Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Me your Girl, Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about today's interview with Crystal little John.
Speaker 1: She is the Associate professor of sociology at the University
Speaker 1: of Oregon and author of Just Get on the Pill,
Speaker 1: The Uneven Burden of Reproductive Politics, and is the author
Speaker 1: of a new book, Fighting Mad Resisting The End of
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade that just hit stands this month. You
Speaker 1: know what is extraordinary about the times that we are
Speaker 1: living in, and I mean there are so many things
Speaker 1: that are extraordinary, that are uniquely absurd and obscene, and
Speaker 1: one of them is the war on women, right. And
Speaker 1: we've heard that phrase before, and when I say women,
Speaker 1: I mean all women, I mean people with uteruses. There
Speaker 1: is and has been since the founding of this country,
Speaker 1: the desire to control women, whether that be to deny
Speaker 1: them access to the ballot, to deny them employment, to
Speaker 1: subjugate them as nothing more than cleaning, cooking, and staff
Speaker 1: in a man's household if you were in a heterosexual relationship.
Speaker 1: Because that is what prior to women being able to
Speaker 1: access their own financial wealth, visa, credit cards, and loans,
Speaker 1: which didn't happen folks until the nineteen seventies. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you have people in your family who were
Speaker 1: probably born at a time when women could not get
Speaker 1: credit cards without their husbands or their fathers. Right, That
Speaker 1: did not happen in this country until after nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: And so when we see this renewed push to criminalize
Speaker 1: a uterus right, to give women absolutely no control over
Speaker 1: their futures, this is the world that Republicans want women
Speaker 1: to go back to, where there was a permission structure.
Speaker 1: You had to ask permission from the men in your life,
Speaker 1: right in order to make any type of move at all.
Speaker 1: You know, we have the audacity to look at some
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern countries and look at their treatment of women
Speaker 1: and say, oh my god, no one would ever force
Speaker 1: me to wear a job or a veil or this,
Speaker 1: that and the other thing. And I'm just like, you
Speaker 1: didn't have power until nineteen seventy four, and right now,
Speaker 1: in a majority of states in this country, women don't
Speaker 1: have power. I mean, the stories that are coming out
Speaker 1: of places like Louisiana, right places like Alabama are horrific
Speaker 1: stories of women being forced to miscarry, women being forced
Speaker 1: into cesarean sections, you know, because of doctors that are
Speaker 1: unwilling to take the risk of caring for them because
Speaker 1: they don't want to end up in jail. So the
Speaker 1: way that our society and the way that Republicans are
Speaker 1: trying to set up our society is backwards. It is dangerous,
Speaker 1: it is patriarchal, it is beyond oppressive. And I pray
Speaker 1: folks that the more than half of this country right
Speaker 1: will stand up come November and say no to the
Speaker 1: Republicans up and down the ballot. And so my conversation
Speaker 1: today with Crystal Little John is about what is happening
Speaker 1: right now, how women and people with uteruses are fighting back.
Speaker 1: This situation feels so incredibly bleak, but we have to
Speaker 1: find hope and fire someplace because they're not going to stop. Right.
Speaker 1: We thought that it was all, well, it'll just be abortion. No,
Speaker 1: now it's ivy app Next up it is birth control.
Speaker 1: Because if you can control a woman's uterus, you can
Speaker 1: control her future. You can force her out of the workplace.
Speaker 1: We saw what happened during the height of COVID two
Speaker 1: million women, two million women left the workforce, because they
Speaker 1: had to now be a full time teacher to their
Speaker 1: small children. Men didn't leave the workforce, and I don't
Speaker 1: know how many of those women were able to return,
Speaker 1: but it goes to show you just how fragile the
Speaker 1: victories are that we have won, and what it's going
Speaker 1: to require in the future. Right, if we are to
Speaker 1: ever get this right back in my lifetime, what it
Speaker 1: will mean to solidify it so that it can never
Speaker 1: be taken away again. My conversation with Crystill Little John
Speaker 1: is coming up next, folks. I am very excited to
Speaker 1: welcome to WOKF Daily, Associate Professor of sociology at the
Speaker 1: University of Oregon, author of Just Get on the Pill,
Speaker 1: The Uneven Burden of Reproductive Politics, and the new book
Speaker 1: Fighting Matt Resisting the End of Roe v. Wade. Excited
Speaker 1: to have Crystal Little John join us. Crystal reproductive rights
Speaker 1: is something that I feel like I have been talking about,
Speaker 1: if not every day, every week since the overturning of
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade in twenty twenty one. It is an
Speaker 1: issue that I think that many people just assumed was
Speaker 1: going to just be there. Access to abortion was just
Speaker 1: going to there. It was quote unquote precedent, as all
Speaker 1: of the justices that came in, Gorsich, Kavanaugh, and Barrett
Speaker 1: come in and they say, oh, no, you know, we
Speaker 1: uphold precedent, fingers crossed behind their back. They overturn Roe v. Wade.
Speaker 1: And now what is present is in America. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to call it a patchwork of protections, as
Speaker 1: I have done many times before, is a dystopian America.
Speaker 1: So please talk to us about your book Fighting Mad
Speaker 1: and why it's so important for it to be out
Speaker 1: right now in this moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we wrote this book for exactly the reasons that
Speaker 2: you're talking about, right. We wanted to edit a collection
Speaker 2: that would show what people on the ground are doing
Speaker 2: to protect abortion access in the midst of attacks from
Speaker 2: every different angle that we can imagine, and to really
Speaker 2: show that even as people are having to confront lack
Speaker 2: of abortion access today, they also had to confront lack
Speaker 2: of abortion access before Roe v. Wade was overturned. But
Speaker 2: there were people then and now that are saying, we're
Speaker 2: not we're not going to accept this right. We're not
Speaker 2: just going to let the Supreme Court violate folks's rights.
Speaker 2: We're going to fight to try and figure out what
Speaker 2: we can do to get them the support that they need.
Speaker 2: So from abortion funds continuing to do their work to
Speaker 2: try and get people to be able to travel out
Speaker 2: of state to get abortions, to folks working with lawyers
Speaker 2: to try and help people get access to legal support
Speaker 2: if they face criminalization for their pregnancy outcomes, whether that's
Speaker 2: miscarriage or abortion, and so we just really felt like
Speaker 2: it was important to showcase the work of folks that
Speaker 2: oftentimes can get hidden, especially when you have these major
Speaker 2: shocks to our system. Right when everybody can be focusing
Speaker 2: on all of the different moving parts, it can be
Speaker 2: hard to see the stuff that's going on behind the
Speaker 2: scenes where you have people doing the day in and
Speaker 2: day out work to protect people that can sometimes get
Speaker 2: lost in the shuffle just not even be known. And
Speaker 2: so we wanted to showcase the work of so many
Speaker 2: folks that are brave and committed and courageous in just
Speaker 2: so many ways, that are out there fighting every single day,
Speaker 2: whether or not people know it or realize that that's
Speaker 2: what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Talk about the stories and talk about the kind of
Speaker 1: profiles and courage because I don't think you know what's
Speaker 1: funny is that we now wright eight years after Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: talk about political violence in this country in a different
Speaker 1: way since January sixth. But folks also need to remember
Speaker 1: that one America has always been a wildly violent place,
Speaker 1: particularly for Black Americans, at the hands of white domestic terrorists.
Speaker 1: But abortion clinics used to be in the news because
Speaker 1: of being bombed, right abortion providers. There are a number
Speaker 1: that were killed and or shot at right for providing abortion.
Speaker 1: So talk to us about because when we say profiles
Speaker 1: and courage, it's like, oh, yeah, you're doing a great job.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, this job of providing reproductive care, abortion care,
Speaker 1: providing information is actually dangerous inside the United States.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we have so many different like you're saying
Speaker 2: profiles of courage from people that are doing this work.
Speaker 2: So I immediately think about the work of the Emma Goldman
Speaker 2: Clinic in Iowa. We talk with friend Seeing Thompson in
Speaker 2: the book, and we talk about the work that clinic
Speaker 2: has been doing, especially as they face all kinds of
Speaker 2: different legal restrictions, new restrictions on abortion in the state,
Speaker 2: and how their staff has responded to that right from
Speaker 2: trying to make sure that they remain steadfast and the
Speaker 2: work that they're doing right, committed to patients that are
Speaker 2: coming in that are facing all kinds of hardships, that
Speaker 2: are facing confusion about what's available to them, what they
Speaker 2: can do, what they can't do, where they might need
Speaker 2: to go to get services. And so you have clinics
Speaker 2: like the MMIC Goldman Clinic that even amid the different
Speaker 2: restrictions that are being passed that make their work harder
Speaker 2: and harder to do, they stay steady doing the work
Speaker 2: and trying to figure out how they can pivot what
Speaker 2: they can do instead to try and make sure people
Speaker 2: get the care that they need. Especially when we think
Speaker 2: about the dab's decision and the context of the pandemic,
Speaker 2: right and all of the different stuff that was coming
Speaker 2: down and affecting people's lives. So I think about the
Speaker 2: Emma Goldman Clinic and and the abortion the folks doing
Speaker 2: abortion care there. I think about abortion doulas. So we
Speaker 2: have Cynthiapu Theatris in our book that talks about her
Speaker 2: work and as an abortion doula, which some people may
Speaker 2: not even know about. Right. The work of folks that
Speaker 2: are providing support for patients as they're thinking about their abortions,
Speaker 2: as they're trying to get access to abortions, as they're
Speaker 2: going through their abortions, and then after they have an
Speaker 2: abortion right, if they need additional support there. And so
Speaker 2: you have folks that are both agitating within care facilities
Speaker 2: and within clinics, and you also have folks that are
Speaker 2: everyday people just trying to make sure that they can
Speaker 2: provide support to those people who need it. We also
Speaker 2: have profiles from folks that are I think about if when,
Speaker 2: how that are really working to develop legal funds so
Speaker 2: that people that are facing criminal and have to deal
Speaker 2: with all kinds, you know, they have to think about
Speaker 2: how they can pay for a lawyer, they have to
Speaker 2: think about some people have to think about bail, right,
Speaker 2: Having funds available for people kind of anticipating that when
Speaker 2: this criminalization happens, people are going to need to make
Speaker 2: sure that they have as much support as possible as
Speaker 2: they navigate things that they may have no idea about
Speaker 2: how to navigate. And so you have so many people
Speaker 2: from the educating, the education domain, the healthcare domain, like
Speaker 2: I said, just regular people, everyday people. You have professors, right,
Speaker 2: you have people, you have nurses, doctors, there's so many
Speaker 2: people in the book that talk about the different ways
Speaker 2: that all of us can can be involved in the
Speaker 2: fight for abortion care and abortion rights, regardless of whether
Speaker 2: or not we're directly involved in providing abortion care in
Speaker 2: terms of being a health care provider, whether or not
Speaker 2: we are involved in work with the government right, everybody
Speaker 2: can have a role to play, and they provide just
Speaker 2: a number of examples to show us what that can
Speaker 2: look like.
Speaker 1: It's extraordinary because I think that where I am, you know,
Speaker 1: and where some people sit, which is in these tentatively
Speaker 1: i'll say, tentatively blue states right where they feel as if, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're protected here, and well, why don't these
Speaker 1: people that need care just go to where care is available?
Speaker 1: And I want you to be able to speak to
Speaker 1: one the resources just as you were naming out that
Speaker 1: are required right in order to get to these states,
Speaker 1: but then also the potential criminal investigation that they can
Speaker 1: be under once they return, Like what is it that
Speaker 1: crystal that people on the coast, who frankly are only
Speaker 1: as safe as who is sitting in the White House
Speaker 1: right now, need to understand about what has transpired since
Speaker 1: the fall of Row.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think One of the biggest things to keep
Speaker 2: in mind is the effect of both misinformation and disinformation
Speaker 2: on how people experience, As we talked about before, the
Speaker 2: patchwork of abortion care in the United States, and when
Speaker 2: it comes to thinking about who this fight pertains to
Speaker 2: and who's involved, I think it's important to recognize that
Speaker 2: because of all of these different changes that have been
Speaker 2: taking place state by state, and because of the rampant
Speaker 2: campaigns to misinform people, it can be hard for folks
Speaker 2: to understand what are their rights right, what will happen
Speaker 2: to them if they travel out of state to get
Speaker 2: an abortion, how could that differ by states? What is
Speaker 2: the information that might be collected on them that they
Speaker 2: may or may not even recognize as being collected from them.
Speaker 2: And so I think when we talk about the resources
Speaker 2: that it takes to get an abortion, I think, obviously
Speaker 2: people have to have money if they have to travel
Speaker 2: out of state to get an abortion, but I think
Speaker 2: it's all we also have to think about information as
Speaker 2: a resource and the importance of just knowing what's going
Speaker 2: on on a day to day basis and how that
Speaker 2: can change. And so when I am me and my
Speaker 2: co editor of Ricky Soalinger are thinking about this issue.
Speaker 2: We're thinking about the resources that involve the finances whether
Speaker 2: when you have to travel to get an abortion, we're
Speaker 2: thinking about the resources that might involve child's care. Right.
Speaker 2: Many people that get abortions are already parents, and so
Speaker 2: if they have to travel to get an abortion, who's
Speaker 2: going to be around to take care of their children? Sometimes,
Speaker 2: you know, people are having to travel for hours and hours.
Speaker 2: They might have overnight trips, right, so that you have
Speaker 2: costs ofel, you know, hotel stays, gas flights. Right, There's
Speaker 2: all of these things that start to add up when
Speaker 2: it comes to quote unquote just trying to get to
Speaker 2: travel to get an abortion. And I think that though
Speaker 2: even as we know that different companies you know, said
Speaker 2: that they were going to provide travel for abortion care, right,
Speaker 2: we also know that in the aftermath of some of
Speaker 2: those promises, people didn't necessarily deliver on the things that
Speaker 2: they said that they were going to. And even though
Speaker 2: that's the case, I think that's why it's so important
Speaker 2: that you have the work of abortion funds and reproductive
Speaker 2: justice organizations, right, who have long been committed to folks
Speaker 2: in their community who are striving to provide that access
Speaker 2: to people where that's access to information, access to resources,
Speaker 2: right funds to be able to get them to where
Speaker 2: they need to be. There are people that are continuing
Speaker 2: to do the hard work of providing the access the
Speaker 2: different resources that people need to get access to abortion,
Speaker 2: and those grow every day.
Speaker 1: You know, before the fall of Row, so many women
Speaker 1: and people with uteruses in these red states only had
Speaker 1: but one abortion clinic, if any right in an entire state.
Speaker 1: So even before the fall of Row, what we had
Speaker 1: seen over the last you know, forty nine plus years
Speaker 1: or whatever it was, is a chipping away right at
Speaker 1: access and ability and of you know, for those who
Speaker 1: know as well that you know, the High Amendment which
Speaker 1: denied women the ability to use right like federal funds
Speaker 1: and resources that you would receive medicaid and the like
Speaker 1: to get an abortion right were not allowed. And so
Speaker 1: there were already all of these restrictions. And from my
Speaker 1: question for you, Crystal, is then now that it's gone,
Speaker 1: how do you get it back right? Like your book
Speaker 1: is about, you know, fighting back. And we've seen the marches, right,
Speaker 1: we've seen women, politicians and others speak out against this
Speaker 1: where you know, we saw it just recently in the
Speaker 1: State of the Union, where Biden is, you know, making
Speaker 1: it a front issue of his campaign. But how do
Speaker 1: we actually get it back? And do you think that
Speaker 1: we will in our lifetime?
Speaker 2: I have the book gives me a lot of hope
Speaker 2: that we that we will get it back. I think
Speaker 2: that a key component of that is to refuse to
Speaker 2: make concessions around abortion. I think that some of this, uh,
Speaker 2: some of the issues that we continue to face are
Speaker 2: in part a consequence of not having enough pushback to
Speaker 2: the kinds of things that we're being done to chip
Speaker 2: away at abortion access. So when we're talking about restrictions
Speaker 2: on when into a pregnancy people can get an abortion,
Speaker 2: and people being okay with saying okay, well, let's allow
Speaker 2: people to keep saying we can set this limit, this limit,
Speaker 2: this limit, versus saying people need access to abortion and
Speaker 2: we need to fight restrictions that are preventing them from
Speaker 2: receiving that access to abortion. And I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that is just so heartening for me about
Speaker 2: reproductive justice as a framework and as a movement is
Speaker 2: a recognition that the courts have long failed to uphold
Speaker 2: the rights protect the rights of marginalized folks in the
Speaker 2: United States, and not only have they failed to do that,
Speaker 2: as we see with Dobbs, and the Dobs is just
Speaker 2: one example of the many ways that the courts have
Speaker 2: actively sought to violate the rights of folks that are marginalized,
Speaker 2: and so with reproductive justice, the biggest one of my
Speaker 2: biggest takeaways is the importance of continuing to use and
Speaker 2: deploy the things that we can do in all kinds
Speaker 2: of domains as activists to fight for things, because I
Speaker 2: don't think that any change is going to come from
Speaker 2: folks just acknowledging that things are hard and that things
Speaker 2: are continuing to be hard and feeling like there's nothing
Speaker 2: that we can do. I think that change always comes
Speaker 2: about by people fighting to demonstrate that they're not okay
Speaker 2: with the way that things are going, that they're not
Speaker 2: just going to quietly accept the violation of people's rights.
Speaker 2: And I think that as we see the different effects
Speaker 2: of what's been happening with Dobbs, I think that you
Speaker 2: also see it We already had a lot of support
Speaker 2: for abortion before before the Dobs decision came down. I
Speaker 2: think when you see the horrible consequences that Dobbs has
Speaker 2: wrought for so many people across the United States. I
Speaker 2: think that you also see more visible activism around it.
Speaker 2: It was always there, but I think that you have
Speaker 2: more people who didn't feel like this was necessarily their
Speaker 2: fight joining the fight and saying this is important for
Speaker 2: all of us, even if people don't feel like they
Speaker 2: are going to need an abortion or that they would
Speaker 2: have an abortion, to recognize that this is assault on
Speaker 2: people's freedoms generally, an ass alt on the reproductive freedom specifically,
Speaker 2: but an assault on people's freedoms generally that people need
Speaker 2: to actively agitate against. And I believe that it is
Speaker 2: that agitation that can show political leaders that their constituents
Speaker 2: are going to hold them accountable for protecting abortion rights
Speaker 2: as a fundamental human right that people have in the
Speaker 2: United States. Whether or not the Dobbs decision did what
Speaker 2: I believe so and we know the court should have
Speaker 2: done to protect people.
Speaker 1: You know, I wonder my last question for you is,
Speaker 1: as we move into November and the stakes on so
Speaker 1: many levels and so many issue areas could not be higher,
Speaker 1: what would be the one message that you would want
Speaker 1: the Democrats to relay to women and people with uteruses.
Speaker 1: If in fact, Donald Trump were to become president again.
Speaker 2: I would say a key, a key thing that needs
Speaker 2: to be relayed is that we cannot allow that to happen.
Speaker 2: We cannot allow that to happen. We have to fight
Speaker 2: to make sure that that doesn't happen. We need to
Speaker 2: make sure that we loudly proclaim the importance of people
Speaker 2: having access to abortion as right, the importance of making
Speaker 2: sure that we undo the damage that has been done
Speaker 2: by the Dobbs decision, and the role that everyone has
Speaker 2: to play in trying to make that happen. Obviously, we
Speaker 2: know that people's voting rights are continuously being encroached upon
Speaker 2: in the United States, and we also know that the
Speaker 2: courts have failed to uphold people's rights. But I think
Speaker 2: that as part of citizens of the United States, we
Speaker 2: can all have a role to play by doing our
Speaker 2: part to try right to try and make sure that
Speaker 2: this doesn't happen, because we've seen the consequences of it happening.
Speaker 2: We've seen the consequences of not having leaders in power
Speaker 2: that respect and uphold and value not only abortion rights,
Speaker 2: but the very lives of women and people that have universes.
Speaker 2: And I think The message that needs to be communicated
Speaker 2: is we can't allow it to happen if we believe
Speaker 2: in supporting people's freedoms and upholding people's freedom.
Speaker 1: Folks, the book is fighting mad, resisting the end of
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade. And I just have to tell you
Speaker 1: christ a little John. I'm just I'm so grateful for
Speaker 1: the work that you do. I'm so grateful for this
Speaker 1: book that you have written and that you made the
Speaker 1: time to share it with us on woky If really
Speaker 1: appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on wokay
Speaker 1: app as always Power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.