Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Kittie Couric and this is next question.
Speaker 1: This episode today, with less than a month to the election,
Speaker 1: is all about abortion because it's playing such an important
Speaker 1: role in the campaign and the minds of many voters.
Speaker 1: My plus one today is Cindy Levy, who is a
Speaker 1: longtime friend of mine. Cindy, thank you for doing this.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to be here. Katie and I thought
Speaker 1: we should tell our listeners a little bit and some
Speaker 1: viewers a little bit about how we know each other
Speaker 1: because we've known each other gosh for a couple of
Speaker 1: decades now, right, so.
Speaker 2: The one hundred and fifty two years is the official
Speaker 2: count on our friendship.
Speaker 1: But how do we know each other? Tell everyone?
Speaker 2: Well, I think we first met probably I'm really going
Speaker 2: to date us in the nineteen nineties. I was an
Speaker 2: assistant editor at Glamour and you were honored as a
Speaker 2: Glamour Woman of the Year, and I remember you just
Speaker 2: being so brilliant on that stage and just so charming
Speaker 2: and intellectually inquisitive, and I just had like such a
Speaker 2: friend crush on you. And then we kept in touch
Speaker 2: through that and there was like even a period I
Speaker 2: don't even know if you remember this. You remember the
Speaker 2: column that you wrote for Glamour.
Speaker 1: I was like, to do there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really great.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Michelle Obama for that column.
Speaker 2: Actually, I remember it was incredible. You went to went
Speaker 2: to the White House and it was in her first
Speaker 2: year I want to say it was like two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, so her first year in the White House,
Speaker 2: and she just gave like a great and warm and
Speaker 2: frank interview. And it was in those first days where
Speaker 2: we were kind of like, oh my god, like, you know,
Speaker 2: this is what the White House can be.
Speaker 1: Well, I always have admired Glamour magazine from the days
Speaker 1: of Ruth Whitney. That really dates me because Glamor magazine
Speaker 1: always had a point of view politically and they weren't
Speaker 1: afraid to weigh into some of these thorny social issues.
Speaker 1: Cindy of course went on to become editor in chief
Speaker 1: and do an amazing job at Glamour, and now she
Speaker 1: has a media company called The Meteor, which really focuses
Speaker 1: on reproductive rights. Correct Cindy, It.
Speaker 2: Focuses on all kinds of content having to do with
Speaker 2: social change for women, girls, non binary people. We had
Speaker 2: our first ideas meeting in Gloria Steinem's living room, and
Speaker 2: she said, this is where MS magazine was made back
Speaker 2: in the seventies. So what is that for today? And yeah,
Speaker 2: it's been there's certainly a lot to cover and we're
Speaker 2: doing a lot in the run up to the election,
Speaker 2: and especially, as you say, around reproductive rights and bodily autonomy,
Speaker 2: which matters so much right now.
Speaker 1: Well, you're the perfect person to help me interview our
Speaker 1: guest today, Jessica Valenti. She is a fierce feminist writer
Speaker 1: I know, a good friend of yours, and she's been
Speaker 1: shaking things up for years. She's the author of bestsellers
Speaker 1: like The Purity Myth and Sex Object. But she's also
Speaker 1: the creator of a newsletter called Abortion every Day. That's right.
Speaker 1: It comes out every day, people, and it's a wonderful
Speaker 1: guide for people who want to know what's going on
Speaker 1: with reproductive rights in this country. So she's constantly challenging
Speaker 1: the status quo, getting people to think, and she's got
Speaker 1: a new book out called Abortion, Our Bodies, Their Lives,
Speaker 1: and the Truths We use to win. Jessica, welcome, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me, and this is going to be
Speaker 1: so much fun. Well, gosh, it's actually I don't know
Speaker 1: if you can say abortion and fun in the same sentence,
Speaker 1: but it's going to be so interesting and I think
Speaker 1: so important. Let's start with your book, and you don't
Speaker 1: shy away from the A word. Tell us about the
Speaker 1: culture's fraught relationship with the actual word abortion and why
Speaker 1: you put it front and center in this book.
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's really interesting abortion in the
Speaker 3: word abortion specifically has been treated like this third rail issue,
Speaker 3: like this really controversial, polarizing issue, when the truth is
Speaker 3: that American's overwhelmingly support abortion rights, have overwhelmingly supported abortion
Speaker 3: rights for decades, and so we've sort of bought into
Speaker 3: this myth that the issue itself is controversial when it's not.
Speaker 3: And so it was really important to me in the
Speaker 3: book to sort of take this very rank, candid, unapologetic
Speaker 3: view of not just abortion and the issues that are
Speaker 3: happening around it right now, especially, but the way we
Speaker 3: talk about it.
Speaker 1: Cindy, I know, as someone involved in magazines, you've been
Speaker 1: covering this issue for a long time. Talk to us
Speaker 1: how as an editor this topic has been fought for
Speaker 1: you and for readers in general.
Speaker 2: Well, it's so interesting because as Jessica says, there's been
Speaker 2: this impression that abortion is this taboo subject, when in
Speaker 2: reality it's an incredibly common healthcare procedure that one in
Speaker 2: four women in this country has chosen or had to
Speaker 2: have in some cases. And I remember when I was
Speaker 2: a kid in the nineteen eighties seeing on the cover
Speaker 2: of People magazine Ali McGraw, the actress who had been
Speaker 2: in Love Story in the seventies, very popular, with a
Speaker 2: cover line saying my abortion story or words to that effect,
Speaker 2: with you know, as you say the A word. And
Speaker 2: this was People Magazine, very mainstream publication. But by the
Speaker 2: time I was, you know, certainly writing, and definitely by
Speaker 2: the time I was the editor of Glamour, there had
Speaker 2: been this kind of chill over talking about abortion. It
Speaker 2: had gone from being something that you know, was maybe
Speaker 2: not totally out in the open, but also not completely taboo.
Speaker 2: I don't think People magazine got ripped off the news
Speaker 2: stands back then to being something where, you know, if
Speaker 2: you were an editor you wanted to write about abortion,
Speaker 2: and your publisher would probably be like, oh, we're never
Speaker 2: going to get an advertiser to go anywhere near that.
Speaker 2: Can't you do something more cheerful. And the reality is,
Speaker 2: you know, when we did cover those issues, as we
Speaker 2: did often at Glamour, those stories were incredibly well read. Right,
Speaker 2: People wanted information about those procedures. They wanted to see
Speaker 2: other women who were going through the same things that
Speaker 2: they were, and they wanted to feel normal. This is
Speaker 2: a normal procedure. And the fact that it was being
Speaker 2: talked about in hutch tones throughout a lot of the
Speaker 2: you know oos and early teens didn't do anyone any good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even in the eighties and nineties, Cindy and Jessica.
Speaker 1: What happened was it Ronald Reagan and the moral majority
Speaker 1: that suddenly put a chill on these conversations because I've
Speaker 1: read about Ali McGraw too, and it's really weird that
Speaker 1: you can't get more mainstream than People Magazine. Jessica. Did
Speaker 1: things change and why?
Speaker 3: I think it really was sort of the eighties and
Speaker 3: this backlash to the incredible abortion rights movement that led
Speaker 3: to row And it does feel like whenever women have
Speaker 3: a huge step forward, there's a tremendous cultural backlash that follows. Right,
Speaker 3: We've seen it with women in the workplace, and then
Speaker 3: all of these myths about daycares, and we saw it
Speaker 3: with abortion, but I think that period lasted for a
Speaker 3: really long time. It feels like it really did last
Speaker 3: until the end of Row, when people started talking a
Speaker 3: lot more unapologetically about abortion, beyond just abortion rights activists
Speaker 3: who had been talking and thinking about abortion in this
Speaker 3: way for a long time. It really did take the
Speaker 3: end of Row for people to understand how common this was,
Speaker 3: how important it was to so many people, how angry
Speaker 3: voters were about the bands, and so just watching that
Speaker 3: shift over the last two years has been pretty remarkable.
Speaker 3: And seeing all of the people who are coming out
Speaker 3: to share their abortion stories and that they feel so
Speaker 3: much more comfortable to do that now, I think is
Speaker 3: pretty incredible.
Speaker 2: I will just add that I think it was seeing
Speaker 2: that it's possible that this rate could get stripped away
Speaker 2: that did motivate a lot of people, including myself. I'd
Speaker 2: spent a lot of years covering abortion as the editor
Speaker 2: of Glamour, and I never talked about the fact that
Speaker 2: I had had an abortion when I was a freshman
Speaker 2: in college. That was absolutely something I've never regretted and
Speaker 2: really important for me being able to chart the course
Speaker 2: of the rest of my life but you know, I
Speaker 2: would give speeches about abortion. I'd always talk about this
Speaker 2: older female relative of mine who had chosen it. And
Speaker 2: that was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. And honestly,
Speaker 2: it was in twenty eighteen when Justice Kennedy announced his
Speaker 2: retirement and you started hearing people, probably you were among them,
Speaker 2: just saying, you know, we could lose the right to
Speaker 2: legal abortion in this country. And I thought, what am
Speaker 2: I doing not talking about this? Like if I can
Speaker 2: help normalized this in any way by just saying, you know,
Speaker 2: I've made this choice, and so many women I know have,
Speaker 2: then why aren't I doing that? So I think the
Speaker 2: danger kind of prompted the openness.
Speaker 1: Were you scared after you wrote that? It was in
Speaker 1: the New York Times, It was an op ed in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. You wrote, as usual, really moving story Cindy
Speaker 1: about chasing this guy and having unprotected sex after drinking
Speaker 1: too much. I mean, it was sort of a very.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, had to pull that detail, sorry, but it
Speaker 2: was a very familiar story, you know, for somebody in college,
Speaker 2: and you know you talked about your decision.
Speaker 1: Did you get much backlash? Did you get much hate
Speaker 1: after you wrote that? Column.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I mean, I got you know, you can't
Speaker 2: write about these subjects, and I would never even complain
Speaker 2: in front of jess who just gets such hateful stuff
Speaker 2: all the time and has written very eloquently about online hate.
Speaker 2: But no, I mean, the vast majority of comments I
Speaker 2: got were thank you for writing this. Me too, I've
Speaker 2: had this experience as well. I got letters from people
Speaker 2: who mothers and grandmothers who said they were going to
Speaker 2: sit down and tell their children about abortions that they
Speaker 2: had never had, which I think is really important because
Speaker 2: especially because there's this sort of stereotype of people who
Speaker 2: have had abortions as being like unmotherly, when the truth
Speaker 2: is most women who have abortions I wasn't in this category,
Speaker 2: but most women who have abortions already have at least
Speaker 2: one child, and I think it's really important for children
Speaker 2: to understand this as part of like how mothers chart
Speaker 2: their course in life. And so No, the vast majority
Speaker 2: of comments I got were just like love and gratitude,
Speaker 2: and if anything, I felt a little ashamed that I
Speaker 2: hadn't written it sooner.
Speaker 1: And Jessica, you were very honest about your own abortion
Speaker 1: when you were twenty eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I was just thinking
Speaker 3: as Cindy was talking about her abortion. I've had two abortions,
Speaker 3: and the one I talked about first and talked about
Speaker 3: most was one that I had when my daughter was
Speaker 3: three because the pregnancy was putting my life at risk.
Speaker 3: I got very ill with my daughter with something called
Speaker 3: help syndrome, and she was born three months early.
Speaker 4: I nearly died, she nearly died.
Speaker 3: It was terrible, and doctors told me, if you get
Speaker 3: pregnant again, chances are this is going to happen again,
Speaker 3: and it'll be even more dangerous. And so it was
Speaker 3: a very it was a sad decision because I wanted
Speaker 3: to have another child, but a clear cut one because
Speaker 3: I didn't want to put my life at risk and
Speaker 3: leave my daughter without a mother. And that was always
Speaker 3: the abortion I talked about, and I didn't really talk
Speaker 3: about the one when I was twenty eight because it
Speaker 3: didn't have that sort of I don't know, it didn't
Speaker 3: feel as important, which I think is really interesting and troubling.
Speaker 3: Even as a feminist writer, I had sort of internalized
Speaker 3: that stigma, right. But the abortion that I had when
Speaker 3: I was twenty eight led me to the life that
Speaker 3: I have now. Three months later I met my husband.
Speaker 3: Three years after that, we had our daughter. And so
Speaker 3: it was that abortion that really helped me to build
Speaker 3: my life, build my family, builds my career. But still
Speaker 3: I have that internal stigma still going on.
Speaker 2: What you're talking about, Jess makes me think of the
Speaker 2: piece that was in the New York Times last weekend
Speaker 2: by the woman who was writing about how she had
Speaker 2: had two abortions, and one of them was one of these,
Speaker 2: as you would say, like good abortions where she was
Speaker 2: even though it's anything but good to the person who's
Speaker 2: going through it, where she had a a health complication,
Speaker 2: pregnancy complication, had to end a very wanted pregnancy under
Speaker 2: difficult circumstances, and those are the kinds of stories that
Speaker 2: we're hearing now after the fall of Row. But she
Speaker 2: also had an abortion earlier when she was a single
Speaker 2: mother and simply could not imagine raising another child, And
Speaker 2: both of those abortions are equally valid. And I think
Speaker 2: all the stories that are coming out now of women
Speaker 2: being turned away from hospitals going into sepsis because they're
Speaker 2: having complications with very wanted pregnancies are incredibly important stories
Speaker 2: to tell, and you're telling them literally every day. But
Speaker 2: the stories of abortions that were chosen simply because a
Speaker 2: woman didn't want to be pregnant are valid as well.
Speaker 1: You know, it is interesting, Jessica, isn't it that we
Speaker 1: kind of rate them like this was not so much
Speaker 1: a good abortion, but this was an understandable abortion. But
Speaker 1: this was a selfish abortion.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's of course really deliberate, and that's what
Speaker 3: conservatives and the anti abortion movement have set out to
Speaker 3: make happen for a really long time. And it made
Speaker 3: me think about I wrote about this at the Newsletter
Speaker 3: a little bit Kamala Harris's speech in Georgia after two
Speaker 3: women were killed by the abortion band there, and how
Speaker 3: important it was that she talked about Amber Nicole Thurman's
Speaker 3: life and her abortion in this very normalizing way where
Speaker 3: she said she had a plan, she was going to
Speaker 3: nursing school, she had gotten this apartment, she had a
Speaker 3: plan for her life and it was her plan. And
Speaker 3: then she got pregnant, she didn't want to be and
Speaker 3: she had an abortion, and just talking about it in
Speaker 3: this way, which seems sort of unremarkable, was actually quite
Speaker 3: radical for a politician to talk about abortion in this
Speaker 3: very normalizing way, and it made me realize how much
Speaker 3: progress we really have made when it comes to stigma
Speaker 3: and the culture.
Speaker 1: Well, it's no coincidence that you took a woman to
Speaker 1: talk about it in a normal way, because in the
Speaker 1: State of the Union earlier this year, President Biden skipped
Speaker 1: over the word abortion in his prepared remarks and replaced
Speaker 1: it using phrases like reproductive freedom or freedom to choose.
Speaker 1: And I think that it has taken a woman to
Speaker 1: talk honestly, in a forthright manner and just say abortion.
Speaker 2: It's also because the media has treated abortion as a
Speaker 2: political issue. If you look at studies on where and
Speaker 2: how abortion was covered in newspapers, for instance, and digital
Speaker 2: outlets over the last ten years, it was overwhelmingly in
Speaker 2: the political sections, and the people who were quoted were
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly politicians as opposed to doctors, and definitely as opposed
Speaker 2: to actual humans who had chosen abortions. So if we
Speaker 2: think of this as, like, you know, a political thing,
Speaker 2: as opposed to a healthcare decision, it's partly because it's
Speaker 2: been covered that way.
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a
Speaker 1: breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
Speaker 1: wellness and pop culture. Sign up for our daily newsletter,
Speaker 1: Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about abortion every day, because this is a newsletter. Jessica,
Speaker 1: you started after Roe was overturned, and you've written about
Speaker 1: abortion for about two years now or over two years.
Speaker 1: Can you set the table for us and just tell
Speaker 1: us kind of what has happened in this country since
Speaker 1: the overturning of Row, because honestly, it's hard to follow
Speaker 1: state by state and every legislature what's happening and all
Speaker 1: these different referenda that we see surfacing all over the
Speaker 1: country unless you're Jessica Valenti.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is what's so hard about it, and
Speaker 3: this is why I started the newsletter, because the attacks
Speaker 3: are so unrelenting. There really is something new every single day,
Speaker 3: and so I'm just trying the best I can to
Speaker 3: provide a little bit of border to that chaos. I
Speaker 3: think we've seen a lot happen. We've seen the rise
Speaker 3: of pro choice ballot measures, which has been incredible, and
Speaker 3: we've seen that when people get a direct say on
Speaker 3: abortion rights that they overwhelmingly choose to protect abortion rights.
Speaker 4: We've seen the horror stories.
Speaker 3: I think that is the thing that sticks out to
Speaker 3: people the most, is just story after story of people
Speaker 3: being denied here. But then the other thing that I'm
Speaker 3: trying to make sure to cover the newsletter that doesn't
Speaker 3: get quite as much media attention is the ripple effects
Speaker 3: that we're seeing right the doctors, the obgims leaving anti
Speaker 3: abortion states, the maternal health care deserts that that then
Speaker 3: causes in these counties, that increase in maternal death rates,
Speaker 3: that increase in infant death rates. Abortion really is one
Speaker 3: of those issues that touches every single thing, and I
Speaker 3: think over the last two years that's what we're starting
Speaker 3: to see. And then the other thing I've covered quite
Speaker 3: a lot that I think is really important, especially as
Speaker 3: we get so close to the election, is anti abortion
Speaker 3: is strategy and conservative messaging around abortion, and the way,
Speaker 3: as overused as a word as gaslighting, is the way
Speaker 3: that they have gaslt voters and Americans into believing that
Speaker 3: the consequences of abortion bands are not as bad as
Speaker 3: we can see they are every single day. And that
Speaker 3: is something that I'm just really really determined to make sure,
Speaker 3: little light stays shined on there.
Speaker 1: It's amazing to me how many people feel comfortable with
Speaker 1: Republican messaging of leaving it to the states. That seems
Speaker 1: to be the fallback position, Like, what's wrong with leaving
Speaker 1: it to the states? Can you explain what's wrong with
Speaker 1: leaving it to the states?
Speaker 3: Jessica, Yeah, absolutely, it's a really interesting it's leave it
Speaker 3: to the states. And the will of the people is
Speaker 3: the other term that they're using a lot, And what
Speaker 3: I find so interesting about that is that they're using
Speaker 3: that specifically to make it seem as if this is
Speaker 3: a people powered voter decision abortion bands right, because in truth,
Speaker 3: vast majority of voters do not like abortion bands. They
Speaker 3: want abortion to be legal, and we're talking about a
Speaker 3: small group of extremist legislators imposing their will on the
Speaker 3: vast majority of voters. And so it's really important for
Speaker 3: Republicans to frame this as something that is up to the.
Speaker 1: People, as if everyone's voting on it, as.
Speaker 3: If everyone's voting on it, and of course, when people
Speaker 3: are trying to vote on it, like in the ten
Speaker 3: states where we're going to see in November that have
Speaker 3: ballot measures about abortion rights, Republicans are trying every single
Speaker 3: dirty trick in the book to stop voters from having
Speaker 3: a say, to get those issues off the ballot, to
Speaker 3: remove voters from the roles, to trick voters about what
Speaker 3: the ballot measure says. And so it really is quite
Speaker 3: an obscene line to say that this is an issue
Speaker 3: that they've given back to the people, when in fact
Speaker 3: they have worked so incredibly hard to make sure that
Speaker 3: voters cannot touch abortion rights.
Speaker 2: I'm going to just go deeply geeky for a second,
Speaker 2: but Jessica, as the author of Abortion every Day the newsletter,
Speaker 2: you definitely appreciate a good abortion geek out. The states
Speaker 2: with the highest levels of jerrymandering, which is the redistricting
Speaker 2: of usually legislative districts so that one party can protect
Speaker 2: its edge even if people in the state have beliefs
Speaker 2: that are different. The states with the highest levels of
Speaker 2: jerrymandering were also some of the quickest to pass abortion
Speaker 2: bands after the fall of Row. And so this idea
Speaker 2: that like, we're just going to hand it back to
Speaker 2: the states and everything will be fine, Well, if voting
Speaker 2: is not fair in those states, you know, then then
Speaker 2: it really doesn't work. I realized that nothing makes people
Speaker 2: go to sleep faster than saying the word jerry mandering.
Speaker 2: So I will conclude by a side, but it really
Speaker 2: is so important, No, it's so important.
Speaker 1: It is so important, so important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I feel like there was this moment also
Speaker 2: after the fall of Roe, when all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you know, people were calling me and I'm sure Katie
Speaker 2: you were hearing this from your readers and viewers too,
Speaker 2: and saying like, how can this be? Everybody I know
Speaker 2: feels that this should be the law of the land.
Speaker 2: And similar to gun issues, you know, the vast majority
Speaker 2: of people in poll after poll after poll believe that
Speaker 2: there should be, you know, some common sense measures to
Speaker 2: try to reduce the levels of gun violence in this country,
Speaker 2: and yet our laws don't say that.
Speaker 4: Why is that?
Speaker 2: And it kind of has been this like crash core
Speaker 2: in democracy for so many of us.
Speaker 3: People have become so invested in why they can't vote
Speaker 3: on this issue. In states where there are no citizen
Speaker 3: led ballot initiatives, people are suddenly who have never thought
Speaker 3: about ballot initiatives before in their life are asking, well,
Speaker 3: why can't I vote on this? Right? There is this
Speaker 3: real interest in activism, activeness around abortion and democracy now.
Speaker 1: I think, which is adding, I think to the gender gap.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to the way the Republicans are
Speaker 1: framing this conversation, because I think they're doing it pretty
Speaker 1: effectively in some ways. For example, at the recent vice
Speaker 1: presidential debate, jd Vance said the following.
Speaker 4: First of all, I never supported a national ban.
Speaker 5: I did during what I was running for Senate in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two, talk about setting some men in a
Speaker 5: national standard. For example, we have a partial birth abortion
Speaker 5: ban in this in place in this country at the
Speaker 5: federal level. I don't think anybody's trying to get rid
Speaker 5: of that, or at least I hope not, though I
Speaker 5: know that Democrats have taken a very radical pro abortion stance.
Speaker 4: But Nora, you know, one of the thing that's that
Speaker 4: changed is in the.
Speaker 5: State of Ohio, we had a referendum in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 5: and the people of Ohio voted overwhelmingly, by the way
Speaker 5: against my position.
Speaker 1: Jess, what did you think of jd Vance's comments during
Speaker 1: the vice presidential debate? So confusing that one undecided voter
Speaker 1: said she was surprised at how progressive he sounded on
Speaker 1: women's issues.
Speaker 3: I jumped out of my seat. I'm surprised you guys
Speaker 3: couldn't hear me yelling from Brooklyn. I was so I mean,
Speaker 3: I knew that that line was coming. I had been
Speaker 3: predicting and writing about this line. National minimum standard, minimum
Speaker 3: national standard for a very long time. I was so frustrated.
Speaker 3: People don't know that those are the same thing. An
Speaker 3: abortion band and a minimum national standard are the same
Speaker 3: exact thing.
Speaker 1: Explain.
Speaker 4: So what Republicans have.
Speaker 3: Done, what the anti abortion movement has done, is internally
Speaker 3: redefine ban. They say that ban only refers to a
Speaker 3: prohibition on abortion with zero exceptions, not even for women's lives.
Speaker 3: And so under that definition, there are no abortion bans
Speaker 3: in America. But something like what we would consider an
Speaker 3: abortion ban, like what Lindsey Graham has been pushing, a
Speaker 3: fifteen week ban with rape and incest exceptions. They're saying
Speaker 3: that's a national minimum standard or a federal restriction. Right,
Speaker 3: So they're deliberately skewing what the word ban means so
Speaker 3: that voters are completely confused and that they don't understand that.
Speaker 3: When Trump says, oh, yeah, I would veto a national
Speaker 3: abortion ban, what he's really saying is I would veto
Speaker 3: a total prohibition on abortion with zero exceptions. But Republicans
Speaker 3: aren't proposing that. Republicans are proposing twelve week bans, fifteen
Speaker 3: week bans, the things that they are calling restrictions and standards.
Speaker 3: And it's been so frustrating to watch sort of mainstream
Speaker 3: media outlets not pick up on this. Ask the Trump
Speaker 3: campaign what is a federal standard? What is the national minimum?
Speaker 3: National standard? So I've just been really harping on this
Speaker 3: one for ast time.
Speaker 2: Literally when he said that during the debate, I was like,
Speaker 2: just called it because you've had you had done a
Speaker 2: video about exactly exactly that.
Speaker 1: Well, can I ask a devil advocates question to both
Speaker 1: of you all? So I get people's frustration and anger
Speaker 1: at like a six week ban, right because oftentimes women
Speaker 1: don't know they're pregnant, right, and that is just sort
Speaker 1: of impossible, and don't be mad at me, ladies, But
Speaker 1: a fifteen week ban, so that is somebody who is
Speaker 1: almost four months pregnant, right, Why is that problematic? Because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people support abortion, and even
Speaker 1: Roe V. Wade has a stipulation about the third trimester.
Speaker 1: Now that's much later than this fifteen week ban. But
Speaker 1: why is that not acceptable? And help me understand why
Speaker 1: this is wrong.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you can come at it from
Speaker 3: two different ways, Like there's the ethical and then there's
Speaker 3: the logistical political. From an ethical point of view, you
Speaker 3: don't lose bodily integrity at a certain point, right, you
Speaker 3: don't stop being a human being at twelve weeks of
Speaker 3: pregnancy or fifteen weeks of pregnancy. You should always have
Speaker 3: to say over your own body and what is happening
Speaker 3: to you. And so from that point, I'm just all
Speaker 3: on board with that. Ethically, from a sort of real
Speaker 3: life point of view, a lot of people won't know
Speaker 3: they're pregnant. A lot of people don't have access to
Speaker 3: great healthcare, sex education. I mean, this is one of
Speaker 3: the things that's really so frustrating about a lot of
Speaker 3: Republican policies is that they're passing these abortion bands and saying, well,
Speaker 3: someone should know they're pregnant by then, But then they're
Speaker 3: getting rid of sex education and they're getting rid of
Speaker 3: birth control, right, And so if you're creating a world
Speaker 3: where people don't have access to birth control, they don't
Speaker 3: know anything about their bodies, they don't have affordable health
Speaker 3: caare you're making it very, very difficult. And then of
Speaker 3: course all of these hurdles. Let's say you say, okay,
Speaker 3: well abortion is legal at fifteen weeks, but up until
Speaker 3: then you need to have a waiting period and you
Speaker 3: need to travel out of your county. Well, how many
Speaker 3: people can afford to take two days off of work
Speaker 3: and get child care right? And so it all sort
Speaker 3: of combines into this big hot mess that I think
Speaker 3: makes it just politically ontonable as well as ethically.
Speaker 2: I guess I also just think about, you know, what
Speaker 2: is real and what is imagined? Like I do think
Speaker 2: that anti abortion folks have done a really good job
Speaker 2: of making us picture that woman, usually hypothetical, who's like
Speaker 2: terminating her pregnancy at thirty weeks, thirty two weeks just
Speaker 2: because she doesn't feel like having a baby, and that's
Speaker 2: a terrible thing to imagine. But that feels very imaginary
Speaker 2: to me. And what's real are these real human women
Speaker 2: who are coming forward. Like Amanda Zerowski in Texas.
Speaker 6: I was eighteen weeks pregnant and on August twenty third,
Speaker 6: I went for a walk and I could tell that
Speaker 6: something was wrong. I messaged my ob She discovered that
Speaker 6: I have or had something called an incompetent cervix, which
Speaker 6: basically means that I had dilated obviously way too early,
Speaker 6: and so she informed me that miscarriage was inevitable.
Speaker 3: Both of us.
Speaker 5: Wondered, like, if this is inevitable, what's the next thing
Speaker 5: for us?
Speaker 2: What is our next course for healthcare?
Speaker 6: We asked our doctor, and we asked the MFM. We
Speaker 6: asked all the nurses, you know, isn't there something you
Speaker 6: can do? And they said no, I couldn't make the
Speaker 6: decision for myself. We couldn't make the decision.
Speaker 2: For our daughter.
Speaker 6: Our doctors couldn't make the decision. I mean, they were
Speaker 6: just as furious as we were because their hands were
Speaker 6: hide I mean, had they acted, they would have been
Speaker 6: charged with a felony.
Speaker 1: Tell us about Amanda's story, Cindy.
Speaker 2: So Amanda for those who don't know, and at the
Speaker 2: Metia where we had the honor of helping her tell
Speaker 2: her story for the first time. Back in the fall
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two, she was eighteen weeks pregnant. She
Speaker 2: was in a situation that now has become very familiar
Speaker 2: to us. But she was one of the first to
Speaker 2: come forward wanted pregnancy, and she and her husband Josh
Speaker 2: got the terrible news that something had gone wrong. She
Speaker 2: was feeling terribly. She went to the hospital and they
Speaker 2: basically told her, your baby's not going to make it,
Speaker 2: but you are not sick enough yet to have this termination,
Speaker 2: and so they sent her home, and to no one's surprise,
Speaker 2: she developed sepsist spiked a fever, was feeling terrible, ended
Speaker 2: up losing the baby, of course, but additionally in the ICU,
Speaker 2: really afraid for her own life.
Speaker 1: Why did they tell her she couldn't get the abortion
Speaker 1: then and there.
Speaker 2: Because it wasn't clear that she herself was going to die.
Speaker 2: And I think what happens in these situations, and we've
Speaker 2: seen this again and again, is that individual doctors in
Speaker 2: a state like Texas, like Alabama, where you have these
Speaker 2: attorney generals who are just making their names and making
Speaker 2: their careers on prosecuting doctors, prosecuting anybody they see as
Speaker 2: trying to aid in a bet and abortion, it's very
Speaker 2: very hard for an individual doctor to go up against that.
Speaker 2: And so you're talking about lawyers on a hospital's review board.
Speaker 2: It's a complicated process. And by the way, when people say,
Speaker 2: why don't individual doctors just take this on and do
Speaker 2: these abortions themselves if they're this upset about not being
Speaker 2: able to help women, you can't do that, not in
Speaker 2: a hospital setting, not in twenty twenty four. So I
Speaker 2: think you know the important thing, getting back to your question, Katie,
Speaker 2: is that a woman like Amanda who almost lost her
Speaker 2: life and now doesn't know whether she's going to be
Speaker 2: able to have a child again because of the way
Speaker 2: her fertility was compromised, because of how long this was
Speaker 2: allowed to go on, She's a real woman, and I
Speaker 2: would put her life and the life of so many
Speaker 2: other women like Kate Cox and Nancy Davis. I would
Speaker 2: weigh those above this imaginary person who's supposedly making these
Speaker 2: very selfish late term choices.
Speaker 1: Another way, this whole conversation, Jessica has been framed is,
Speaker 1: and we've heard it again and again from the Republicans,
Speaker 1: is this whole idea of abortion after birth, which of
Speaker 1: course conjures up these terrifying images for people who feel
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with the idea of a quote unquote late term abortion,
Speaker 1: which is also not really a thing. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about that because I don't feel that the Democrats have
Speaker 1: explained that Kamala Harris didn't respond to like do you
Speaker 1: favor any restrictions during the debate, and I think people
Speaker 1: are left with this image that really distorts the whole issue.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I think it's what Cindy said right, like, it's
Speaker 3: not based in reality. We're not talking about real people there.
Speaker 3: And the post birth abortion message has been just infuriating
Speaker 3: to watch takeoff, and it's been really scary because I've
Speaker 3: seen it make an impact, you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: pay attention to forums and seeing what people are talking about,
Speaker 3: and it is making an impact. People do believe that
Speaker 3: doctors are executing babies a week after birth. It's really
Speaker 3: really terrible. But what Democrats have an opportunity to do
Speaker 3: is to tell voters what they're actually talking about when
Speaker 3: they say post birth abortion, and what they're actually talking about.
Speaker 3: The laws they're actually talking about are palliative care for
Speaker 3: fatally ill newborns. So if a baby is born too
Speaker 3: early to survive, if a newborn has a fatal condition
Speaker 3: and they're only going to live for a few hours,
Speaker 3: parents can make the decision to decline painful, medically invasive procedures,
Speaker 3: have a few moments alone with their child. You know,
Speaker 3: the nurse will set up a private room in the
Speaker 3: nick use so they can say goodbye while the baby
Speaker 3: passes away. That is what they're calling post birth abortion.
Speaker 3: That's what these laws, that's who these laws protect, and
Speaker 3: that's what they're calling post birth abortion. And it's so important.
Speaker 3: I think that Democrats are making that clear to voters
Speaker 3: that in fact, what the talking about is a really important,
Speaker 3: vital service to parents who are greeting and dealing with
Speaker 3: an awful, terrible, tragic situation.
Speaker 1: They're not really doing a very good job of talking
Speaker 1: about that is that because they're afraid the imagery is
Speaker 1: just too painful. But it's so critically important, it's so important.
Speaker 3: I think that there has just been this fear for
Speaker 3: so long to talk about abortion later in pregnancy, and
Speaker 3: I think they feel like if they even go into
Speaker 3: that conversation just a little bit, that they're going to
Speaker 3: be dragged into it. But I actually do think that
Speaker 3: I've said this quite a lot. I think it's one
Speaker 3: of our strongest messages. You know, when you look at
Speaker 3: someone like Amanda Zarowski, when you look at the stories
Speaker 3: of people who have come out since row is overturned,
Speaker 3: these are overwhelmingly people who were later on in their pregnancies.
Speaker 3: These are not people who are six seven weeks pregnant, right, Like,
Speaker 3: the reason that they were in these terrible situations is
Speaker 3: because they were later in pregnancy. And so those are
Speaker 3: the stories that we need to be telling and sharing.
Speaker 2: Jess in that debate, in that moment when Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: is asked, well, don't you favor any restrictions and what
Speaker 2: about nine month? What should she have said?
Speaker 3: If she still favors restrictions, then she's going to have
Speaker 3: to support that. I mean, I think that this is
Speaker 3: part of the issue, right, is that right now the
Speaker 3: Hairs campaign has made clear that they want to restore
Speaker 3: row right, and so Roe does have restrictions, and so
Speaker 3: if that is what they're pushing for, then she needs
Speaker 3: to sort of back that up. If it was me,
Speaker 3: and because I don't support any restrictions, I think you
Speaker 3: have to say there's no point in pregnancy where a
Speaker 3: woman stops being a human being. Let's talk about the
Speaker 3: real women we know. Let's talk about Aman Jazerowski. Let's
Speaker 3: talk about Kate Cox, Let's talk about this imaginary threat
Speaker 3: versus the real women that this is happening to.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about when somebody would be doing this, and
Speaker 1: what the circumstances are right.
Speaker 3: And what the circumstances are, and let's talk about what
Speaker 3: a later abortion looks like, because you're talking about something
Speaker 3: that only a few clinics in the country offer, that
Speaker 3: can be ten twenty thousand dollars, That is a multi
Speaker 3: day procedure. That is not something that anyone is going
Speaker 3: into willy nilly. This is not something that someone just
Speaker 3: wakes up and decides to do.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: And I think if voters understood that and knew that,
Speaker 3: and I think if she had said, let's talk about
Speaker 3: quose birth abortion, Let's talk about who you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Such and such family had this situation and they got
Speaker 3: to say goodbye to their son. That's who you're calling executioners.
Speaker 3: Because that's the truth.
Speaker 4: Jess.
Speaker 2: We have you here. Just a day or two after
Speaker 2: the news broke that, Milania Trump, in her upcoming book,
Speaker 2: says that she is fundamentally and forcefully for a woman's
Speaker 2: right to choose, that it's a really, you know, sacred thing,
Speaker 2: and she supports it wholeheartedly and fact Sandy, after that
Speaker 2: story broke, she issued the audio of that portion of it.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard without
Speaker 7: a doubt. There is no room for compromise when it
Speaker 7: comes to this essential right that all women possess from
Speaker 7: birth individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?
Speaker 2: So, jess what is going on here?
Speaker 3: Am I allowed to curse? Am I allowed to drop?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a crock of shit. It's a total
Speaker 3: crock of shit. Like, let's be serious. Her husband is
Speaker 3: down over twenty points with women. There are stories of
Speaker 3: women dying. You know, in the national conversation. A version
Speaker 3: is the political issue that is driving voters right now.
Speaker 3: And it is not a coincidence that she is coming
Speaker 3: out with this statement right now.
Speaker 4: I think it is.
Speaker 3: It's one of the more craven things I've seen in
Speaker 3: a long time. And you know, in addition to the audio,
Speaker 3: she actually also put out a video with saying these lines,
Speaker 3: and at the end of the video there's sort of
Speaker 3: like a picture of her book and a prompt to
Speaker 3: go buy the book. And I can't help but think
Speaker 3: that she is, you know, hawking this forty dollars book
Speaker 3: on the backs of dead women. That's really what's happening.
Speaker 3: She knows that this is a popular issue. She's not
Speaker 3: I just wrote an article about this. She's not pro choice,
Speaker 3: she's pro Millagna, right. I think it's both that she
Speaker 3: can see the writing on the wall and she can
Speaker 3: see how popular abortion rights are and this is a
Speaker 3: way to sell her book. But it also certainly helps
Speaker 3: Trump if Republican women.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, is this effective? It may
Speaker 1: be craven, but does it work?
Speaker 3: I think so, because I think for Republican women, the
Speaker 3: ability to further fool themselves and say, oh, while his
Speaker 3: wife is going to have some influence on him, and
Speaker 3: if his wife believes this, he would never fully ban abortion, right.
Speaker 3: I do think it will work to some extent. I
Speaker 3: am really concerned about it.
Speaker 2: But do we have any proof that he has ever
Speaker 2: taken her feelings or wishes into account in the past.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I mean, but I think at the point that you're
Speaker 3: a woman voting for Trump anyway, there's so much like
Speaker 3: delusion involved regardless that I think it's just one of
Speaker 3: those things. It's almost like it's an excuse right, Like
Speaker 3: if you're a Republican woman and your pro choice Malanya
Speaker 3: saying this Trump saying, I'm giving it back to the people.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be too, a national abortion ban.
Speaker 1: And I support IVF. I'm going to give it to
Speaker 1: people for free right.
Speaker 3: It gives you this excuse and commission to vote for him,
Speaker 3: even against your own morals. And it's ridiculous and none
Speaker 3: of that is true, but I do think for some
Speaker 3: women voters it will work.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, let's talk about sort of the bigger picture, because
Speaker 1: you believe right wing extremists don't just want to see
Speaker 1: abortion outlawed a national ban, but they this is part
Speaker 1: of a larger effort to gosh. I don't think it's marginalized,
Speaker 1: but to take women back into the nineteen fifties and
Speaker 1: to remove so many rights. I saw a video about
Speaker 1: these THEO Bros saying they want to get rid of
Speaker 1: the nineteenth Amendment.
Speaker 8: So the THEO Bros are a group of mostly millennial
Speaker 8: Christian pastors and influencers, many of them, most of them
Speaker 8: even will tell that they are Christian nationalists. I think
Speaker 8: it's important to say that not all of them hold
Speaker 8: every belief that being said, I think some common beliefs
Speaker 8: that I have encountered are that we should be repealing
Speaker 8: the Nineteenth Amendment. They'll talk about the dead Constitution and
Speaker 8: how the Ten Commandments should take its place.
Speaker 1: I want a Christian nation more than a republic. I mean,
Speaker 1: talk about this less than underground movement that is bubbling
Speaker 1: up that is really attacking women in general.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was never just about abortion. Abortion to me
Speaker 3: was a means to an end. I think this is
Speaker 3: about reinforcing traditional gender norms, erasing women from the public sphere.
Speaker 3: What better way to do that than ensure that they
Speaker 3: are forever pregnant. It is not a coincidence that the
Speaker 3: same people who are pushing these bands are also pushing
Speaker 3: birth control restrictions. Whether they're open about it or not,
Speaker 3: that is what's happening.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: People ask me, well, are they going to go for
Speaker 3: birth control next? And I say, you know, it's already happening.
Speaker 3: We're already seeing attacks on birth control. That's here talk
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 2: What are the attacks on birth control?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's another one of these language games
Speaker 3: that they're playing where they say I would never ever
Speaker 3: bean birth control. I just want to be an abortion.
Speaker 3: But it just so happens that for the last ten
Speaker 3: years they've been laying the legal groundwork to argue that
Speaker 3: iud's an emergency contraception, are abortions, right, And so when
Speaker 3: they go to restrict IUDs, when they go to a
Speaker 3: restrict emergency contraception, they can just say those aren't birth control,
Speaker 3: those are abortions.
Speaker 1: To take it a step further, you have all these
Speaker 1: quote unquote wellness influencers on TikTok talking about the dangers
Speaker 1: of regular old birth control and what hormones will do
Speaker 1: to your body, which is basically birth control, not emergency
Speaker 1: birth control, right, not the morning after direct anything like that,
Speaker 1: just regular old birth control. How much of this is
Speaker 1: demographic fear that white people are losing their place in
Speaker 1: societ and this idea that white people must go forth
Speaker 1: and pro create because the birth rate is declining in
Speaker 1: this country.
Speaker 3: I think that's a huge part of it. I don't
Speaker 3: think it is a coincidence that the people, the wellness
Speaker 3: influencers that we see promoting these messages are also there's
Speaker 3: a lot of intersections with the tradwife movement, right.
Speaker 4: There is this very racist.
Speaker 3: Component to all of this that's like, we need more
Speaker 3: white babies, we need more white women in the home
Speaker 3: producing white Christian children for America. That is very much
Speaker 3: the center of this movement, whether or not they're explicit
Speaker 3: about it, that is absolutely what's happening. And in addition
Speaker 3: to birth control, attacks on birth control, the fact that
Speaker 3: we're seeing attacks on women's right to travel also not
Speaker 3: a coincidence. Right, Another way to trap women in anti
Speaker 3: choice states at home.
Speaker 2: At tax on the right to travel. Is that about
Speaker 2: the trafficking laws? What is happening there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm talking about what they call the anti trafficking laws.
Speaker 3: So in Idaho and Tennessee they have passed what they
Speaker 3: call anti trafficking laws that say you can't bring a
Speaker 3: minor out of state for an abortion with that parental permission,
Speaker 3: which sounds sort of semi reasonable on its face, but
Speaker 3: in fact the law is written in such a way
Speaker 3: that if you give a minor money gas money to
Speaker 3: get out of state, you're an abortion trafficker. If you
Speaker 3: send them the URL to an abortion clinic, you're an
Speaker 3: abortion trafficker. And now in Texas they're passing these laws
Speaker 3: as local ordinances for women of all ages, not just teenagers.
Speaker 3: And this is why I write in the book what
Speaker 3: Happens to teens one day comes for us all the
Speaker 3: next where they're trying to make people civily liable for
Speaker 3: taking women out of state to get abortions. And so
Speaker 3: this is sort of already happening. And I wrote in
Speaker 3: the book about the Alabama Attorney General, Steve Marshall. He
Speaker 3: argued very in a legal brief that if they want to,
Speaker 3: they have the right to restrict pregnant women's travel in
Speaker 3: the same way that they have the right to restrict
Speaker 3: the movements of a sex offender. Because the state has
Speaker 3: a vested interest in protecting potential sexual assault victims. The
Speaker 3: state has an interest in protecting a fetus from a
Speaker 3: woman who wants to leave the state to have an abortion.
Speaker 3: And so we are on the precipice very much so
Speaker 3: of being told that if we leave the state while pregnant,
Speaker 3: we are trafficking our own fetus. Like this is here,
Speaker 3: it is, it is happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, comparing pregnant people to sex offenders is pretty chilling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: And the whole thing about rape incest in the life
Speaker 1: of the mother. Even the most conservative anti choice people
Speaker 1: it seems to me in the past have made those
Speaker 1: or understood or promoted those exceptions, but now increasingly they're
Speaker 1: not so. So that's when you hear about a ten
Speaker 1: year old or a twelve year old raped by an
Speaker 1: uncle or a stepfather, basically being told you have to
Speaker 1: carry that baby.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they're getting much more radical.
Speaker 3: It's not just the lack of exceptions, but the rise
Speaker 3: of they call themselves abortion abolitionists, who believe that women
Speaker 3: should be tried as murderers for having abortion. And we're
Speaker 3: seeing more and more of these bills proposed in different states.
Speaker 3: I wrote about one in South Carolina where it was
Speaker 3: something like two dozen Republicans co sponsored the bill. This
Speaker 3: is not some fringe movement. This is something that really
Speaker 3: is gaining a lot of steam. And so they're going
Speaker 3: full force ahead. While the rhetoric has softened, Right, they
Speaker 3: know that publicly they can't say, right, they're what they're
Speaker 3: actually doing because Americans are so angry. But while the
Speaker 3: rhetoric has softened, their politics have gotten much much more extreme.
Speaker 2: Aren't they actually calling for the death sentence in South Carolina? Yeah?
Speaker 2: That was that was part of I believe what I
Speaker 2: read an abortion every day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were calling for the death sentence for women
Speaker 3: who have abortions. It stands to a reason, once you
Speaker 3: say that abortion is murder, right, you can't separate the
Speaker 3: pregnant person out from that criminalization right. And that's the
Speaker 3: reason we're already we're seeing people get criminalized for miscarriages,
Speaker 3: for stillbirths. We saw Brittany Watson, Ohio get arrested for
Speaker 3: abuse of a corpse, for flushing a miscarriage. We saw
Speaker 3: a woman in South Carolina arrested for the end of
Speaker 3: her pregnancy for murder. They are very eager to punish
Speaker 3: and to criminalize.
Speaker 1: Let's look at the future, Jessica and Cindy, what do
Speaker 1: reproductive rights look like? If Donald Trump is elected in November?
Speaker 1: What more could be done to affect this issue?
Speaker 3: I mean really overnight. He could enact an informal national ban.
Speaker 3: He doesn't need to pass a national ban through Congress,
Speaker 3: and they have plans to do this. They've been very
Speaker 3: explicit about this, that they would replace the head of
Speaker 3: the FDA so that they could repeal approval of abortion medication,
Speaker 3: which sixty three percent of people who and their pregnancies use.
Speaker 3: They would enforce the Comstock Act, which is this very
Speaker 3: very old obscenity law that makes it illegal to mail
Speaker 3: to ship abortion medication, tools for abortion, birth control, anything
Speaker 3: that they could label obscene. And so really overnight, all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, no matter what seat you live in,
Speaker 3: it's not possible to have an abortion, and that is
Speaker 3: their plan.
Speaker 2: First of all, the just just laid out an incredibly
Speaker 2: chilling picture. I know, sorry, no, no, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think one important thing to keep in mind is that
Speaker 2: even if there is not a Trump residency, you know,
Speaker 2: even if Kamala Harris is able to win in November,
Speaker 2: the situation in a lot of states is really really dark,
Speaker 2: and it's not going to change immediately. And I have
Speaker 2: really kind of come around to agreeing with the activists
Speaker 2: and the advocates who say we need something better than
Speaker 2: Roe v. Wade, because I talked to someone in Alabama
Speaker 2: who said, you know, the Dobs decision didn't make a
Speaker 2: difference to us. Women here didn't have access to hospitals
Speaker 2: where they could get care. You know, there's a ban
Speaker 2: on using Medicaid funding for abortion, which means that if
Speaker 2: you are without resources, you often couldn't get one. Even
Speaker 2: when it was legal. I just think we need a
Speaker 2: much better system that kind of takes the politics out
Speaker 2: of it and leaves women's healthcare in their own hands
Speaker 2: and gives them the support that they need to make decisions.
Speaker 1: One interesting note is that for women under the age
Speaker 1: of forty five, this issue has trumped excuse the word
Speaker 1: the economy, Beyonce.
Speaker 2: We like to say it's Beyonce.
Speaker 1: Beyonce, the you know, the economy in terms of their
Speaker 1: motivation for voting. So how much power will Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: actually have to turn things around? Because some of these
Speaker 1: things are kind of set in stone the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: for example, some of the changes that have been made
Speaker 1: in states. Whether she'll have enough votes to make abortion
Speaker 1: legal across the land? So what are her options if
Speaker 1: she's elected?
Speaker 3: I mean, in the same way, she'll have power over
Speaker 3: these agencies, right, and the ability to work with the
Speaker 3: FDA to reduce restrictions on abortion, medication, to increase telehealth.
Speaker 3: Asindy said, nothing is going to change overnight. There's not
Speaker 3: like a magical thing we can do. Unfortunately, things this
Speaker 3: is a long fight, right, we have to sort of
Speaker 3: like settle in and be prepared for a multip your fight,
Speaker 3: but there are things that you can do to make
Speaker 3: things a little bit easier on the ground, to give
Speaker 3: more support to governors, to give more support to activists,
Speaker 3: and frankly, I think even just having a president who
Speaker 3: is comfortable using the word abortion, talking about abortion, talking
Speaker 3: about what's happening with abortion rights as a national health
Speaker 3: emergency will light a different sort of fire under people
Speaker 3: than we've seen under Biden.
Speaker 2: And you've said that you at some point would like
Speaker 2: to stop writing the newsletter Abortion every day, right, Like,
Speaker 2: at some point do you get a weekend back?
Speaker 3: At least maybe I could pare it down to abortion
Speaker 3: every week at some point. That's my retirement plan.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: I love talking to both of you about this really
Speaker 1: important issue. Jessica. Thank you for all the work you've done.
Speaker 1: It is really probably challenging to write about this every day,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you get pretty depressed, but I know
Speaker 1: readers like Cindy and myself really appreciate your work, and
Speaker 1: you appreciate you writing abortion, our bodies, their lives, and
Speaker 1: the truths we used to win. Thank you both so
Speaker 1: much for being here. Cindy, thank you for being my
Speaker 1: co host. I loved it.
Speaker 2: I loved being your co pilot, Katie. And Katie also
Speaker 2: thank you for giving a platform to these issues, because
Speaker 2: even though, as Jessa said, they're so popular with people,
Speaker 2: they're not always popular with media outlets. And you've always just,
Speaker 2: you know, encouraged frank conversation and I think we're grateful.
Speaker 1: Thank you both. Thanks for listening. Everyone. If you have
Speaker 1: a question for me, a subject you want us to cover,
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