids and we would organize play dates
Speaker 4: and then talk about our work and what we hope
Speaker 4: to do once our kids were a little bit older.
Speaker 4: So she said, this would make an amazing documentary, and
Speaker 4: that's how I got involved in making the film.
Speaker 2: I love that that's such a great detail that it
Speaker 2: was like working mothers and how y'all connected in that way.
Speaker 2: How does your personal story connect to CLRJ and your
Speaker 2: role there.
Speaker 4: One of the questions we asked whenever we get together
Speaker 4: with our board members or with staff for our retreats
Speaker 4: is like, how did you come to RJ? What's your
Speaker 4: understanding of RJ? And a lot of us come to
Speaker 4: these issues not from a theoretical perspective, but actually from
Speaker 4: experiencing something. And in my case, I learned about abortion
Speaker 4: in when my best friend from high school got pregnant
Speaker 4: and she definitely did not want to have children. She
Speaker 4: was only fifteen and her mother was very much a
Speaker 4: fundamentalist Christian and she was so terrified that her mother
Speaker 4: would just I don't know what she was afraid of.
Speaker 4: Because it was really nice, but she didn't want to
Speaker 4: hurt her mother, I guess, And so we had a
Speaker 4: network of women who just helped us figure out how
Speaker 4: she could get pregnant, I mean, how she could terminate
Speaker 4: that pregnancy. We had a network of women who could
Speaker 4: figure out where she could get the money, who would
Speaker 4: give her a ride, who would pick her up where
Speaker 4: she would go, and it was so beautiful and so easy,
Speaker 4: and it was just something that taught me about community
Speaker 4: and about how we don't always need our mothers to
Speaker 4: help us out in situations like that, and that there's
Speaker 4: other people who are going to help us. And then
Speaker 4: so that changed my perspective. I was probably anti abortion
Speaker 4: before then because I believed that the rhetoric about murder
Speaker 4: that is a person, and I had to educate myself
Speaker 4: and re educate myself about it. I had an abortion
Speaker 4: when I was seventeen, and then I had another abortion
Speaker 4: when I was forty eight, So both times I just
Speaker 4: didn't want to have a child.
Speaker 1: And at the top of the interview, you described that
Speaker 1: your first sexual sperience as coming about because of peer pressure.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, like the did you feel pressure to
Speaker 1: have the abortion to keep it where they're outside influences
Speaker 1: in that decision as well.
Speaker 4: You know, it's really interesting because we talked about our
Speaker 4: sexual experiences, but we never talked about controlling our like
Speaker 4: finding a way to control to use birth control, finding
Speaker 4: birth control. Nobody was having that conversation. You know, we
Speaker 4: were talking. They were talking about positions and where to
Speaker 4: do it, and you know, all of these all of
Speaker 4: this information, but not like how do you prevent a pregnancy?
Speaker 4: And so I got pregnant pretty quickly after the first
Speaker 4: time I had sex, and I, I guess for the
Speaker 4: same reasons my friend had an abortion. I was terrified
Speaker 4: of my parents and what they would say, and I
Speaker 4: didn't want to embarrass myself. I didn't want to embarrass them.
Speaker 4: And I also did not want to be a mother.
Speaker 4: At that time, I was not headed to college. I
Speaker 4: had just graduated from high school. I didn't know what
Speaker 4: I was going to do with my life, and I
Speaker 4: wasn't really in love with my boyfriend in that way
Speaker 4: to make that kind of commitment like let's have a
Speaker 4: kid and it's I didn't feel that, and I didn't
Speaker 4: feel pressure to have a baby. No, And I think
Speaker 4: my friend's experience taught me that you can go on
Speaker 4: and have a happy life after an abortion. It's possible.
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that you said that. What
Speaker 2: was your experience the same wherein you knew who to
Speaker 2: call and there was like a community and network of
Speaker 2: women mobilizing. Did you also have that same experience.
Speaker 4: Exact same experience, except I went with my boyfriend took me.
Speaker 4: He was driving, he had a car, so he went
Speaker 4: with me. But I did go to the same place
Speaker 4: where we got public assistance, so I didn't have to,
Speaker 4: you know, get money from my parents or use my
Speaker 4: health insurance. And I believe I went to the ex
Speaker 4: exact same clinic that she went to where she had hers.
Speaker 2: How was it similar or different in when you had
Speaker 2: it later in life?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, my doctor told me, she said, when we
Speaker 4: were preparing when I found out I was pregnant, I
Speaker 4: knew right away I didn't want to keep it, and
Speaker 4: my doctor said, okay, well you can go here, but
Speaker 4: I just want you to know that there are probably
Speaker 4: going to be protesters out in front. And that didn't
Speaker 4: happen in the seventies. There were no protesters, There were
Speaker 4: no people screaming at you. And this is you know,
Speaker 4: I had my abortion in Glendale, and that's not an
Speaker 4: I mean, it's Glendale's kind of conservative, I guess, but
Speaker 4: it's not. It's California. It's not a place where there
Speaker 4: are a lot of anti abortion people. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of people who are who advocate for the right to
Speaker 4: terminate a pregnancy. And there were people yelling, and there
Speaker 4: were people with large posters of fetuses, bloody fetuses, And
Speaker 4: it was really a painful experience because my parents took me.
Speaker 4: My husband was living, he was working in Oregon, he
Speaker 4: was working in a different state, and I didn't really
Speaker 4: want to share it with a lot of people. I
Speaker 4: was a little embarrassed, you know, getting pregnant at forty eight,
Speaker 4: knowing what I know, you know, being educated, knowing about
Speaker 4: birth control. I was a little embarrassed. And so my
Speaker 4: parents took me, and they were very uncomfortable because they
Speaker 4: they don't know where they stand on the issue, because
Speaker 4: of their Catholicism. And it wasn't a pleasant experience. It
Speaker 4: wasn't like going to a place where someone's going to
Speaker 4: take care of you and nurture you and hold your
Speaker 4: hand and comfort you. It was very clinical, and then
Speaker 4: they they made an error. They didn't clean me out completely,
Speaker 4: so it was just a really bad experience. I honestly
Speaker 4: had a better experien when I was seventeen than I
Speaker 4: did when I was forty eight.
Speaker 1: This is really fascinating. So both from personal experience, first
Speaker 1: person observation, and all the work that you've done in
Speaker 1: the space, do you think we've made progress in this area?
Speaker 4: I feel like we are. Because of the anti movement,
Speaker 4: doctors are afraid to perform this service, and what I
Speaker 4: learned with the film is that medical schools do not
Speaker 4: teach their students how to perform an abortion. They have
Speaker 4: to ask for it or advocate it. It's not something
Speaker 4: that's on the curriculum, So you don't have enough people
Speaker 4: actually providing the service, and there's so much stigma around
Speaker 4: it that it's almost I feel like I feel like
Speaker 4: that abortion I had was kind of similar to a
Speaker 4: back alley abortion because it was not in a very
Speaker 4: it was in a kind of a rundown facility. And
Speaker 4: even though I have really good insurance, I feel like
Speaker 4: we're not celebrating this as part of our reproductive health
Speaker 4: or part of our If you have a vagina, part
Speaker 4: of the health for those people who have a vagina,
Speaker 4: it's not part of our It's not seen as something
Speaker 4: that's just a part of who we are, like getting
Speaker 4: a mammogram.
Speaker 1: Do you think that some of the shame attached to
Speaker 1: abortion is coming from these external factors as opposed to
Speaker 1: like a true, genuine internal feeling.
Speaker 4: The shame that I had, or just.
Speaker 1: In general when people feel that about getting this procedure done.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because we don't have enough. I feel like we
Speaker 4: don't have enough advocates. And I can understand why people
Speaker 4: have been killed for performing abortions. People are going to
Speaker 4: jail now for performing abortions. So I can see how
Speaker 4: people or doctors, medical professionals are not out there advocating
Speaker 4: for this and publicizing that they do it. But we
Speaker 4: really need that, We really need to destigmatize how we
Speaker 4: see it, and we need to make it safe for
Speaker 4: people to have this service. I know that the film
Speaker 4: in the film in the mas Babs, we feature the
Speaker 4: whistle blowing doctor, doctor Bernard Rosenfeldt, who alerted the public
Speaker 4: to what was taking place at the La County Hospital.
Speaker 4: He's still I'm not sure if he can legally now,
Speaker 4: but he was performing abortions when we were when we
Speaker 4: interviewed him, So he's like one of the few doctors
Speaker 4: who was still doing that because it can be dangerous
Speaker 4: in some places, and now it's illegal.
Speaker 2: My follow up question for you is about this decision
Speaker 2: that you made at forty eight, because there's I think
Speaker 2: this image that we have of who receives an abortion,
Speaker 2: maybe a young girl, a teenager, but I think the
Speaker 2: statistic shows that it's also women who are already mothers.
Speaker 2: And so I'm wondering how you came to that decision.
Speaker 2: And you said you told your parents, and so that's
Speaker 2: very different from than your story when you were seventeen, right,
Speaker 2: So just wondering how you can reflect on that and
Speaker 2: how you look back on that experience now.
Speaker 4: Well, being forty eight, I didn't think it was possible
Speaker 4: to get pregnant, Honestly. I wasn't being very careful, and
Speaker 4: it's not like my husband was living he was living
Speaker 4: part time in Oregon, so it's not like we were
Speaker 4: having a lot of sex, and so it was real
Speaker 4: shock to become pregnant. And then I was already having
Speaker 4: pelvic floor issues from my second child, and then I
Speaker 4: had a third child, so I was really worried if
Speaker 4: my body could handle it, Like, what's going to happen?
Speaker 4: You know, I put on a lot of weight when
Speaker 4: I get pregnant, I put on fifty pounds. It's like,
Speaker 4: what's going to happen to my pelvic floor? And also
Speaker 4: I had a fifteen year old and a twelve year
Speaker 4: old and a seven year old at the time, and
Speaker 4: those were really heavy years because I was, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of a single mom at points with my husband away.
Speaker 4: I just couldn't see myself having another child. And then
Speaker 4: I also thought, well, what if it's not viable, Like
Speaker 4: what if I lose it at four months or five months?
Speaker 4: I don't want to go through that experience. So there
Speaker 4: were so many reasons why it wasn't financial we could
Speaker 4: have afforded to have another kid. It was because of
Speaker 4: my age, and because of my kids, and because of
Speaker 4: my body. But also I think it's really important. I
Speaker 4: would really like for us to normalize not having to
Speaker 4: justify why we make that decision. This is a great conversation,
Speaker 4: so I'm really happy to share. But I feel like
Speaker 4: for some people it should just be enough that they
Speaker 4: just didn't want to have a kid.
Speaker 2: You know, oh, absolutely absolutely, And I think for us
Speaker 2: it is important to normalize that you can have an
Speaker 2: abortion later in life, that it's not just the young
Speaker 2: teenager that maybe didn't know to use birth control, but
Speaker 2: actually it can happen at any age, right, And I
Speaker 2: think that there's not enough stories of those diverse experiences.
Speaker 4: I don't know anyone who got pregnant fort that just
Speaker 4: seemed so it's good to talk about it, and it's
Speaker 4: good to share that it is possible, so you should
Speaker 4: use your precautions if you don't want to be pregnant.
Speaker 4: And in the waiting room where I had the abortion
Speaker 4: later in life, it was packed. There were probably would
Speaker 4: say forty people in there from all ages, very young too.
Speaker 4: I thought I was going to be the oldest person,
Speaker 4: and I wasn't. There were some people that were, well
Speaker 4: they might have been my age, and you know, looked
Speaker 4: a little older. So I thought that was really interesting
Speaker 4: as well. It's such a needed service.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love the point that you make about
Speaker 1: you know, we can give all these reasons for why
Speaker 1: we need this abortion, or we could just say I
Speaker 1: just don't want to. We don't need to justify and
Speaker 1: in some ways isn't that very basic? I just don't
Speaker 1: want to, Like the most important reason of all. Money
Speaker 1: can change, things can change in life, you can move
Speaker 1: things around, But just not wanting to should be the
Speaker 1: ultimate reason exactly.
Speaker 4: I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: You talked about the stigma, right, and how that maybe
Speaker 2: prevents people from seeking care. How did you feel supported
Speaker 2: by maybe your community or your family, your parents when
Speaker 2: you decided to exercise your right to choose.
Speaker 4: Well, this was before I was hanging out with a
Speaker 4: twenty something year.
Speaker 2: Old Oh okay, bring us back there please.
Speaker 4: If I would have had those young people as friends,
Speaker 4: I think it would have been a different experience because
Speaker 4: people my age were shocked that I was pregnant. So
Speaker 4: I told a couple of people and they didn't really
Speaker 4: respond in the way that I would have appreciated because
Speaker 4: of their surprise and because of the I think they
Speaker 4: were thinking, Oh, I'm so glad that hasn't happened to me,
Speaker 4: like that would be, you know. So that was kind
Speaker 4: of the energy that I got, and so I didn't
Speaker 4: really feel like I had the support that I really wanted.
Speaker 4: And I also didn't want to go very public with
Speaker 4: it because I didn't have any close friends at that
Speaker 4: time that I wanted to share with. And then later
Speaker 4: on a few years later, I learned about abortion doulas,
Speaker 4: and I thought, if I would have known about an
Speaker 4: abortion doula, I would have definitely asked for that kind
Speaker 4: of support because I really needed that, like emotionally, spiritually.
Speaker 4: I had no doubt that I was making the right decision,
Speaker 4: so I didn't don't have any regrets, but that kind
Speaker 4: of care that you need after such a procedure like that,
Speaker 4: and then to know that they didn't do it properly
Speaker 4: and I had to go back again for a second one,
Speaker 4: it was it was very traumatic.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's this idea that when you have
Speaker 1: when you give birth, you know you want your village
Speaker 1: around you. And then there's sort of like two different
Speaker 1: schools of thought on abortion, like it either like devastates
Speaker 1: you or like it doesn't bother you at all, But
Speaker 1: it seems like there's some in between also, right with
Speaker 1: that procedure that you're speaking to that, well, No, in
Speaker 1: that circumstance, there also was like a need for support.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's it's it's removing of of your body
Speaker 4: tissue in a way, that is very clinical and very unemotional,
Speaker 4: but it's it's it's connected to you, and when you
Speaker 4: let go of that, it's I think it's it's hard
Speaker 4: for it not to be emotional. Even when I was seventeen,
Speaker 4: I had emotional feelings, but I had my boyfriend and
Speaker 4: I was young, and there were there were a lot
Speaker 4: of distractions after when I had my abortion. Later in life,
Speaker 4: I had to go back and be a mother. I
Speaker 4: had to cook, I had to take my kids to school.
Speaker 4: I had a lot of obligations that didn't allow me
Speaker 4: to really sit with the feelings or to distract myself
Speaker 4: with something fun and joyful. Not that my kids weren't joyful,
Speaker 4: but those were hard years too, fifteen and twelve, those boys,
Speaker 4: those were difficult years. There's a lot of tension in
Speaker 4: the house. So I don't remember it being a positive
Speaker 4: moment in my life.
Speaker 1: And with both procedures at seventeen and at forty eight,
Speaker 1: your boyfriend at the time and your husband were they supportive.
Speaker 4: My boyfriend when I was seventeen, he you know, that's
Speaker 4: the first thing he said, you have to have an abortion,
Speaker 4: And that kind of made me think, well, I'm going
Speaker 4: to make this decision myself if I want to keep
Speaker 4: I mean, I knew in my mind I didn't want
Speaker 4: to have a child, but I wanted it to be
Speaker 4: my decision. And then he was very supportive, taking me
Speaker 4: and helping me afterwards and hanging out with me. And
Speaker 4: then my husband was very supportive. He's like, what would
Speaker 4: you like to do and let me decide, you know,
Speaker 4: what we should do. And then but he wasn't. He
Speaker 4: was not in Los Angeles at the time, so my
Speaker 4: parents took me and and then he was just I
Speaker 4: don't know. When he came home, he was supportive, but
Speaker 4: it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't the kind of support
Speaker 4: that I think I needed, like like from like I
Speaker 4: would have received from from a mother who was understanding,
Speaker 4: or a sister who I could talk to who had
Speaker 4: was understanding in that way, or a friend.
Speaker 1: And for those listening, you know, what sort of advice
Speaker 1: might you have for them, whether that's how to be
Speaker 1: supportive of someone else who's thinking about going through this
Speaker 1: procedure or those who they themselves might need to get
Speaker 1: this procedure done.
Speaker 4: I would say, for sure, not to pity the individual,
Speaker 4: also not to shame them, not to judge them for
Speaker 4: what happened, or for getting pregnant, for having an unwanted pregnancy.
Speaker 4: I think offering food, offering a walk, offering to drive them,
Speaker 4: offering to pick them up. I think those ways are
Speaker 4: really important. And just being a good listener, you know,
Speaker 4: a good listener validating someone's experience without judging Thinca is
Speaker 4: the most important thing.
Speaker 2: After the break, we're joined by Laudajimenez, Executive director at
Speaker 2: California Latinas for Reproductive Justice. She's led California Latinas for
Speaker 2: Reproductive Justice since twenty eleven and brings to this work
Speaker 2: the passion and commitment of close to thirty years of
Speaker 2: activism in the reproductive justice movement.
Speaker 1: California Latinas for Reproductive Justice was founded by a group
Speaker 1: of Latinas who were advocates and attorneys involved in advocating
Speaker 1: for reproductive health and reproductive rights. At the time, the
Speaker 1: mainstream reproductive rights movement was not taking Latinas into account.
Speaker 1: Reproductive justice is a term that's used interchangeably with reproductive
Speaker 1: health and rights. But what does reproductive justice mean? What
Speaker 1: are its origins? Here's Lauda.
Speaker 3: I think often when we talk about reproductive justice. People
Speaker 3: just think we have changed the term and it's interchangeable
Speaker 3: with reproductive rights or reproductive health. So reproductive justice is
Speaker 3: a framework that was It was a term that was
Speaker 3: coined by twelve black women in nineteen ninety four, during
Speaker 3: the time that there was an attempt, the first attempt
Speaker 3: to do healthcare reform in the US under the Clintons,
Speaker 3: and at that time they were just they had put
Speaker 3: the term together, saying that it would be reproductive health
Speaker 3: and rights plus social justice equals reproductive justice. And what
Speaker 3: that meant was that many of the folks that I
Speaker 3: learned from my elders, my teachers, had been involved in
Speaker 3: what's known as second wave feminism underneath sort of mainstream
Speaker 3: white feminists organizing, and a lot of that was Equal
Speaker 3: Rights Amendment, a lot of that was pro choice abortion
Speaker 3: rights work. And what women of color at that time
Speaker 3: were saying was that we are supportive of abortion. Because
Speaker 3: what they were hearing was, well, we don't really talk
Speaker 3: to you all because you all don't like you Latinas
Speaker 3: don't support abortion rights. What was said back was that's
Speaker 3: not true. We do actually support people being able to
Speaker 3: make choices about their own bodies and reproduction. But we
Speaker 3: also can't talk about abortion without talking about poverty, without
Speaker 3: talking about environmental justice, without talking about incarceration, immigration law,
Speaker 3: the foster care system, and many many other intersecting frameworks.
Speaker 3: And in fact, when the framework was really fleshed out
Speaker 3: in the late nineties and early two thousands, the work
Speaker 3: of the theory of intersectionality that was created by Kimberly Crenshaw,
Speaker 3: who's a black legal scholar and other sort of black
Speaker 3: feminist thought was heavily injected into what is reproductive justice.
Speaker 2: Reproductive justice is more than just access to abortion care.
Speaker 2: Lauda explains the four tenants to reproductive justice.
Speaker 3: That is, the right to not have children, which encompasses
Speaker 3: the right to abortion, the right to contraception, making sure
Speaker 3: that there's sex ed in schools, comprehensive sexuality education in schools.
Speaker 3: Second tenant being the right to have children. So we
Speaker 3: also need to recognize that for many people, many marginalized
Speaker 3: or colonized people in this country, the right to have
Speaker 3: children has not always been free of interference by the
Speaker 3: state or any or systems right institutions that we live under. So,
Speaker 3: for example, sterilization abuse was something that was happening to
Speaker 3: many groups in this country. The third tenant is the
Speaker 3: right to parent the children that we have in safe,
Speaker 3: violence free environments. And the fourth tenant is the right
Speaker 3: to bodily autonomy and gender identity, So making sure that
Speaker 3: we are being really clear that we have sovereignty over
Speaker 3: our bodies and we also have the right to determine
Speaker 3: and share with other people what our gender identity is
Speaker 3: and expect that to be respected and supported.
Speaker 1: The LATINX community is specifically targeted by misinformation and disinformation.
Speaker 3: Specifically when we talk about crisis pregnancy centers, which are
Speaker 3: fake reproductive health centers. A great we did. There was
Speaker 3: a great legislative effort in California in the twenty I
Speaker 3: can't remember fifteen sixteen, and that was a Reproductive Fact Act.
Speaker 3: It was led by our partners at Black Women for
Speaker 3: Wellness and it basically was requiring pregnancy centers, these crisis
Speaker 3: pregnancy centers to have a signage that said we are
Speaker 3: there is no medical stuff on the premises. It also
Speaker 3: disallowed them from lying to their patients. So one of
Speaker 3: the tactics that they use sometimes because they are run
Speaker 3: by the anti abortion forces and organizations, One of the
Speaker 3: things they will do is they'll offer the free ultra
Speaker 3: sound and all that good stuff, and then they'll say, Stephanie,
Speaker 3: your pregnancy is only six weeks, so you have some
Speaker 3: time to think about what you're going to do. Or Stephanie,
Speaker 3: your pregnancy is at sixteen weeks, so actually you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's no more options for you, or you know,
Speaker 3: whatever they will lie.
Speaker 2: The state of California ensures the legal right to an abortion,
Speaker 2: but this does not guarantee access to abortion care.
Speaker 3: You know, the leaders of the governor and the legislature
Speaker 3: likes to talk about California being a beacon for reproductive rights,
Speaker 3: and to some degree, yes, and then I think it's
Speaker 3: important to also say, but also and also just because
Speaker 3: we have laws on the books that protect people's rights
Speaker 3: to whatever medical care that they need, does not mean
Speaker 3: they can actually access that care. And so this is
Speaker 3: really important when we talk about Latina communities because we know,
Speaker 3: for example that I think about a third of Latina
Speaker 3: communities in California are living in remote or rural areas.
Speaker 3: So we're aware that people in Central Valley, like we
Speaker 3: knew from before, we work with our partners that access
Speaker 3: reproductive justice that runs a hotline and a practical support program.
Speaker 3: They would call us in LA and say, we've got
Speaker 3: somebody coming in from Central Valley to LA. They need
Speaker 3: to get to UCLA, they need to be there overnight,
Speaker 3: and they would be asking for people to come in
Speaker 3: for support, so for people to pick them up from
Speaker 3: the train station, take them to the clinic, maybe get
Speaker 3: them food, maybe house them, maybe watch their children. You know,
Speaker 3: there's all these different ways that you can practically support people,
Speaker 3: but there are so many barriers that can be in
Speaker 3: the way for people who are seeking that reproductive health
Speaker 3: care that they need.
Speaker 1: Lauda emphasizes that when pregnant people do not have access
Speaker 1: to safe abortion services, that the consequences can be deadly.
Speaker 3: When people don't want to be pregnant, they will find
Speaker 3: the way to not be pregnant, and so it's important
Speaker 3: for us to make sure that people have the options
Speaker 3: that they that they need right and we're seeing this
Speaker 3: unfortunately played out in other states right now, where even
Speaker 3: it's not folks necessarily that are getting unsafe abortions, it's
Speaker 3: the people who are having, you know, the ectopic pregnancies
Speaker 3: or other fetal anomalies that are actually dangerous to the
Speaker 3: pregnant person and their own lives are being put at risk.
Speaker 3: The United States government has decided that, you know, that
Speaker 3: is not as important as the potential of a fetus
Speaker 3: becoming a child and being born. And that's that's the question.
Speaker 3: We have to grapple with.
Speaker 2: The statistics around abortions and who gets them may disrupt
Speaker 2: any pre existing ideas you have of who actually gets abortions.
Speaker 3: The majority of people who get abortions are people who
Speaker 3: already have children, and I think, you know, we're kind
Speaker 3: of what I think is important to know is like
Speaker 3: Catholic women have abortions rates that are equal to other religions.
Speaker 3: Latinas have abortions in rates that are comparable to other
Speaker 3: ethnic groups. And so it's we have to really correct
Speaker 3: our thinking about it, you know. And for the longest time,
Speaker 3: the raid is basically fifty percent of all pregnancies around
Speaker 3: planned or mistimed. Right, I have two children. One of
Speaker 3: them was mistimed. I was married. I was married, I
Speaker 3: was over thirty, and you know, it was what happened, right,
Speaker 3: I wanted to have another child and so we had one.
Speaker 3: But if it had been another time, another situation, maybe
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have. And that's just the reality of how
Speaker 3: things work. And I think around this conversation, there's so
Speaker 3: much that's not said too, which is that people don't
Speaker 3: want to talk about people's sexual activity. They don't want to,
Speaker 3: they don't want to really get to, you know, get
Speaker 3: into that piece. And it's like, but that we have,
Speaker 3: but we have to, like.
Speaker 1: We have to talk about it. I learned so much
Speaker 1: from our conversation with Virginia, and I think the greatest
Speaker 1: takeaway from her story is that women do not have
Speaker 1: to justify why they get abortions. Whether you feel your
Speaker 1: too young to have a baby, or you're too old
Speaker 1: to have a baby, or you've already had a lot
Speaker 1: of babies, or you just don't want to have a baby,
Speaker 1: that any reason is truly a good reason to pursue
Speaker 1: an abortion if you feel that you need that. It
Speaker 1: is a medical service. It is medical care that is
Speaker 1: a necessity, a life saving necessity for so many people.
Speaker 1: And I really appreciated Virginia's take on that that not
Speaker 1: wanting to have a baby is a good enough reason
Speaker 1: to not have a baby.
Speaker 2: What I learned from Lauda is the legacy and history
Speaker 2: of reproductive justice, not only in California but across the country.
Speaker 2: I also really enjoyed learning about the four tenants to
Speaker 2: reproductive justice, which is the right not to have children,
Speaker 2: the right to have children, the rights of parent children
Speaker 2: in a safe and violent free community, and finally the
Speaker 2: fourth tenant, the right to bodily autonomy and gender identity.
Speaker 2: I think I think now more than ever, it's especially
Speaker 2: important to think about reproductive justice in our local community
Speaker 2: and also personally and how we enact that for ourselves
Speaker 2: and for each others. Choo Senora Sex Said is a
Speaker 2: co production between Locata Productions and Michael Dura Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: This show is executive produced by Mala Munos and theos FM.
Speaker 2: Also executive produced by Jasell.
Speaker 1: Bances, produced by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 2: Creative direction by Mala Munios.
Speaker 1: Story editing by THEOSAFM.
Speaker 2: Music direction by Grisol Lomeli, and.
Speaker 1: Music produced by Brian Gazo Logal Lumlia