Speaker 1: Hi, Margaret, here with Samantha today's guest, recording a new
Speaker 1: introduction to this episode because a lot has happened since
Speaker 1: we recorded it only a couple of weeks ago. Normally,
Speaker 1: this is a history podcast in the way that our
Speaker 1: subjects tying to current events is left up to the
Speaker 1: listeners imagination. But this is kind of an exceptional moment
Speaker 1: because when we recorded this episode, which is about abortion
Speaker 1: access and direct action abortion access, specifically the Jain collective. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess you all saw that when you saw the
Speaker 1: title of the episode when you download it. The we
Speaker 1: we kind of joke about, I think during the course
Speaker 1: of recording about not joke what we say, Well, the
Speaker 1: overturning of Roe v. Wade is a potential threat. Um,
Speaker 1: And since then we've obviously all seen that there's a
Speaker 1: leaked document that says, well, it's not a potential threat,
Speaker 1: is a and almost certainty that is happening. The Supreme
Speaker 1: Court intends to overthrow Roe v. Wade. Um, Samantha, do
Speaker 1: you have a better overview than that? So here is
Speaker 1: what we have been able to read and what we
Speaker 1: know the end this late document, they have already voted
Speaker 1: to overturn roe v. Wade, and they did it through
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization,
Speaker 1: which is based out of Mississippi, which also is a
Speaker 1: trigger state. And if you don't know what trigger state is,
Speaker 1: it means they are ready to go the minute Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade is overturned, that there will be an immediate ban
Speaker 1: on abortion the second it happens. So they are called
Speaker 1: the trigger states. And there are several will mention that
Speaker 1: in a minute um and Mississippi is one of those.
Speaker 1: So in this brief that we read from Judge Alito,
Speaker 1: who is the one that has written this up, it
Speaker 1: is ninety eight pages long, with like forty something pages
Speaker 1: of an appendix to talk about his argument about why
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade should be overturned. And he begins his statement,
Speaker 1: and I think it's something that we need to talk
Speaker 1: about because the language in itself is going to be
Speaker 1: repeated throughout. I'm not gonna read it, I swear to God,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I cried. I screamed at the computer when
Speaker 1: I was reading this and dissecting it, and I want
Speaker 1: to vomit as we are talking about it. But in it,
Speaker 1: he writes, uh, Yeah. He begins the statement with talking
Speaker 1: about how divisive this issue is and as a profound
Speaker 1: moral issue. So he is allowing this conversation to take
Speaker 1: into a whole load of feelings and automatically place what
Speaker 1: he feels his morality and his own morality onto this.
Speaker 1: So that's how it begins. Um. And then he talks
Speaker 1: about the fact that the Constitution and we hold that
Speaker 1: Row and Casey, which is the Casey versus Planned Parenthood
Speaker 1: which happened in the nineties that helped keep up with
Speaker 1: the pro v wade um that it must be overruled.
Speaker 1: The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such
Speaker 1: right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the
Speaker 1: one on which the defenders of Row and Casey now
Speaker 1: chiefly rely, the due process clause of the fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 1: So in that clause, just for people. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling that so many people, the people listening to this
Speaker 1: are so smart to me, like, would you shut up
Speaker 1: and move on? But just in case, just in case,
Speaker 1: is that privacy, the right to privacy which is not
Speaker 1: necessarily mentioned, but it is based in this And they
Speaker 1: took that language and said, yes, this is about privacy.
Speaker 1: So that's very important, as we know, because it goes
Speaker 1: to a flew of other unconstitutional constitutional things. So he
Speaker 1: talks about that, and that he continues on that provision
Speaker 1: has been held to guarantee some rights that are not
Speaker 1: mentioned in the Constitution, but many such must be quote
Speaker 1: deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition and implicitly
Speaker 1: in the concept of ordered liberty. So ordered liberty as
Speaker 1: well as nation's history is going to be all throughout
Speaker 1: this brief. His whole stance is that because it was
Speaker 1: never mentioned in the Constitution, that it was never ever
Speaker 1: a constitutional thing and should not be allowed as a
Speaker 1: constitutional thing, and that it wasn't even mentioned to be
Speaker 1: a right until nineteen seventy three. And because of that,
Speaker 1: this is not a constitutional issue. And the other part
Speaker 1: to this is that ordered liberty. So when we talk
Speaker 1: about ordered liberty, this is when he is saying that
Speaker 1: he and a certain amount of people have the right
Speaker 1: to tell you what your liberties are, and they get
Speaker 1: to tell you what is orderly. So this is why
Speaker 1: we're talking about how this is going to overturn it
Speaker 1: because he's able to make this a state's right thing,
Speaker 1: in which he said that's how it's always been, that's
Speaker 1: how it's always should be. Roe v. Wade overstepped because
Speaker 1: they took something out of context from an eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: idea of this constitutional conversation. So where we are today, Yes,
Speaker 1: there's back and forth right now about it's not that
Speaker 1: big of a deal because the states can govern. It's
Speaker 1: not an outright ban technically, Um, what we we're talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, what I was talking about earlier with the
Speaker 1: trigger state, the states are Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: North Dakota, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. Um. And even though
Speaker 1: in my state of Georgia, they don't necessarily have a
Speaker 1: trigger law, yet, what they have done is come at
Speaker 1: the abortion clinics and abortion facilities, um, telling them go
Speaker 1: ahead and get ready. And so a lot of the
Speaker 1: clinics have stopped taking appointments and canceled appointments at this
Speaker 1: point in time. So it's very very dangerous. And where
Speaker 1: we are, even though it's not necessarily a trigger state,
Speaker 1: those who are sitting in most likely more liberal left
Speaker 1: leaning are quote unquote okay, Um, it is those who
Speaker 1: are what would be the red states that are could
Speaker 1: be heavily heavily affected. Yeah, and what people I think
Speaker 1: often forget when they're like sitting comfortably in their blue
Speaker 1: states or whatever, is that, you know, the margins that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. The difference between the red state and
Speaker 1: blue state is actually not incredibly dramatic. It's not like
Speaker 1: the red state are all like you people who want
Speaker 1: to get rid of this or something like that it
Speaker 1: might be or even well, I guess actually abortion itself,
Speaker 1: what is it like, Americans? You want to keep it?
Speaker 1: And in the state of Georgia as well. So even
Speaker 1: though people think of us as just like the you know,
Speaker 1: silly red state, that we proved them wrong in the
Speaker 1: last few elections. And I know this. I am with
Speaker 1: with everyone when I say this government is bullshit and
Speaker 1: there's some things to be so many things changed, and
Speaker 1: I am frustrated to the core because nothing like some
Speaker 1: things are better and this is better than it was.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, what happened in really really
Speaker 1: fucked up everything else, and what we are seeing is
Speaker 1: the detriment of that. However, it's not a fixal I
Speaker 1: understand this, but what we're saying is in the state
Speaker 1: of Georgia, the majority of the voters, who are typically
Speaker 1: women of color and people of color, are all about
Speaker 1: our current senators and those who are pushing to that point.
Speaker 1: But jerry mandering has made it almost impossible, as well
Speaker 1: as voter suppression UM to get to move and push
Speaker 1: it to the right direction. Nearly, I do say nearly,
Speaker 1: And it's frustrating because yes, we are going to be affective,
Speaker 1: even though Georgia is not a trigger state as we
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier. Obviously he's already had he being governor,
Speaker 1: Kemp has already put in the sixth week ban and
Speaker 1: just kind of sitting in a court right now and
Speaker 1: if the things change is over yeah, well, and honestly,
Speaker 1: the I mean, besides the fact that we have an
Speaker 1: unelected shadow council that makes all the decisions about what
Speaker 1: happens with our bodies. Really the point of this episode
Speaker 1: that you all are about to listen to UM is
Speaker 1: about direct action abortion access and how even when the
Speaker 1: law is not on your side, this is still going
Speaker 1: to happen, and how can we make it happen as
Speaker 1: well as possible, as safely as possible. There's also, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: other effects that could happen beyond just this. I was
Speaker 1: talking to my my lawyer, the amazing Moira Meltzer Cohen,
Speaker 1: who said that we need to be prepared for all
Speaker 1: of the pannumbra cases, which are cases that put forth
Speaker 1: the idea that um that constitutional due process implies the
Speaker 1: right to privacy. This was called the pannumbra basically during
Speaker 1: Griswold versus Connecticut, which is the case that legalized birth control,
Speaker 1: and so basically saying that they had a pannumbra, a
Speaker 1: sort of shadow that implied rights to privacy, and lawyers
Speaker 1: on both sides have been arguing that this is a
Speaker 1: terrible and flimsy legal standing for a very long time.
Speaker 1: But other things that rely on that include, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: birth control, but also gay sex or really any sex
Speaker 1: that isn't for procreation could theoretically be criminalized once again.
Speaker 1: And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna link
Speaker 1: to a lot of resources in the show notes encourage
Speaker 1: people to to look into things, look into ways to contribute,
Speaker 1: look into ways to if if you have your own needs, um,
Speaker 1: how you can meet those directly if you or how
Speaker 1: help other people meet their needs directly through lots of
Speaker 1: different ways. And for those who are in the point,
Speaker 1: I know people are filling a time crunch because there
Speaker 1: is a time crunch. Abortion is still legal and accessible. Uh.
Speaker 1: The home abortion pill is FDA proved to be sent
Speaker 1: by mail, So if you need to do that, do that.
Speaker 1: That is still accessible and it's still around. And we
Speaker 1: do see organizations that are coming through kind of like
Speaker 1: the jan Collective did UM on a better, bigger level,
Speaker 1: which I love every bit of that. That's kind of
Speaker 1: that silver lining. And again, yeah, things that we'd see
Speaker 1: such as birth control, we are seeing things in play.
Speaker 1: Missouri and Louisiana has decided to put in a clause
Speaker 1: in their trigger loss that includes i u d s
Speaker 1: being illegal, So that means someone who has an i
Speaker 1: U D which has become very effective, uh maybe prosecuted um.
Speaker 1: As well as the fact that those who are going
Speaker 1: through things like topic pregnancy, which is when again I
Speaker 1: think we talked about it later, it gets uh, the
Speaker 1: egg is the fertilized egg is stuck in your Phillipian
Speaker 1: two first and kills a person can kill, a person
Speaker 1: damaged severrely. This will be if you try to extract
Speaker 1: that that will be considered abortion as well. So this
Speaker 1: is why these laws are so important that we pay
Speaker 1: tidgion to it. Again, that privacy clause. That's what they're
Speaker 1: coming after, and that includes gay marriage, that includes consensual
Speaker 1: adults sex, that includes so much more um. And that's
Speaker 1: why this is so damn scary. Yeah, and we'll leave
Speaker 1: it to the listeners imagination about the methods that might
Speaker 1: be necessary when the democratic process has failed. But one
Speaker 1: thing also will say is that I love this episode
Speaker 1: that you're all about to hear, but don't listen to
Speaker 1: it to determine how to self manage abortions. Look elsewhere
Speaker 1: for information about how to self manage abortions. Medicated abortions
Speaker 1: are readily available, at least at the moment, and are
Speaker 1: substantially better than what is available and what was available
Speaker 1: to the heroes of today's episode. So what can people do?
Speaker 1: Like if people have if people want to donate, what
Speaker 1: would you be? What would you suggest? So I don't
Speaker 1: want to give you specific organizations because it affects different
Speaker 1: people different in different places. But one of the things
Speaker 1: I would say is planned parenthood is not necessarily where
Speaker 1: you should donate, Maybe start looking at specific clinics and
Speaker 1: funds that you are appreciative of or think that they
Speaker 1: can do a good job. Research who you're donating to. Also,
Speaker 1: if you're in a safe state, as we said, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to call the safe states, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's what they're called, We're just gonna quote it,
Speaker 1: like in one of the states where the government is
Speaker 1: allowing and talking about, Yeah, abortion, it should be part
Speaker 1: of health care. Then maybe look to the trigger states
Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier and helped donate to those states
Speaker 1: because they are in deep danger as I said before,
Speaker 1: about losing everything very quickly, very fast. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: people I've been talking to and asking for advice about
Speaker 1: where to put people put your energy in terms of
Speaker 1: organizations to support, have also suggested that abortion funds are
Speaker 1: specifically the place to go. And then also one other
Speaker 1: one that again my my lawyer friend recommended, is called
Speaker 1: the repro Legal Defense Fund, which is a fund that
Speaker 1: supports people who are investigated, arrested, or prosecuted for self
Speaker 1: managed abortion or for helping end their own or someone
Speaker 1: else's pregnancy. And so that is a thing that legal
Speaker 1: defense is going to have to become part of all
Speaker 1: of this as well, unfortunately. Absolute um. And if you
Speaker 1: kind of want to know what is impacted and how
Speaker 1: you can impact better, you can also go to the
Speaker 1: National Network of Abortion Funds and they kind of have
Speaker 1: a list of who is in need of services and
Speaker 1: what type of services are being used for what funds,
Speaker 1: and that could give you a kind of at least
Speaker 1: an audited sheet of who you're giving to what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And here's the episode. Hello and welcome to Cool People
Speaker 1: Who Did Cool Stuff, the podcast that needs no introduction. No, no, Margaret,
Speaker 1: it needs an introduction. Okay, Welcome to Cool People Who
Speaker 1: Did Cool Stuff, the podcast that apparently needs an introduction.
Speaker 1: Every week I'm going to bring you a new story
Speaker 1: of cool people who did cool stuff, thus the title.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy. And this week I have
Speaker 1: on Samantha McVeigh, who is the host of the also
Speaker 1: stuff related podcast stuff Mom Never told you. Samantha, How
Speaker 1: are you doing good? Thank you for having me on
Speaker 1: the show. And ya, welcome to the fam and all
Speaker 1: the things. So excited to have you as a part
Speaker 1: of our network family. Yeah, I'm really excited. Okay, So um,
Speaker 1: I've also Sophie on the call. Sophie is the producer.
Speaker 1: How are you doing Superheroes? Sophie over here doing doing,
Speaker 1: I'm doing Okay. That is that is the that is
Speaker 1: the theme of whatever year it is we're doing. It's
Speaker 1: not real. It does not exist, especially since what we're
Speaker 1: recording will make no sense to people who are listening
Speaker 1: to it twenty five years from now. Gosh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope so, but so Meantha, I'm wondering, how do you
Speaker 1: feel about reproductive rights? Would you say that overall your
Speaker 1: pro or anti you deciding what happens with your body?
Speaker 1: You know, as someone who does have a uterus and
Speaker 1: feels the fact that I am a pretty smart and
Speaker 1: capable woman, um that I should be allowed to have
Speaker 1: my choices, and that being dictated by sis white men
Speaker 1: telling me that they need control over my body because
Speaker 1: they're afraid of the vagina in general and uterus and
Speaker 1: the power of the uterus. I'm muna say I'm pro
Speaker 1: everything about it, and let's go ahead and say, Nabra
Speaker 1: get out of it. Well, not a long winded answer, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is great. It would be a very different in
Speaker 1: short podcast if your answer was wildly different from that.
Speaker 1: I have really sure non because I was like Margaret,
Speaker 1: I have this really great person that I want to
Speaker 1: have on for this specific topic comes on and it's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: you know how I feel. I used to. Can I
Speaker 1: tell you this. I grew up in a very conservative
Speaker 1: For the listeners who are familiar with me, I grew
Speaker 1: up in a very conservative uh town. My parents are white.
Speaker 1: I'm adopted, and they're very conservative people who um have
Speaker 1: always voted on moralities, including anti choice a lifestyle. And
Speaker 1: for the longest time I was told because I was adopted,
Speaker 1: I should be anti choice or I wouldn't have existed.
Speaker 1: This whole like guilt trip onto me about that, making
Speaker 1: it seem like I was in the wrong for say,
Speaker 1: but wait, the biggest conversation is you're telling me that
Speaker 1: you really feel like you can't trust me as a
Speaker 1: as an adult, as a person, as an individual to
Speaker 1: make my own choices in life, um and that it
Speaker 1: needed to be dictated by a government. But nothing else does. Okay,
Speaker 1: But it took me a long time to get out
Speaker 1: of that headspin. Because you know, you want to acclimate
Speaker 1: and be a be a part of whatever your society
Speaker 1: or can unity you're in doing me a while to
Speaker 1: figure out, Oh god, that's growth, what is happening, you know,
Speaker 1: and what kind of control had it on there? So honestly,
Speaker 1: if you'd asked me that twenty years ago, we would
Speaker 1: have had a different conversation. Okay, that I mean, that's
Speaker 1: fair and like it. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: indoctrination that we all feel. I'm almost sort of lucky
Speaker 1: and that like I was always just like such one
Speaker 1: of the bad kids that I was pretty young when
Speaker 1: like my friends started having abortions. Um, and I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful that they had that opportunity because a lot of
Speaker 1: them were able to like get out of the situations
Speaker 1: they were in, you know, um, because they had that access.
Speaker 1: But well, today's heroes have come to similar conclusions that
Speaker 1: we have about being pro people deciding what to do
Speaker 1: with their own bodies and uh, because okay, people were
Speaker 1: gonn talk about fucking cool And I'm gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about direct action abortion access and in particular, we're going
Speaker 1: to focus on one crew of women out of Chicago,
Speaker 1: the Notorious Jane Collective. Oh this is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: Come on, I'm ready, let's go and so I think
Speaker 1: actually the podcast that you're on, I don't think you're
Speaker 1: the host of this particular episode, but the podcast you
Speaker 1: you run actually didn't interview with the founder of Jane
Speaker 1: Heather Booth. Um, I just want to acknowledge that. And
Speaker 1: so it was it was freaking cool. And I listened
Speaker 1: to that while I was getting ready for this one
Speaker 1: and before I start getting too deep into it. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about abortion, right and so I'm
Speaker 1: going to be talking about how it is and isn't
Speaker 1: a woman's issue in the modern context. Um, I want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge upfront that abortion is not just a woman's issue.
Speaker 1: A plenty of people who are not women can get pregnant.
Speaker 1: It might not want to be whether that's some trans men,
Speaker 1: some non binary people, and some intersex people who can
Speaker 1: all get pregnant. Uh, And I will I will say
Speaker 1: that one day it's as likely as not that some
Speaker 1: trans woman is going to get pregnant. And there's this
Speaker 1: meme floating around that I really like, is that what
Speaker 1: will really drive the right wing into a rage is
Speaker 1: and when the first Trands woman gets pregnant. It's when
Speaker 1: the first Trands woman chooses to have an abortion. But
Speaker 1: but I also will say that, um, so it's not
Speaker 1: just a women's issue, but it is also a women's
Speaker 1: issue as well, and I don't want to cut that
Speaker 1: out of the conversation either. And I spent a while
Speaker 1: trying to figure out to phrase all this right because
Speaker 1: it's a kind of a moving target to understand how
Speaker 1: we talk about this stuff. The So I would say
Speaker 1: that the history of the limitation of abortion access is
Speaker 1: entirely entangled with the history of misogyny and with controlling
Speaker 1: women's bodies and denying us agency. And there's there's plenty
Speaker 1: of women who can't get pregnant, whether it's because of age, surgeries,
Speaker 1: hormone shifts, the way we were born. But something doesn't
Speaker 1: need to affect like every single woman to be a
Speaker 1: woman's issue, to be something that affects all of us,
Speaker 1: because patriarchal society wanting to control women's bodies doesn't stop
Speaker 1: with the women who can get pregnant, right, Um, they
Speaker 1: want to control everybody. So I guess what I want
Speaker 1: to say to to anyone's listening, um, And just to
Speaker 1: kind of provide the context that I'm coming from, is
Speaker 1: that when I'm talking about abortion access. I'm sure I
Speaker 1: talk about it from both of these angles at once.
Speaker 1: U two sort of intersecting axes of oppression is people
Speaker 1: with the ability to give birth and people who are women,
Speaker 1: and which is very often a intersection, right, but not always.
Speaker 1: And then of course we're talking about ship that happened
Speaker 1: like fifty years ago, right, And so a lot of
Speaker 1: the existing language about the people that we're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about will be referring to people as women
Speaker 1: and will be approaching it primarily from this lens of
Speaker 1: a women's issue. And I'm trying to well, I'm going
Speaker 1: to try and be more directly inclusive throughout. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to cast judgment on these people who framed it
Speaker 1: in the ways that they understood it is the best
Speaker 1: way to frame it. Um. So that's my disclaimer. It's
Speaker 1: been more time on than like the rest of the
Speaker 1: that's not true. You have to do though, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So abortion and legality, right, Abortion has been a contentious
Speaker 1: issue since forever, and and sometimes it's about morality, like
Speaker 1: like on an individual level, a lot of people against
Speaker 1: abortion because of what they consider morality, and some religious
Speaker 1: groups teach that life begins at conception or at the quickening,
Speaker 1: which is when a pregnant person can first feel the
Speaker 1: baby moving um, which is usually about halfway through the pregnancy.
Speaker 1: It happens I guess a couple of weeks earlier in pregnancies,
Speaker 1: after the first pregnancy that a person has. Other people
Speaker 1: claim that life begins at viability, which is when the
Speaker 1: fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, which
Speaker 1: is usually around seven months, and then other religions and
Speaker 1: other concepts and faiths teach that life begins at birth,
Speaker 1: and it isn't as like simple as like this religion
Speaker 1: believes this. This religion believes that there's not like one
Speaker 1: answer about like how Christianity believes or whatever. Right, It's
Speaker 1: all different and changing at different times. I also, frankly
Speaker 1: don't care on some level like um, like whether or
Speaker 1: not I am or I'm not a religious person, Like
Speaker 1: I have no interest in letting religion dictate the laws
Speaker 1: of society. So there's this case that a lot of
Speaker 1: people make that the restriction of abortion has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with morality or religion, but instead about the control
Speaker 1: of bodies, right of women's bodies and and women's bodies.
Speaker 1: And then like by extension all of the people who
Speaker 1: are in the periphery of womanhood and I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like and sometimes they're really even open about this
Speaker 1: desire where it's like literally just about controlling reproduction. A
Speaker 1: lot of countries they say that motherhood is like patriotic, right,
Speaker 1: because really, at the end of the day, it's about this, like, well,
Speaker 1: we want more babies to throw into the you know,
Speaker 1: gristmill of labor and war and ship. If you're looking
Speaker 1: at the Q and on level of U of the
Speaker 1: mom groups is an interesting fight they have and a
Speaker 1: part of the solution, and part of that fight is
Speaker 1: to birth their own babies, meaning like typically white children,
Speaker 1: and making sure that that theny, it continues in this
Speaker 1: big all fight in the Q and on war, the
Speaker 1: whole rabbit hole in itself. I wish I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Thanks for telling me this terrible thing that's happening. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's like it doesn't surprise me at don't no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't surprise me at all. But I'm like, great,
Speaker 1: of course they're doing that. God damn it. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. No, no, no, no, I know it's there.
Speaker 1: I will tell you. I probably shouldn't given you that
Speaker 1: heads up is on our show on stuff, Mom've never
Speaker 1: told you I am the pessimist. Okay, okay, post that
Speaker 1: brings out the unfun facts, so apologies and advanced No, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's perfect because I'm trying to do this, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: it's ironic. I picked this name kill Joy and then
Speaker 1: I like dedicate my life to try and spread revolutionary hope.
Speaker 1: But I love that. I love that. I love that
Speaker 1: we have this balance today. It's perfect. Unfun facts with
Speaker 1: Samantha mcveay show Welcome. You should have a show. I
Speaker 1: want you should be Samanthe. You need to start this up.
Speaker 1: You're the creator of all shows. Let's do this. I'm in,
Speaker 1: I'm in. Okay. So, the first European government to to
Speaker 1: legalize abortion was Revolutionary Russia as far as I can research,
Speaker 1: and in October nine they legalized abortion. And some people
Speaker 1: will talk about how they did from a feminist point
Speaker 1: of view. A lot of other stuff will say they
Speaker 1: did it because, um, they were all starving and so
Speaker 1: they just were like it's okay to not have babies
Speaker 1: for this moment, right, Um. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of a strong case to be made for that
Speaker 1: that they didn't actually some of them cared, some of
Speaker 1: them didn't care. I don't know. Because they also got
Speaker 1: rid of abortion again various points. And then they had
Speaker 1: like huge pro natal PR campaigns, and then of course
Speaker 1: Stalin made it illegal again because he's Stalin and he
Speaker 1: only does bad things. Um and okay, the the law
Speaker 1: that he passed on June six is the most Soviet
Speaker 1: name I've ever heard, which is the Decree on the
Speaker 1: Prohibition of Abortions, the improvement of Material Aid to women
Speaker 1: in childbirth, the establishment of state assistants to parents of
Speaker 1: large families, and the extension of lying in homes, nursery schools,
Speaker 1: and kindergartens, the tight you know of criminal punishments and
Speaker 1: the nonpayment of alimony, and on certain modifications on levorce
Speaker 1: legislation that rolls right off a tongue. That was amazing.
Speaker 1: It was so beautiful. Good jobs on certain modifications in
Speaker 1: divorce legislation, all right. I was just making sure I
Speaker 1: got cool cool obviously. And then one of the other
Speaker 1: times that abortion was legalized in Europe, I actually think
Speaker 1: was really cool and not like, oh, maybe why are
Speaker 1: they doing this? But U during the Spanish Civil War
Speaker 1: and I guess probably nine or so, I didn't I
Speaker 1: don't remember the actual year. And an anarchist became the
Speaker 1: first man, the first woman minister of health and like
Speaker 1: one of the first women ministers in government in Europe.
Speaker 1: This is anarchist woman. Federica Montsani became the Minister of
Speaker 1: Health of the Second Spanish Republic and she legalized abortion
Speaker 1: because it was the right thing to do. And then
Speaker 1: Franco uh successfully invaded the special Second Spanish Republic and
Speaker 1: it was a whole war thing that happened, and it
Speaker 1: didn't really go very well. Um, and Spain got fascism
Speaker 1: instead of legalized abortion. So close to getting it right, no, um,
Speaker 1: almost like I don't don't know where to stick this.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I think about a
Speaker 1: lot when I'm talking about how like why are they
Speaker 1: making abortion illegal? Is it morality or is it social control?
Speaker 1: And I think that as soon as you start throwing
Speaker 1: birth control into it too, it becomes so obvious that
Speaker 1: it's not about moralities, about social control because all of
Speaker 1: the same stuff that's illegalizing abortion is like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a whole episode about the birth
Speaker 1: control fight at some point. But um, it's just this
Speaker 1: whole parallel thing where basically they're like, right, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have sex, that doesn't make babies, that's wrong. It's because
Speaker 1: they just which is by the way, a new headline
Speaker 1: that I've seen all of a sudden coming back around
Speaker 1: from the right wing. Um conversation is the same narrative
Speaker 1: of you shouldn't have sex, it's from making children, you
Speaker 1: can't handle having children, you shouldn't be having sex like
Speaker 1: this new I've seen it trending and I was like,
Speaker 1: what is happening? Are we bringing that back again? Is
Speaker 1: this really the nine eight, eight, the seventies sixties however,
Speaker 1: which by the way, abortion didn't happen until like the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties in the US, Like why are we? Why
Speaker 1: are we back here? But yeah, it's I agree with you,
Speaker 1: this whole level of like when we really look at it, obviously,
Speaker 1: that's the conversation we've had about is it really your
Speaker 1: pro life? Are you just anti choice? Like that's the conversation. Totally, No,
Speaker 1: totally yeah, because yeah, you're literally anti people choosing to
Speaker 1: have like you know, saying consensual whatever the phrasing is.
Speaker 1: The safe sex that's consentual and happy and all that ship.
Speaker 1: But then, okay, so when I'm I'm doing all this
Speaker 1: like preface stuff, I'm gonna get to Jane soon. Um,
Speaker 1: a lot of feminists, including today's heroes, they weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: even just fighting for the legalization of abortion. One of
Speaker 1: the cases that I want to make, because it kept
Speaker 1: coming up as I was researching these people and a
Speaker 1: lot of the other abortionists at the time, is especially
Speaker 1: the feminist and the women involved, was that they were
Speaker 1: fighting for the de medicalization of reproductive health. Basically, they
Speaker 1: were fighting to take reproductive health like birth control, abortion, pregnancy,
Speaker 1: and birth out of the page riarchical field of western medicine,
Speaker 1: and to have direct control over their own bodies, which
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean like d I Y at home abortions,
Speaker 1: but it means abortions performed by like competent practitioners, whether
Speaker 1: they're in the medical field or not. And there's this
Speaker 1: this argument that my friends have made very convincingly to
Speaker 1: me that I tend to believe that the a lot
Speaker 1: of the ship that's going on in the witch hunts
Speaker 1: in Europe in medieval Europe were basically a lot of
Speaker 1: it was about, like, here these people who are health
Speaker 1: practitioners who are not tied into the sort of male
Speaker 1: and academic field of health that we're trying to build,
Speaker 1: and so we should murder them all, um, because we
Speaker 1: want to be the ones controlling everyone's bodies instead of
Speaker 1: like all of these women. And uh and actually a
Speaker 1: lot of I think gay men and other people involved
Speaker 1: in sort of like swept up in them whatever periphery
Speaker 1: of women. I don't know how to describe this. And
Speaker 1: so it's just it's hard to control population people's bodies
Speaker 1: if there's all these like wild and free practitioners running
Speaker 1: around helping people control their own bodies. Um. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that that's so interesting about this argument
Speaker 1: is that it basically means that the medicalization of reproductive
Speaker 1: health was a violent process that required mass murder. Um.
Speaker 1: You just killed all the practitioners, as you probably guessed.
Speaker 1: Anyone listening to this. I'm not here to convince you
Speaker 1: to be pro choice, because I'm assuming that you are
Speaker 1: anyone who's listening to this, and if you're not, you should.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll get something out of this episode. Maybe listening
Speaker 1: to it would be good for you. Maybe you'll just
Speaker 1: hate me. That's fine. Um. And because I'm not really
Speaker 1: here to like balance the moral weight of abortion today,
Speaker 1: I just want to like celebrate heroic at us women
Speaker 1: who refuse to go along with a society that told
Speaker 1: them they couldn't control their own reproductive health. And so
Speaker 1: I want to celebrate the Jain collective. Man, I'm proud.
Speaker 1: Sometime around there's a lot of arguments about exactly what
Speaker 1: year had happened. I'm actually the person who does know
Speaker 1: is alive, but lots of people writing lots of different
Speaker 1: things on the Internet and in books because everything doesn't
Speaker 1: match up with the anyway. In is a white Jewish
Speaker 1: socialist student in Chicago named Heather Booth who got a
Speaker 1: call from her friend and her friend was despondent. His
Speaker 1: sister was pregnant and she didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: Abortion was illegal in every state in the US at
Speaker 1: that point, with a few medical exceptions here, and they're
Speaker 1: different in different places, and Heather hadn't given much thought
Speaker 1: to abortion access until that moment, but she was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll see what I can do, And basically,
Speaker 1: just with that willingness to step up when someone needed help,
Speaker 1: she started one of the most radical and interesting abortion
Speaker 1: access groups in history, which is a lesson to everyone
Speaker 1: that sometimes you just step up when the call to
Speaker 1: adventure happens. This isn't part of my script. I'me Griffin badly.
Speaker 1: I don't like that. UM, but yeah, I agree like
Speaker 1: that we're seeing we're seeing it happen. Unfortunately, as there
Speaker 1: has become evident that we're back into this fight again,
Speaker 1: we've almost like started over and it feels like we're
Speaker 1: star over into this point, and funds are being created
Speaker 1: to make sure that if it does happen, if it's
Speaker 1: outright band and I know we're gonna talk about this
Speaker 1: probably a bit, that we will have an underground network
Speaker 1: essentially to continue to help the people who need this access.
Speaker 1: And I know it happened in Chile too, UM and
Speaker 1: Poland to where the neighboring countries have set up these
Speaker 1: funds as Poland has passed one of the strictest abortion
Speaker 1: restrictions that they're now making an underground essentially UH network
Speaker 1: for them to get access when they need it by
Speaker 1: giving as many people UH traveled UH reimbursement as well
Speaker 1: as places to stay UM to get in that plan
Speaker 1: be all of those things. So yeah, I think unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about talking about this story, and I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you're bringing this up because we are repeating
Speaker 1: history and we may have to look at this as
Speaker 1: an example of all right, y'all, let's get let let's
Speaker 1: get it together. We've got to do something and become
Speaker 1: radical essentially. Yeah, No, I I what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: This is a history podcast. History doesn't have lessons for
Speaker 1: the present, right, we don't have to learn history. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just random that I picked this topic. No, I
Speaker 1: really like and please continue with the how it ties
Speaker 1: into everything, because like, oh, you're speaking to my soul.
Speaker 1: So good. Okay. So Heather Booth was already a radical
Speaker 1: right uh. In nineteen sixty four, she joined Freedom Summer,
Speaker 1: which is when activists flooded to Mississippi to defy the
Speaker 1: KKK and register black voters and set up schools and libraries,
Speaker 1: which didn't go smoothly. At least seven people were murdered
Speaker 1: by right wing forces, including black residents and both white
Speaker 1: and black civil rights activists from from outside the area,
Speaker 1: and something like seventy black homes, churches, and businesses were
Speaker 1: bombed or burned, eighty activists were beaten, and more than
Speaker 1: a thousand activists ended up arrested, including Heather Booth. During
Speaker 1: all of this, it also wasn't like it's like, it
Speaker 1: wasn't perfect and Rosie either. I mean, I just described
Speaker 1: all the horrible stuff that happened, but um, it also
Speaker 1: led to some resentment, at least according to some of
Speaker 1: the sources I read. I suspect that people had a
Speaker 1: lot of different opinions about what happened. Some local black
Speaker 1: residents felt that those kind of a paternalistic white northern
Speaker 1: savior thing that had just happened, and they weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: excited about it. But I believe that that is, you know,
Speaker 1: people have very different opinions about things, and it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of a critical, if complicated chapter of the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement, and and how their Booth was was part
Speaker 1: of it. And I think this is also important because
Speaker 1: we it's always important to talk about how all of
Speaker 1: the people fighting for all these things always come from
Speaker 1: intersections or believe in intersectionality, even if that term didn't
Speaker 1: exist yet. You know, like I did another episode once
Speaker 1: on on abolitionists and realized that all the abolitionists were feminists,
Speaker 1: and all the feminist re abolitionists, not universally, but the
Speaker 1: ones who were cool enough to make it into my podcast.
Speaker 1: And so anyway, so it's not coming out of nowhere this,
Speaker 1: you know. So she's back in Chicago after that summer,
Speaker 1: and she was helping form feminist groups where the where
Speaker 1: women talked about the issues facing them, a process that
Speaker 1: a few years later got more widespread and be called
Speaker 1: consciousness raising groups. Was a big part of feminist movement
Speaker 1: in the United States in the sixties and seventies. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is probably how she ended up being the
Speaker 1: person her friend thought to call. But that's that's just conjecture.
Speaker 1: I don't know why a friend called her. So she
Speaker 1: gets the call, and she asks around the medical community
Speaker 1: within the civil rights movement, basically being like, you know,
Speaker 1: who can perform an abortion on my friend? You know
Speaker 1: who wants to commit a felony really quick? And the
Speaker 1: doctor she eventually reached, as best as I can tell,
Speaker 1: was a surgeon named TRM. Howard, who gets left out
Speaker 1: of this history sometimes and not always, which a shame
Speaker 1: because he's a really fucking interesting guy. He was more
Speaker 1: famous as a civil rights leader than he was as
Speaker 1: a doctor. He was one of the most prominent non
Speaker 1: socialist voices in the movement. Most of the civil rights
Speaker 1: movement was substantially further left than than this guy. But
Speaker 1: you know his black man fighting for civil rights? Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So. So during the Emmett Till case,
Speaker 1: which again I'm gonna wander to tell you about cool
Speaker 1: people have to say about all these horrible things that happened. Um,
Speaker 1: Emmetti was a fourteen year old black kid who was
Speaker 1: really murdered by a white mob in Mississippi in and
Speaker 1: during that case, Howard helped run the search for evidence,
Speaker 1: and I believe that's where he became more prominent within
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement. And during that trial, discriminatory gun
Speaker 1: laws wouldn't let him own weapons, but he he did anyway,
Speaker 1: And he kept a pistol in a secret compartment in
Speaker 1: his car, and he slept with a Thompson machine gun
Speaker 1: at the foot of his bed. Um. And there's this
Speaker 1: whole history that I also will want hopefully one day cover,
Speaker 1: uh about hitting Within the civil rights movement, there was
Speaker 1: actually a huge move Even if the political action was
Speaker 1: largely non violent, people weren't people were fine with self defense,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that movement was armed. Um, so
Speaker 1: he was very politically engaged. He runs for Republican. He
Speaker 1: runs as a Republican for Congress in nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 1: He doesn't win. But he also fought against the criminalization
Speaker 1: of sex work, which rules. And he was a surgeon
Speaker 1: and a legal abortionist, which he considered part of his
Speaker 1: civil rights work, which also just rules. And he was
Speaker 1: arrested in nineteen nineteen sixty five for providing abortions in Chicago,
Speaker 1: although he was never convicted. So Heather Booth reaches out
Speaker 1: to him and he's like, yeah, bring your friend's sister
Speaker 1: to my office. So word gets around quickly that Heather
Speaker 1: Booth has the hook up with safe abortionists because obviously,
Speaker 1: regardless of law, people are still getting abortions in the
Speaker 1: United States at this point. Um yeah, um, I'm shocked,
Speaker 1: but it's weird. It's almost like anyway, right, just because
Speaker 1: it's outlawed. Yeah, we thought we got rid of that.
Speaker 1: It definitely stopped everything for sure. I didn't make everything
Speaker 1: else dangerous for the low socioeconomic status and easy access
Speaker 1: for the rich people who still kept getting abortions. What wait,
Speaker 1: did you read my script? Did I share it? We're
Speaker 1: just in tune. We're not saying as we're best friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me to remind people I'm their best friend when they
Speaker 1: don't know. That's the name of your podcast should be, Uh,
Speaker 1: your best friend tells you boutad Obviously that's the perfect title. Yeah, yeah, totally. Um,
Speaker 1: we're professional. I love. I have to say that every
Speaker 1: few hours, just to remind myself and others around me.
Speaker 1: Speaking of being a professional, Margaret, do you know what
Speaker 1: time it is? Is it time to tell you about
Speaker 1: how great it is to eat potatoes and other healthy
Speaker 1: food direct from gardens instead of and how everyone should
Speaker 1: grow their own food, and how this podcast is sponsored
Speaker 1: by the concept of self reliance and inter reliance among
Speaker 1: healthy communities and no other sponsors at all, except for
Speaker 1: a few that might slip in after I stopped talking. Yes,
Speaker 1: here's some ads, and we're back. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: those ads. I hope all of them were for really
Speaker 1: positive things and none of them were for bad things,
Speaker 1: which is definitely the way that advertising works. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, if they're not, it's Robert Evans fault. I
Speaker 1: can say that that's true. Everything is Robert. Anything you
Speaker 1: don't like is Robert's fault. That's how I lived my life.
Speaker 1: Robert is in charge of making all the decisions about
Speaker 1: advertising for them now or again. If you have problems
Speaker 1: with it, you should hit him up on Twitter twe
Speaker 1: Director of Tweets, and your emails to him las him,
Speaker 1: not me. Thank you. All right. So it's hard to
Speaker 1: keep stats on a legal ship. For some weird reason,
Speaker 1: people don't like necessarily always telling the government when they
Speaker 1: do a legal ship UM. But one five study estimated
Speaker 1: that anywhere between two hundred thousand and a one million
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand abortions were happening every year in the
Speaker 1: United States in ninety five. Around nineteen seventy the UM,
Speaker 1: which is still three years before Roe v. Wade, the
Speaker 1: claimed number is more like one to two million. But
Speaker 1: who knows abortions are happening. Rich women get the hook
Speaker 1: up from their private doctors, or they fly to the UK,
Speaker 1: where abortion law is generally more lenient UM, and for
Speaker 1: less privileged folks it's a lot less rosy. The underground
Speaker 1: abortion scene was like a mixed match of like sketchy
Speaker 1: grifters and then well, meaning incompetent doctors, but you didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have a way to determine which one you're going
Speaker 1: to get. And almost all of them are men, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them are also connected to organized crime,
Speaker 1: including some of the good ones. I think some of
Speaker 1: the good ones were just like outright criminals attached to
Speaker 1: organized crime. Yeah, it was really interesting to see that layer,
Speaker 1: as when you start like finding out these backgrounds, you're
Speaker 1: like wow, wow, okay, okay, Yeah, they're gonna come up
Speaker 1: a couple of times in this story intrigue, although not
Speaker 1: as much as they could because some of the people
Speaker 1: involved in this are all still alive, right, and so
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to make conjectures about certain things. Let's
Speaker 1: not in danger anybody today. Yeah, Okay. So, as an
Speaker 1: interesting note, Chicago actually had one of the only women
Speaker 1: doctors that I found when I was looking at women abortionists,
Speaker 1: but pre Chine. I'm sure there were more, but um
Speaker 1: Dr Josephine Gabbler performed more than eighteen thousand abortions throughout
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, and her patients were referred to or
Speaker 1: from almost two hundred different medical facilities, and basically she
Speaker 1: would pay a kickback to all the like medical facilities
Speaker 1: that would send her patients. Um, they would get a
Speaker 1: quarter of the abortion fee because everything is sketchy in
Speaker 1: crime Land. But she was also a I believe, a
Speaker 1: safe and competent abortionist. And then in nineteen forties she
Speaker 1: sold her practice to her receptionist, Adam Martin, and she
Speaker 1: takes over the practice, but she actually hires outside practitioners
Speaker 1: to perform the actual abortions because she was a receptionist,
Speaker 1: not a surgeon or whatever. Um. But in the nineteen
Speaker 1: forties and fifties, abort and laws started being enforced more strenuously.
Speaker 1: It was always illegal, but it was like kind of
Speaker 1: a lot of times a lot of places, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't kill anyone. We aren't necessarily going to do anything.
Speaker 1: But then fifties, unfortunately, right when this receptionist takes over,
Speaker 1: abortion law gets enforced more strenuously, and which of course
Speaker 1: shutters the safest abortion clinics in the country and does
Speaker 1: nothing to stop women from meeting abortions. So Heather Booth
Speaker 1: is compiling all the names of the reasonable providers that
Speaker 1: she can run across, basically keeping track of who could
Speaker 1: be trusted to be safe, both like kind of legally safe,
Speaker 1: like I mean not it's illegal, but you know, to
Speaker 1: be careful, also to be medically safe, and also to
Speaker 1: be sexually safe, because there's a whole problem with abortion
Speaker 1: providers creeping on the patients in their care, which obviously
Speaker 1: legalization didn't stop. But um, you know, that's why even
Speaker 1: when things are legal, we still need people to advocate
Speaker 1: for us. And so more and more people start coming
Speaker 1: to her for referrals, but she starts getting busier. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, she marries Paul Booth, who's an activist
Speaker 1: She met at a sit in demonstration against the draft
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam War. Because again, everything is intersectional. He
Speaker 1: went on to help found Students for Democratic Society in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine. By nineteen sixty nine, they had two kids,
Speaker 1: and she had a job, and she was in grad
Speaker 1: school and she couldn't handle running like underground crime ring
Speaker 1: all by herself. Um, so she called up a bunch
Speaker 1: of other activists women and got them in on her
Speaker 1: underground crime ring. And that's how Jane started. And Jane
Speaker 1: wasn't called Jane. It was the not quite as bad
Speaker 1: as a Soviet name, but it was the Abortion Council
Speaker 1: in Service of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union a little shorter, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they were like, you know, just let's just call
Speaker 1: it Jane. They mostly called it the Service within their
Speaker 1: own ranks apparently, um, but they picked Jane to be
Speaker 1: like kind of like the every woman name, right, like
Speaker 1: you know, we're all Jane or whatever, like Jane Doe.
Speaker 1: And history remembers that as the Jain Collective, which is
Speaker 1: a better name than the Abortion Council Service in the
Speaker 1: Chicago Women's Libration Union. It's a cooler name. It's definitely
Speaker 1: like rings, like, oh, this is a good mystery novel.
Speaker 1: Let's go oh good point. Yeah, no, totally yeah. And
Speaker 1: then they get the sense of intrigue in your life.
Speaker 1: And if you're going to go do a crime, right,
Speaker 1: you should get some intrigue in your life out of
Speaker 1: it. It It shouldn't be like the cold like Bureau of
Speaker 1: Crime where you like go in and they're like, please
Speaker 1: fill out a form for the crime you would like
Speaker 1: to commit, and you're like and they're like we need
Speaker 1: it and triplicate. No, it should be fucking like exciting
Speaker 1: the collective. I mean, come on, is the Jain Collective.
Speaker 1: So obviously they're badass espionage parts of to this somehow
Speaker 1: in like secret coded languages and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Come on, you gotta be good. I can't wait till
Speaker 1: we can talk about more of the underground parts of
Speaker 1: the history. But I am not wishing. I wouldn't wish
Speaker 1: them all along happy lives. So okay, So they spend
Speaker 1: months planning out the whole thing before they launch. They're
Speaker 1: trying to be really careful with their crime ring they
Speaker 1: and also it's not just because it's crime. They actually
Speaker 1: they're doing this because they care, right, And so they're like,
Speaker 1: all right, what are we going to do if one
Speaker 1: of our patients has a medical emergency? What are we
Speaker 1: going to do if someone dies? What are we going
Speaker 1: to do? If one of us is arrested? What are
Speaker 1: we going to do if one of our doctors is arrested?
Speaker 1: They like mapped all this out for months. They mapped
Speaker 1: it all very carefully, and then they opened and they
Speaker 1: decided to keep minimal records and have different volunteers handle
Speaker 1: patient contact and doctor contact because again crime. And they
Speaker 1: also got an answering machine, which is like a weird
Speaker 1: it's only notable to me because it's like a nice
Speaker 1: visual detail because I think at the time it's like
Speaker 1: a huge real to real machine. And so then and
Speaker 1: then they put up ads in all the student and
Speaker 1: underground newspapers in Chicago and they say pregnant don't want
Speaker 1: to be called Jane. It's so snazzy, like I know,
Speaker 1: I know, like it was a whole system. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it. It's kind of like they're trying to if
Speaker 1: you do know, doing war times, I guess they were
Speaker 1: doing the messages, his telegrams are trying to decode things.
Speaker 1: It was this level and it was phenomenal. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we will hopefully never need it again. But it's an
Speaker 1: interesting anecdote about history. Um, it'll make me cry, come on, yeah, okay. So,
Speaker 1: so when they first started, they worked with a bunch
Speaker 1: of different abortionists, and slowly they started using one guy
Speaker 1: more and more. And some accounts call him Nick and
Speaker 1: some accounts call him Mike, and all of the accounts
Speaker 1: put his name in in like quotes. I gonna say
Speaker 1: they put in air quotes. But that's what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: is the air quotes. You often see it because Nick
Speaker 1: Mike is a crime guy, like that's his thing, through
Speaker 1: and through. Like one account just refers to him as
Speaker 1: like a con man over and over again, but it's
Speaker 1: a very positive account about like their con man, right.
Speaker 1: And some accounts say he was a mafia abortionist, and
Speaker 1: some accounts say he was independent and on the run
Speaker 1: from both cops and the mafia. I straight up don't
Speaker 1: know what to believe. If you've heard one way or
Speaker 1: the other, I'd be curious. But yeah, I did hear
Speaker 1: a to the mafia at one point in time. But again,
Speaker 1: like that's kind of like, doesn't make me make it
Speaker 1: more intriguing that this is what's happened, or doesn't make
Speaker 1: it more sinister, right, Well, what's going to make it
Speaker 1: both more intriguing and sinister is that at least one
Speaker 1: account wants you to know that Nick Mike is the
Speaker 1: sexiest man alive. Okay, wait, I missed that. As much
Speaker 1: research as I've done and trying to get this stuff
Speaker 1: that I did not see. So now like, well I
Speaker 1: gotta have a picture, come on, but mark photo. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's pictures of quote. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't actually have an identity for him because he
Speaker 1: wasn't around but they wanted to know that he is
Speaker 1: a babe, Like I need to know who said this.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't collective something. It was one of the
Speaker 1: Jane collective. I can't remember at the top of my head.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Jody because it was someone who would go
Speaker 1: and meet with him. Um. And it's in one of
Speaker 1: her accounts. It's from an interview. I think it's in
Speaker 1: the There's a zine that came out in like two
Speaker 1: thousand three or four called Jane and that has a
Speaker 1: lot of the interviews and ship and that was where
Speaker 1: I pulled the Sexiest Man Alive part from and that
Speaker 1: that stays in my memory. You know that is amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm always looking for the subtext, you know, like like
Speaker 1: who's who's sucking who? And um, like this has become
Speaker 1: a drug, Like not only has it become like an
Speaker 1: espionage things, it's kind of becoming a soap opera or
Speaker 1: something alone. Those lies for someone have to put that
Speaker 1: narrative in, like he's one of the sexiest men. I'm like,
Speaker 1: how sexy I have I have a feeling because it
Speaker 1: was the sexties seventies he had the mustache. I know
Speaker 1: he did he had to have the mustache, right, totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably in long hair, you know, like but not like
Speaker 1: full hippie long hair, just like kind of a yeah.
Speaker 1: I was describing this to one of my friends and
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, he probably had like a leather
Speaker 1: jacket and said, chow a lot, you know, um, And
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced by the chow part. I'm not convinced.
Speaker 1: I think my friend, I've been watching a lot of
Speaker 1: is any Wizard That's amazing and that's turned out. I
Speaker 1: really wish I don't want like any like real because
Speaker 1: I don't want to focus on him because he and
Speaker 1: himself was whatever. But the fact that this was like
Speaker 1: a narrative around him is phenomenal. Yeah, totally. And when
Speaker 1: they would go beat him, at least for a while,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he stayed this way all the time.
Speaker 1: He would only meet one Jane at a time because
Speaker 1: theoretically he wanted to avoid conspiracy charges, and if you
Speaker 1: have three or more people talking about a crime, then
Speaker 1: you can get conspiracy charges. And I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: say that this is the way you successfully avoid conspiracy
Speaker 1: charges is you never let more than one other person
Speaker 1: in the room at the same time, but theoretically that
Speaker 1: was what his his whole thing was. And so they
Speaker 1: liked their new con man and they started working more
Speaker 1: or less exclusively with with him, and they would, I
Speaker 1: guess pick him up the airport driving motel and they
Speaker 1: would bring him work. He wanted slightly less pay than
Speaker 1: most the other abortionists, but he was still wasn't cheap
Speaker 1: and he was in it for the money. Um. Most
Speaker 1: abortions at the time rant six hundred dollars to a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, which is four to seven thousand dollars into
Speaker 1: Jane was able to offer them for five hundred at
Speaker 1: the start, which is and then after about five or
Speaker 1: six full price abortion Nick Mike would do a couple
Speaker 1: for cheaper um. And one of the founders, Jody Howard,
Speaker 1: was Nick Mike is still such a funny thing to me,
Speaker 1: and that the only thing we know about them is
Speaker 1: that they were hot. Yeah, totally, that's all you need
Speaker 1: to know. Come on, ck Mike, Nick Mike, It's so funny.
Speaker 1: Wanted to be his first and middle name name. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was. He never actually lied about anything. He just
Speaker 1: his name was Nick, last name Mike. And the man
Speaker 1: with two first names. Okay, the whole guide there to
Speaker 1: the round this one mysterious man anyway, going on? Okay, So,
Speaker 1: so one of the founders, Jody Howard, was particularly close
Speaker 1: with Nick Mike and there's some kind of like subtext
Speaker 1: and what I read. But again, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: make assumptions because people might still be alive. But but
Speaker 1: Jody decided, and this actually makes a lot of sense, right,
Speaker 1: She was like, there needs to be a woman in
Speaker 1: the room as you're performing these abortions, and so she
Speaker 1: started insisting and then started insisting that he apprenticed her
Speaker 1: and her own uh. Jody Howard's own entry into the
Speaker 1: movement was kind of interesting. She had two kids in
Speaker 1: lymphatic cancer and she was pregnant for a third time,
Speaker 1: and she knew that childbirth would as likely as not
Speaker 1: killer uh, and doctors still wouldn't let her get an abortion. Theoretically,
Speaker 1: the law at the time was if childbirth would kill,
Speaker 1: you can get an abortion. So the only way she
Speaker 1: felt like she could take matters into her own hands
Speaker 1: about this is she basically like, give me an abortion
Speaker 1: or I'll kill myself and um, and they were like, okay,
Speaker 1: you can have an abortion now, and which is just
Speaker 1: a like how cruel is a law that the only
Speaker 1: way that you can control your own body is by
Speaker 1: like threatening to end your own life. Um, So she
Speaker 1: became an abortion access crusader, imagine that. And she figured out,
Speaker 1: she was the first one to figure out, apparently kind
Speaker 1: of quickly, that handsome man crime doc Nick Mike wasn't
Speaker 1: a doctor. Um. He had a lot of things going
Speaker 1: for him, but a medical license was not one of
Speaker 1: the things he had going for him. And and she
Speaker 1: knew that. So once again, the only thing that's actually
Speaker 1: accurate about Nick Mike is hot. Possibly that was by
Speaker 1: one person's it is it is in Stone thinks you're sexy.
Speaker 1: You're sexy? You know? Okay, God, anyway, keep going, all right.
Speaker 1: So she decides not to tell anyone at first, because
Speaker 1: she's like, everyone's going to freak the funk out. And
Speaker 1: she's like, also like, but if if he can learn it,
Speaker 1: and he's not a doctor, so can I. I'm not
Speaker 1: a doctor. And so he made him teacher. And and
Speaker 1: at first Nick Mike is working out of motels, but
Speaker 1: then one day an angry husband comes and like is
Speaker 1: banging on the motel room door, and they realized they
Speaker 1: had to step up their security. So in order to
Speaker 1: make it all more mystery novel crime novel, they start
Speaker 1: renting apartments all over the city and they need to
Speaker 1: at any given time. First they have the front where
Speaker 1: all the patients come for counseling and consultation. It's where
Speaker 1: it's also where they show up on the day of
Speaker 1: the abortion, and they're encouraged to bring loved ones for support.
Speaker 1: And of course most people who can who get abortions
Speaker 1: already have children, and so they provided childcare at the
Speaker 1: front as well. And working at the front was therefore
Speaker 1: this like really demanding job. You were a counselor, you
Speaker 1: were a babysitter, and you're also like an entertainer. You
Speaker 1: were passing out like snacks and tea and soda and
Speaker 1: shipped like anxious boyfriends and probably girlfriends and siblings and
Speaker 1: all that ship, you know. And then you had the
Speaker 1: place that was the front night of the place. Very
Speaker 1: it's still better than the Soviet names. Actually is also
Speaker 1: kind of sound like anyway whatever um it looks sounds
Speaker 1: very coded and wonderfully yeah, totally. And so the places,
Speaker 1: the apartment where the abortion is actually performed on a
Speaker 1: bed with like plastic and cloth sheets down, and um.
Speaker 1: They worked hard to make the whole experiences like un
Speaker 1: medical as possible. They worked to be relaxing and inviting
Speaker 1: and communicate with people about what's going on. Some of
Speaker 1: the reports I was reading and said, this isn't always work.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're like, hey, I'm like, I'm your new best friend,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're like trying to be really nice,
Speaker 1: and then um, and sometimes they're like, no, this is
Speaker 1: the worst day in my life. Let's get this fucking
Speaker 1: over with, you know. And other times they were like,
Speaker 1: you know, friendly and stuff. Then there are the drivers
Speaker 1: who took people from one place to the other. They
Speaker 1: rather they took people from the front to the place
Speaker 1: and from the place to the front. And these were
Speaker 1: in somewhat short supply, apparently because most of the James
Speaker 1: were students at the University of Chicago and so um,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them come from New York City
Speaker 1: where people just didn't have driver's licenses, so the few
Speaker 1: drivers with driver's licenses were basically it's like all of
Speaker 1: the jobs that any of the James were doing were
Speaker 1: incredibly important, not just the abortionists, you know, and they
Speaker 1: performed over eleven thousand abortions and like barely three year span.
Speaker 1: It's like ninety nineteen seventy three. A later obstetrician looking
Speaker 1: at their records suggested it was as safe as any
Speaker 1: above ground legal clinic. Um. They never had a patient die, uh,
Speaker 1: at least not one that they performed an abortion on.
Speaker 1: They did have one time where a woman came in
Speaker 1: in bad shape. She tried and failed to enter pregnancy
Speaker 1: on her own a few different ways, because making things
Speaker 1: illegal is really fucked up, UM, and she had a
Speaker 1: really severe infection. Jane determined it wasn't safe to operate
Speaker 1: on her, and so they insisted she go to the hospital,
Speaker 1: and she didn't. She went home instead. And I kind
Speaker 1: of assume, I mean, I feel like we've all been
Speaker 1: there or we've been like someone's like you really see
Speaker 1: a doctor and you're like, doctor, we look like a millionaire,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean. And also again the stigma and
Speaker 1: the judgments and if she was trying, if this person
Speaker 1: was trying to do a self abortion, that in itself
Speaker 1: told tells you how a dire of a situation they
Speaker 1: felt they were in and felt like they had to
Speaker 1: do something whatever they could and it killed them, which
Speaker 1: is what that situation leads to. When you really feel
Speaker 1: whatever circumstanced, whether it's trying to not be disapproved by
Speaker 1: the parents or the family or idy or whatever, having
Speaker 1: this level of being alone and trying to do whatever
Speaker 1: you can no matter the cost, and then not realizing
Speaker 1: there is another option until it's too late. That's that's
Speaker 1: that whole level in itself that just breaks your heart
Speaker 1: in this whole situation. But I love to set up
Speaker 1: about the front and the place as you were talking about,
Speaker 1: because as I was reading about these things, the idea
Speaker 1: that going to a gynecologist, going to get your yearly
Speaker 1: check up, it's frightening. Going to a doctor in general
Speaker 1: is frightening as hell to me. It's probably one of
Speaker 1: those anxiety moments of like, oh my God, why do
Speaker 1: I have to be here, and to know that you're
Speaker 1: going to do something that seems that you've been told
Speaker 1: is wrong a B. So you have all of this
Speaker 1: guilt on top of that. Whatever it may be, whatever
Speaker 1: the situation is, and we don't know the outlying situation,
Speaker 1: whether it is you did have considual sex and you
Speaker 1: didn't have protection, or because you didn't understand the way
Speaker 1: anatomy works. You didn't have full understanding what was happening
Speaker 1: with you. We already know was like there's sexual trauma
Speaker 1: within even normal situations that could be sexual trauma. And
Speaker 1: I want to say normal, I mean consensual situations or
Speaker 1: what it was consensual? Uh, like having understanding, would these
Speaker 1: Jay's coming in and be like, let me counsel you
Speaker 1: and let's have a deep conversation, but also we're going
Speaker 1: to set this whole place up like a home so
Speaker 1: that you feel comfortable and like not instead of in
Speaker 1: a theile, scary back haul like what people would search
Speaker 1: for at that point in time trying to get those
Speaker 1: illegal abortions. Really feel like these are professionals, Like that's wow,
Speaker 1: Like that's above and beyond. I love that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know that, and thinking about like I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: not in anywhere the same level of scale of what
Speaker 1: some other people have to deal with. I remember, um
Speaker 1: the first time, just so now that listeners no way
Speaker 1: too much about my sexual history and health. I went
Speaker 1: to go an sci screening the first time after I
Speaker 1: came out as trends and was willing to, you know,
Speaker 1: put down my actual gender on on forms and things
Speaker 1: like that, and I went to go again a t
Speaker 1: I screening and like, you know, and was in this
Speaker 1: stupid room with a stupid health practitioner who touched me
Speaker 1: inappropriately and like came onto me while you know, um
Speaker 1: touching my genitals and like yeah, and I'm like and
Speaker 1: then and then I it took me a long ast
Speaker 1: time before I went got st I screened again, you know,
Speaker 1: and like I'm not proud of that, and I'm sorry everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, but like but it's like and just thinking
Speaker 1: about what it must be like, yeah, like you're talking
Speaker 1: about being in this situation where you're like, fuck it,
Speaker 1: I'm giving myself an abortion, you know. Like so I'm
Speaker 1: like really not trying to shame this person who like
Speaker 1: chose not to go to the hospital until it's too late.
Speaker 1: You know. This is about, first and foremost, I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry that you went through that bullshit on every level
Speaker 1: and it was wrong and that person should be arrested
Speaker 1: and they are assholes, first and foremost. Yeah, I've had
Speaker 1: enough of my day with just people being bad people
Speaker 1: and what happened to you, Oh my god, I'm speechless
Speaker 1: in that. I hate that now I'm beginning to know
Speaker 1: you that whatever anyone would ever have to go through
Speaker 1: anything like that to a person that they should be
Speaker 1: able to trust. Professionals are someone that we should be
Speaker 1: able to trust. And you were kind of talking about
Speaker 1: that with the James being like Heathery being like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I think there needs to be a woman
Speaker 1: present so we can watch and make sure they don't
Speaker 1: feel traumatized. That in itself, Oh god, I am so
Speaker 1: sorry and that should not have happened to you and
Speaker 1: that was wrong in every fucking level. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's funny to like, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've like barely told people this and now I've told
Speaker 1: however many people of this um but like I don't
Speaker 1: have any I don't feel any like guilt or shame
Speaker 1: around it. I'm just angry, you know, and like right,
Speaker 1: and I'm angry that, like, you know, I was like
Speaker 1: so excited you like whatever, if I talked about this
Speaker 1: too much, I'll start crying. But like I was so
Speaker 1: excited that I could like fill out the form and
Speaker 1: actually write down that I'm like, you know, transwoman and
Speaker 1: ship like that, and it's like, oh, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: gender firming care. I've never had gender firming care. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, actually, be it being seen as a
Speaker 1: woman sucks everything. Um yeah, that's definitely just a whole
Speaker 1: different level of like this moment that you should be
Speaker 1: celebrating to be free, Oh my god, free here I am.
Speaker 1: I get to be here and be who I am,
Speaker 1: and then have this dick coming through and just ruining
Speaker 1: that moment and then honestly portraying their portraying their professionalism,
Speaker 1: betraying their profession, um and showing off as like oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you are evil in general and therefore you shouldn't they
Speaker 1: should not be a part of this profession whatever what not.
Speaker 1: But on top of that, yeah, that you had the
Speaker 1: audacity to take someone's hope. Yeah, in safety and I
Speaker 1: hate that. I am so sorry. And again yeah uh
Speaker 1: and I love yeah you being angry. Yeah you're better
Speaker 1: than I because I think I would like rage everywhere.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's a whole different conversation with me.
Speaker 1: J Now, I I am I am totally fine with
Speaker 1: rage and anger as a way of dealing with certain
Speaker 1: issues in society and in my personal life when when
Speaker 1: people are doing things um yeah, and yeah, coming back
Speaker 1: to I love that the Jain collective really kind of
Speaker 1: understood that level. And yeah, I hate that that someone
Speaker 1: died and that's not someone that they I know, like
Speaker 1: they were traumatized them, which is why we've got they
Speaker 1: Their whole attitude was like, we gotta do better. That's
Speaker 1: why we as women. Even though they were not doctors
Speaker 1: of medical professionals, it is concerning. I will say what
Speaker 1: I first read that, I was like, oh, that's a
Speaker 1: good idea. But understanding that they really cared about these
Speaker 1: people that were coming in and was all about giving
Speaker 1: them safety and understanding what they had to do is
Speaker 1: what they had to do because the doctors were no
Speaker 1: longer coming through because they were getting like the ro
Speaker 1: Versus way, it was really coming through about who was
Speaker 1: getting penalized and who was really getting targeted. Um, and
Speaker 1: so they had less and less options and why not
Speaker 1: if they can truly do a good job. And and
Speaker 1: the big thing was getting the right equipment, getting sterilized equipment.
Speaker 1: I know that was a big factor in it as well. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but you know who will sell you sterile medical equipment
Speaker 1: they can use? Tell me the products can we get?
Speaker 1: Can we get? Can we get sponsored by by at
Speaker 1: home Abortion Care. You know, one of our sponsors was
Speaker 1: playing b hell yeah yeah, so there you go. Okay,
Speaker 1: well and then we're sponsored by that and whatever. This
Speaker 1: other stuff is back from the break. That was a
Speaker 1: long one. Let's go. And you know who else kept
Speaker 1: going was was the Jain Collective because as as you
Speaker 1: were pointing out, like the this brush with death like
Speaker 1: shook them up because they I mean, it wasn't their fault, right,
Speaker 1: they didn't do anything wrong, but they care. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: was the whole point of them starting is because they
Speaker 1: wanted to prevent uh people from dying from this type
Speaker 1: of process and this type of access. And so even
Speaker 1: though it had nothing to do with them, it was
Speaker 1: still a death because of something. So yeah, and I
Speaker 1: was trying to make a joke about how they are
Speaker 1: actually just in it to make a quick book, but
Speaker 1: it wouldn't even work because it's so obviously untrue. Um.
Speaker 1: And so they keep going. Over a hundred women work
Speaker 1: as Jane. So the course of the project though generally
Speaker 1: is like twenty thirty at any given time, um, which
Speaker 1: is kind of interesting to have this like high turnover rate,
Speaker 1: Like oh, like is this casual thing. You go join
Speaker 1: this like very above ground, underground organization that's like committing felonies,
Speaker 1: which is cool. One Jane named Jeannie gallatzer Levy and
Speaker 1: she'll come up more later. She described her first meeting
Speaker 1: that she showed up to for orientation. There were like
Speaker 1: thirty women crammed into the dining. Each new volunteer was
Speaker 1: paired with a big sister who would get them on
Speaker 1: boarded like a mentor. And at each meeting, they would
Speaker 1: pass around index cards with all of the cases that
Speaker 1: needed to be handled, and everyone would take the cards
Speaker 1: of the cases that they wanted to handle, And of
Speaker 1: course that meant they like everyone took the easy cards first,
Speaker 1: you know, and then like the big complicated ones. Everyone's like,
Speaker 1: but you know, we've all been there. And so Jody
Speaker 1: Howard finally tells the rest of the group that sexy
Speaker 1: nick Man was not a quote unquote real doctor. Um
Speaker 1: and did we change did we change his name to
Speaker 1: Nick Man? No? Nick Mike? Sorry? I? Um, yeah, no
Speaker 1: nick Man, sexy man. I don't know, Yeah, it wrong.
Speaker 1: Everyone's listening an amazing, amazing by to sexy nick Man,
Speaker 1: sexy sexy sexy guy. Uh it's okay. So people take
Speaker 1: the news really hard, right, um. And the reactions fall
Speaker 1: into two camps, and half of them were like, we're
Speaker 1: no better than the back alley providers, and the other
Speaker 1: half were like, well, if crime guy can do it,
Speaker 1: so can we. And um. In general, the former camp
Speaker 1: left and the latter camp stayed, and many of the
Speaker 1: people who stayed. You know, I've I've read some said
Speaker 1: that half of the Jain's left, and I've read other
Speaker 1: things that said that's an exaggeration. I don't know, um, right,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the ones who stayed learned how
Speaker 1: to provide abortions, and abortion was kind of having a
Speaker 1: bit of a renaissance around this time in the late
Speaker 1: six season early seventies in terms of how it was done. Um,
Speaker 1: a lot of the abortionists, Yeah, we're sketchy Backelley providers,
Speaker 1: but um, but the Jain Collective wasn't the only ones
Speaker 1: who are taking it seriously and and caring. Other people
Speaker 1: were working their asses off to help people get abortions
Speaker 1: safely and effectively despite state repression. And we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: a little bit later, I think in part two about
Speaker 1: some of the things that the methods that people pioneered
Speaker 1: and which ones are still applicable to the name, which
Speaker 1: ones are not. Um, so so Nick Mike, he makes
Speaker 1: himself obsolete. Um he was a crime guy at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, and he's in it for the money,
Speaker 1: but he's willing to make himself obsolete. So he teaches
Speaker 1: a lot of Jane's how to do this because and
Speaker 1: they're like, well, we want to charge a hunter bucks
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, that's not gonna happen. So he
Speaker 1: teaches them how to do it, and then he sucks
Speaker 1: off and he's just like gone, his trail goes cold.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have you ever heard anything else there's this?
Speaker 1: So they're like, one of the things that I read
Speaker 1: was that that the mafia was after him and that's
Speaker 1: why he just disappeared. But that could have been just
Speaker 1: someone trying to make a big, bigger story and that's
Speaker 1: why we don't have nothing of them. But it could
Speaker 1: be as as simple as he didn't want any part
Speaker 1: of it. They it got a little hot. A lot
Speaker 1: of people were investigating different types of organizations, and because
Speaker 1: the doctors had pulled out, he pulled out too. And
Speaker 1: also he didn't get enough money since they were trying
Speaker 1: to downgrade the costs. So he was like, fine, never
Speaker 1: see you again. But yeah, I did hear that the
Speaker 1: mafia might have come after him. Yeah. I like to
Speaker 1: think that he rode away into the sunset on a
Speaker 1: mo recycle while smoking and then lived a hundred and seven.
Speaker 1: That's that's the version of him. Yeah, sexy Nick Mike
Speaker 1: has got he's got it to be in the sunset somewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for some reason, he is Mike Nick for me. But
Speaker 1: I hear what I'm saying, Nick, Mike is Mike Nick
Speaker 1: for me. And you know what, that's just a personal preference.
Speaker 1: I guess y, Nick Mike, Mike Nick can be whoever
Speaker 1: you need him to be, because he's just the sexy
Speaker 1: man he rode away, who shows up and teaches you
Speaker 1: how to provide abortions and then rides off at the sunset.
Speaker 1: Apply there you go. Who knew this is what we
Speaker 1: needed in our lives. But the greatest part is they
Speaker 1: only needed him for a little while, just a little while,
Speaker 1: because he made himself obsolete. And then at that point
Speaker 1: all of the work was being done entirely by women.
Speaker 1: And they also it wasn't just enough that they did
Speaker 1: it in the cold medical way. They also still wanted
Speaker 1: to again sort of demedicalize it, and they wanted to
Speaker 1: teach clients what was happening and give them agency. One
Speaker 1: of the one of the j Ruth Circle, in an
Speaker 1: interview said quote, it was one of the things we
Speaker 1: talked about a lot. We were not doing something to
Speaker 1: this woman. We were doing something with this woman, and
Speaker 1: she was as much a part of it and part
Speaker 1: of the process as we were. So that we would
Speaker 1: talk about how we relied on them. If we got busted,
Speaker 1: you know, we would explain that they were not doing
Speaker 1: something illegal. We were doing something illegal, but we need
Speaker 1: their help, and you know, you don't talk about it
Speaker 1: and we have to keep quiet. So I like that.
Speaker 1: They like basically they are like, look, because it wasn't
Speaker 1: illegal to get an abortion, was legal to give an abortion. Um,
Speaker 1: so the James were taking all of the legal risk um.
Speaker 1: But they basically brought everyone in and we're like, look,
Speaker 1: like you rely on us, we need to rely on you.
Speaker 1: And I think that's cool. Yeah, And not all of
Speaker 1: them performed abortion, some of them. Everyone took tasks that
Speaker 1: suited them best. They were callback Jane's who talked to
Speaker 1: the patients, and Big Janes, who would handle the coordination.
Speaker 1: At least one Jane later pointed out that decision making
Speaker 1: was kind of fraught within the collective. Um. They tended
Speaker 1: to suppress internal conflict and so everyone will like stay
Speaker 1: focused on the task and we don't have time to
Speaker 1: address the you know, power dynamics and the other issues happening. Um.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to like single them out for this.
Speaker 1: Every activist organization I've ever heard of does this, right,
Speaker 1: It's like something that we just need to be aware of.
Speaker 1: And I don't know whether this happens particularly in direct
Speaker 1: action groups or if I think that because most of
Speaker 1: the organizations I've been involved with more direct action groups.
Speaker 1: But it's just a thing that happens where like people
Speaker 1: are like, you know, like tree sitters are like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can't talk about patriarchy within the movement. They're cutting
Speaker 1: the trees down right now, you know, right, And so
Speaker 1: I think they had some of that going on, at
Speaker 1: least according to at least one of them. Later, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprising. Uh, And I go, of course, we
Speaker 1: don't know all of the jenes that came through, but
Speaker 1: it was pretty much ran by white women. Um, and
Speaker 1: when we know what happens when it comes to feminism
Speaker 1: and white women and where that can lead and who
Speaker 1: actually gate keeps what, there's always going to be situations
Speaker 1: with that. And then when you have something that is
Speaker 1: so uh as you said from but like uncertain, anything illegal,
Speaker 1: we know it's going to be uncertain, it's going to
Speaker 1: have a lot of stress. And I can't imagine what
Speaker 1: that looks like within a group, especially when we're also
Speaker 1: handled handling medical procedures on your own as well. So
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so many things to that. And again,
Speaker 1: like talking about who was getting access, a lot of
Speaker 1: people were getting access, but it's seeming like it was
Speaker 1: a lot of like college students at this point in time.
Speaker 1: We know that for young women to be in college,
Speaker 1: they probably had some money and even though they might
Speaker 1: not have as much money as others in society, they
Speaker 1: still had a little bit of access and higher economic
Speaker 1: status than than most. And again it says a lot
Speaker 1: too even though they were trying to be accessible, but
Speaker 1: the word of mouth went through, who who did it
Speaker 1: go to? Typically a middle class uh women so or
Speaker 1: middle class people at that point in time. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot to be said kind of the same way
Speaker 1: that if we wanted to go jump and I don't
Speaker 1: want to, because I did this with Robert a long
Speaker 1: time ago about playned parenthood and the beginnings of that.
Speaker 1: So you know, we know that that there is things
Speaker 1: that happen within movements and who was leading movements and
Speaker 1: what that could have been on the under underbelly of it.
Speaker 1: And because you know more than I do, but no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. And like, I mean, it's funny because once
Speaker 1: again you're reading my script ahead of me, and not
Speaker 1: in a bad way. No, I just I like that
Speaker 1: we're on the same page about this, because yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's one of the most important things to understand with
Speaker 1: a lot of this is like, um, it's mostly white women.
Speaker 1: It's almost exclusively white women doing this work. Um. In
Speaker 1: n seventy, New York and a few other states Hawaii, Alaska,
Speaker 1: and Washington legalized most abortion and suddenly there weren't as
Speaker 1: many middle class patients from that point, and because people
Speaker 1: could just fly or train out to New York and
Speaker 1: have a legal abortion stead of going all the way
Speaker 1: to the UK, and so they started serving the black
Speaker 1: community of Chicago more and more, but it was still
Speaker 1: white women doing it. And and yeah, when I when
Speaker 1: I first read, like, oh they advertised in the student paper,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, it's really cool as students have
Speaker 1: access to abortion, but that is not necessarily like the
Speaker 1: majority of the people in Chicago or whatever, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And I've only run across one, uh black chain, a
Speaker 1: woman named Louise, who joined basically to be like, look,
Speaker 1: y'all are doing a good thing, but it's like still
Speaker 1: kind of fucking weird that you're all white. And and
Speaker 1: then again and I read that basically her friends were like,
Speaker 1: what are you fucking doing? If these white women get caught,
Speaker 1: they'll get off, and if you get caught, you're you're
Speaker 1: fucked right. And I don't know that that ever had
Speaker 1: to be tested. I don't believe it. It It was ever tested.
Speaker 1: Uh well, the fact that white women getting arrested ended up, okay,
Speaker 1: was tested, but I did I don't believe any I
Speaker 1: believe Louise was the only black Jain and certainly the
Speaker 1: only one I ran across uma And and just the
Speaker 1: little research that I did, I didn't see her name
Speaker 1: pop up and like or who she was. So yeah, again,
Speaker 1: probably being identified is not a thing you want to
Speaker 1: be doing an underground totally. Um. But yeah, absolutely that's
Speaker 1: dangerous on so many levels. And we understand that, and
Speaker 1: in Chicago and itself long ugly history of segregation and such.
Speaker 1: So now that Nick Mike has gone and they're providing
Speaker 1: the abortions themselves, though their prices are able to drop dramatically.
Speaker 1: Their abortions were nominally a hundred dollars, but realistically they
Speaker 1: took whatever the patient could offer. They averaged about fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: The drivers were the ones collecting the money and somewhere
Speaker 1: between the front and the place, but they didn't count
Speaker 1: the money. They just were handed money and took it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they were handed jars of change, and when they could,
Speaker 1: were taken out of every you know, and if there's
Speaker 1: at least twenty five dollars a far as I understand,
Speaker 1: twenty five is taken out and put into a revolving
Speaker 1: loan fund where people could come and say, like, I
Speaker 1: need a loan to get it, and they would have
Speaker 1: no interest loan. That kind of is a like, look,
Speaker 1: please pay it back, but we're not like sending to
Speaker 1: anyone to your house if you don't pay it back,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's kind of a like please pay
Speaker 1: it back, not up, you must pay system. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: And it's and it's kind of thing where it's like
Speaker 1: natural non system. But like I assume they weren't like,
Speaker 1: don't starve yourself to pay us back, right, you know? Um,
Speaker 1: And you know, they basically were just like, this is
Speaker 1: so that the next woman who needs an abortion can
Speaker 1: have one if you can, you know. And that's and
Speaker 1: that's where we're gonna leave it today with Jane in
Speaker 1: their heyday. They're all women collective providing safely legal abortions
Speaker 1: and to the people of Chicago, which is it's pretty
Speaker 1: freaking cool. Yes, do you have any like final thoughts
Speaker 1: for today or or do you want to I'm just
Speaker 1: so excited that we're talking more about this. I discovering
Speaker 1: all these things being on an intersectional filminist show and
Speaker 1: coming to like, yes, let's keep talking about it. This
Speaker 1: is amazing. I love it. But yeah, but being realistic
Speaker 1: about you know, it wasn't glamour and it wasn't as
Speaker 1: easy obviously as it should be. And this is the
Speaker 1: problem when we have limited access or no access and
Speaker 1: then when we start criminalizing people were trying to just
Speaker 1: live Like that's just But I'm excited that we are
Speaker 1: talking about Yeah, and I really want to, like, whenever possible,
Speaker 1: I really want to do like a warts and all
Speaker 1: version of the show, because like when you hold up
Speaker 1: people as heroes and like this person was perfect and
Speaker 1: you're like, well, I'm not perfect. I can't be a hero,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like no, like these people like
Speaker 1: got lots of things wrong and they just did amazing
Speaker 1: shit anyway, um right, and and nobody is perfect besides dogs, correct,
Speaker 1: besides dogs. And my dog's a dick but I love her.
Speaker 1: But yeah, on the top of the back that I'm honest,
Speaker 1: We're honest about it. But yeah, she's the best part perfect. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: So if he gets angrier and angrier at the idea
Speaker 1: that the dog might not be perfect, don't you can't
Speaker 1: say it. I don't see it. But yeah, like I
Speaker 1: think in that's the thing is like, honestly, what comes
Speaker 1: down to I love discovering and I know we're gonna
Speaker 1: keep talking about it, but about these cool people is
Speaker 1: that it wasn't that they wanted to be a hero.
Speaker 1: And that they didn't do anything wrong before or don't
Speaker 1: have wrong perspectives or may have misspoke. Uh, it's just
Speaker 1: that they saw a need and they did something about it.
Speaker 1: And that's what we get to celebrate totally, and you
Speaker 1: can you can celebrate more with us on the part
Speaker 1: two of this two part series on Wednesday, when we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk in more detail about exactly what services they
Speaker 1: offered and how it all went down. Um, and some
Speaker 1: of the other people who have taken up the torch
Speaker 1: in the decades since them. Samantha, anything you want to
Speaker 1: plug before we head out? Oh yeah, So if this
Speaker 1: interest you and you like to learn more about women
Speaker 1: in history and the intersectionality of it all, you should
Speaker 1: come listen to Stuff Mom Never Told You, which you
Speaker 1: can also find on the I Heart Radio app or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcast. You can follow us Stuff
Speaker 1: I've Never Told You on Twitter and on Instagram. You
Speaker 1: can also follow me McVeigh sayum, I believe is my
Speaker 1: Instagram and then Sam McVeigh on Twitter. Y'all, I'm struggling.
Speaker 1: I'm not really active, but sometimes I exist. Um. There's
Speaker 1: a very cute dog picture on your Instagram where you're
Speaker 1: wearing matching Halloween not fits. So that's that's what I
Speaker 1: would like to plug at the end. Here is that
Speaker 1: photo your pumpkins? Yeah? Anyways, well we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1: We'll see you all Wednesday. Yeah. Cool People Who Did
Speaker 1: Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Speaker 1: zone media dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.