Speaker 1: I'm Katie Curic, and this is abortion the body Politic,
Speaker 1: Part four at the Supreme Court today an historic upheaval.
Speaker 1: Brow is dead. The Conservative Court world six to three
Speaker 1: Friday to uphold a Republican backed Mississippi law that bands
Speaker 1: abortion after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, and five of those
Speaker 1: justices went even further, voting to overturn Roe versus Wade itself.
Speaker 1: And the question of abortion has been returned to the states.
Speaker 1: After the Supreme Court took away the federal rights an abortion.
Speaker 1: On June, abortion rights supporters flooded city streets from Seattle
Speaker 1: to Boston and right here in New York City about it. Already,
Speaker 1: a delusive litigation is underway. Thirteen states have abortion bands
Speaker 1: in place, designed to be triggered and take effect immediately
Speaker 1: after row Fell as if this recording. At least six states,
Speaker 1: including Missouri, have begun to enforce their trigger bands to
Speaker 1: prohibit abortion entirely, but the anti abortion wins are not
Speaker 1: all immediate. A judge has granted a restraining order blocking
Speaker 1: Utah's abortion band from being enforced. At least two states
Speaker 1: have temporarily blocked enforcement of their trigger law bands on abortion.
Speaker 1: In the first three parts of this series, we traced
Speaker 1: how we got to this point, because the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: decision didn't happen in a vacuum, and in fact, the
Speaker 1: dismantling of Row is still one moment in the long
Speaker 1: arc of reproductive rights in this country. There's still a
Speaker 1: way to go, and part of that journey is understanding
Speaker 1: how we tell stories about abortion in the first place.
Speaker 1: Today we're examining how abortion has been explored and reflected
Speaker 1: in popular culture and Hollywood, whether we realize it or not.
Speaker 1: The movies we have loved and the TV shows we
Speaker 1: watch represent the collective imagination of our culture at any
Speaker 1: particular moment in time. Filmmaker Gillian Ropespierre directed the ten
Speaker 1: brom com Obvious Child, which is still held up eight
Speaker 1: years later as a movie that got abortion right. We
Speaker 1: happened to talk to Gillian on the day Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade was overturned before we talk about the role of
Speaker 1: storytelling and conveying messages about abortion. Gillian, what was your
Speaker 1: reaction when you heard the news? Yeah, Um, I'm an
Speaker 1: easy cry, so I feel like I'm getting just you know,
Speaker 1: we knew it was coming. It wasn't that a total surprise. Um.
Speaker 1: But I was sitting in room with my writing partner
Speaker 1: this morning, and she's a woman, and uh, we stopped.
Speaker 1: We just looked at each other and started crying. UM,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't. You don't finish our work. But I'm
Speaker 1: glad we had each other. Um. And it's devasity, it's
Speaker 1: good it. It feels like after the tears came just
Speaker 1: like anger and pain. Um. But also I'm fueled by
Speaker 1: I'll show you that's sort of why I even made
Speaker 1: this movie in the first place. So I do feel
Speaker 1: like after the tears and and I will work with
Speaker 1: the anger to to continue to figure out how to
Speaker 1: protest and how to get out of this mook. I'm
Speaker 1: trus what you think Hollywood's responsibility is and what it
Speaker 1: can do to to change hearts and minds and inform
Speaker 1: people about the importance of reproductive rights. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think just to bring it back to sort of
Speaker 1: the story of how I made Obvious Child and how
Speaker 1: I got it made. I made it outside of the
Speaker 1: studio system. I didn't ask for that permission. But um,
Speaker 1: the reason why we made it is because it almost
Speaker 1: felt like a dare all these films that that came
Speaker 1: out in the mid two thousands about um, young women
Speaker 1: having unplanned pregnancies, and they never even mentioned the word abortion.
Speaker 1: Um and and it was a nerving to to watch
Speaker 1: those films, and it made it a silent enemy. And
Speaker 1: I just my whole life, I've kept on waiting for
Speaker 1: a film where um they made that they gave abortion
Speaker 1: a happy ending. You know, I love Dirty Dancing and
Speaker 1: I love Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and those are
Speaker 1: movies that I watched as a child, and Dirty Dancing,
Speaker 1: uh kind of was a scary depiction. You know, it
Speaker 1: was true to the time. But I'm a little kid
Speaker 1: in the eighties and I was terrified. Uh there was
Speaker 1: blo she almost died. Um In Fast Times, it was
Speaker 1: you know, she Jennifer Jason Lee's character had no reservations
Speaker 1: about making that choice, which I thought was cool. But
Speaker 1: my young brain only took away from that movie that
Speaker 1: losing your virginity hurts, and guys suck and it's cool
Speaker 1: to have an older brother. Um. But when I had
Speaker 1: my abortion, I couldn't help but think of all of
Speaker 1: these movies, these awful depictions, and yeah, I was scared,
Speaker 1: and did I think I was did across my mind
Speaker 1: that I could die. Yeah, but that was not you know,
Speaker 1: the reality is I had a very nice abortion. I
Speaker 1: wasn't met with anti choice protesters or mean doctors or
Speaker 1: unsupportive parents are partner. It was not traumatizing, and I
Speaker 1: was relief. Um And and all of those movies, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of scared me. What about Knocked Up
Speaker 1: in Juno for example? Where did you see the narrative
Speaker 1: of those movies? Not kind of fulfilling your view of abortion? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm also a huge fan of rom coms. I love them,
Speaker 1: and I feel like those movies were the ones that
Speaker 1: were daring me to try to make a rom colm
Speaker 1: with an abortion that had an happy ending, Like I
Speaker 1: dare you, idiot, try it. You're going to fail because
Speaker 1: because no one wants to see that movie. And so
Speaker 1: that's sort of what spurred Obvious Child was to try
Speaker 1: to make a film where the abortion is the catalyst
Speaker 1: for abudding romance and and to show that in a
Speaker 1: movie with an abortion can be both funny and poignant
Speaker 1: and entertaining. Um and it could you know, show positive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no stigma or shame is involved this. You know. Donna,
Speaker 1: our main character had an abortion, without feeling guilty or traumatized,
Speaker 1: and that was similar to my experience. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me a little briefly for people who haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: who probably will head to to YouTube to see it now,
Speaker 1: But can you tell me a little more about the plot,
Speaker 1: just so we can give people an idea? Yes, so um.
Speaker 1: It's about a young woman in her twenties named Donna
Speaker 1: Stern played by the amazing Jenny Slate and Donna Stern
Speaker 1: is a born and raised New Yorker who's a stand
Speaker 1: up comedian and her boyfriend dumps her and she has
Speaker 1: a one night stand with the very handsome and tender
Speaker 1: Jake Lacey. Uh. She realizes she had is pregnant and
Speaker 1: she decides to have an abortion, and the movie sort
Speaker 1: of shows her reeling from the pain of a breakup
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out will she or won't She
Speaker 1: tell Jake Lacey's character it's never, um, will she won't
Speaker 1: she have the abortion? Maybe you want to tell him, no, why,
Speaker 1: why you don't owe him anything? You don't even know
Speaker 1: this guy. Maybe he just deserts to know that like
Speaker 1: this happened, that I'm not a psycho and I'm going
Speaker 1: to get an abortion um, and it's framed in a
Speaker 1: you know, romantic comedy inspired by uh, you know, all
Speaker 1: of the films from from my childhood that I devoured
Speaker 1: and you know, the girl always gets the guy, but
Speaker 1: now she also has her future. Unfortunately, I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, because we we missed, we we were we
Speaker 1: couldn't tell everyone's story, and obviously, child we can only
Speaker 1: tell one woman's story. And Donna came from privilege, and
Speaker 1: you know, had all this support. She lived in New York,
Speaker 1: so she at access, and so you know, the hopes
Speaker 1: were that other stories could sort of burst from this.
Speaker 1: I really thought that there is going to be this
Speaker 1: giant change in in movies in the depiction of of
Speaker 1: unplanned pregnancy and abortion. And I think there were you know,
Speaker 1: there's some great films m Eliza Hitman, who's a pal
Speaker 1: of mine, never, rarely sometimes always. I just watched I'm
Speaker 1: Pregnant yesterday for the first time, and I thought that
Speaker 1: was really great film. You know, there's so many stories
Speaker 1: to be told. What now for Hollywood? Do you think
Speaker 1: this will create a whole new um interest in films
Speaker 1: about reproductive rights? I sure hope. So it feels like
Speaker 1: we're too late, But I sure hope so, because um,
Speaker 1: we have to continue to make art and tell us
Speaker 1: to worries that don't silence our experiences because I think, um,
Speaker 1: I think silence is the greatest weapon. But I also
Speaker 1: uh don't think Hollywood in the studio system is built
Speaker 1: to take risks. I UM, I personally don't think telling
Speaker 1: these stories are risky. I think we've seen in a
Speaker 1: lot of films that these stories work well. You know,
Speaker 1: that can be both entertaining and also important. My name's
Speaker 1: page and I was twenty nine when I had my abortion.
Speaker 1: My abortion story begins with mating my boyfriend Charlie. In
Speaker 1: the summer. We started dating and absolutely fell over hill,
Speaker 1: head over heels in love um and practiced very safe sex,
Speaker 1: ironic lay and we felt pregnant about two months in.
Speaker 1: It was interesting because when I read the pregnancy result,
Speaker 1: I felt excitement as my first feeling. I told him
Speaker 1: right away and he was excited and so very um
Speaker 1: you know, a nice emotion at the start that ended
Speaker 1: up really challenging the decision making process. Um. And really
Speaker 1: I had very little to go off. I couldn't talk
Speaker 1: to my friends about it or my family. I had
Speaker 1: never known anyone who had ever gotten an abortion. All
Speaker 1: I had to go off was what I had understood
Speaker 1: of it from popular culture references, and for me growing up,
Speaker 1: that was the movie Dirty Dancing, where it was essentially
Speaker 1: a girl living on the streets who gets butchered in
Speaker 1: a garage. I've you said, he wasn't real empty the
Speaker 1: guy had dirty knife. In the folding cable I could
Speaker 1: hear was screaming in the hallway, or Juno, who she
Speaker 1: gets shamed out of it. Your baby probably has a
Speaker 1: beating heart, you know, it can feel pain. And he
Speaker 1: dos fingernails, finger nails really and one day, you know,
Speaker 1: we go pick up groceries. I'd be like, okay, now
Speaker 1: we can do it. And then in the next aisle
Speaker 1: he would say my job don't pay enough. I don't
Speaker 1: see how he can do it. And then the next
Speaker 1: style I would say, well, maybe I can go back
Speaker 1: to Australia, and then the next stile was what we
Speaker 1: can't give up every It was just so volatile in
Speaker 1: terms of decision making, because what I learned from movies
Speaker 1: is that if you can do it, you should do it.
Speaker 1: I have a personality where if something makes me scared,
Speaker 1: I'll try to run really almost lean into it, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's moving overseas or pursuing a career that I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm ready for X of imposter syndrome or
Speaker 1: whatever else, or running the New York City Marathon. And
Speaker 1: what my therapist actually shared, what she said, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: but you were your time to prepare or to get
Speaker 1: comfortable with the choice. And she said, you didn't turn
Speaker 1: away from this because you were scared. You turned away
Speaker 1: from this was because it wasn't a choice. Um, it
Speaker 1: wasn't your choice. I chose to go the medicine route
Speaker 1: because I wanted to avoid a procedure um and you know,
Speaker 1: going under, whether it's a general anesthetic or a local anesthetic.
Speaker 1: And this to me felt like I could do in
Speaker 1: the privacy of my home. It would still have the
Speaker 1: same results. Um, it just seemed like more appropriate choice
Speaker 1: for where I was, at least in the pregnancy. I
Speaker 1: think even though I had clear direction, it's still such
Speaker 1: an overwhelming moment that I had times where I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: did I write that down correctly? Have I taken an
Speaker 1: hour to early hour too late? Because you just felt
Speaker 1: like you've got a lot of weight on this moment
Speaker 1: um and then taking the tablets. It was like very
Speaker 1: very very bad cramps. And it lasts some time, um,
Speaker 1: and you are kind of alone. You're alone while it happens,
Speaker 1: and when you're going back and forth to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: and so it can feel a little bit lonely, but
Speaker 1: you kind of get to a point where like, I
Speaker 1: just need to get through and I want it done now.
Speaker 1: I'm happy with my choice. I'm glad what I decided
Speaker 1: to do. And it put a lot of things on
Speaker 1: my radar, having children and having a family, potentially marriage
Speaker 1: and what that really means to me. And so there's
Speaker 1: gifts that have come out of it, and it's made
Speaker 1: me really really UM. I can't ignore what's happening in
Speaker 1: America and I'm a part of it. And I don't
Speaker 1: want anyone to feel some of the bad feelings that
Speaker 1: I experienced. And if I can be there for someone,
Speaker 1: even strangers, I would want them to message me because
Speaker 1: I don't. No one's alone. It's actually shocking how not
Speaker 1: alone we are and how many people take this option.
Speaker 1: After the break a comedy show about abortion, Hi, how
Speaker 1: are you do you think? It's like a tin fabulous.
Speaker 1: At the end of April, I went to see a
Speaker 1: comedy show. It was at the historic Cherry Lane Theater
Speaker 1: in a quaint little pocket of Manhattan's West Village. The
Speaker 1: night we went, the show was still in previews, but
Speaker 1: that didn't matter. It was a packed house. Hi everyone,
Speaker 1: if you're here for Alison, leave me. The line starts
Speaker 1: right here. Please have your baggy Gregy ready and off
Speaker 1: stand your ticket. Thank you so much. It was called
Speaker 1: Oh God, a show about abortion. The comedian is Alice
Speaker 1: and leave. Thank you for being here, Thank you for
Speaker 1: coming to what my dad calls my special show. Now.
Speaker 1: My parents are super supportive. My mom texted me kill
Speaker 1: it tonight. That was like, already did so why there's
Speaker 1: a show I had an abortion three years ago. Thank you. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to lose the no baby weights. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna challenge. I'm not surprised that I needed an abortion.
Speaker 1: I am surprised I needed one when I was old
Speaker 1: enough to run for presidents That after the show, I
Speaker 1: headed to the green room so Allison and I could
Speaker 1: talk shop. I mean, oh God, how did you decide
Speaker 1: to do a show about abortion? I really I it
Speaker 1: kind of happened organically. I mean, obviously the experience happened
Speaker 1: to me. It was not planned, but as a stand
Speaker 1: up on somebody who just like writes about what happens
Speaker 1: and what I see in the world and things I
Speaker 1: think are funny, and I was like going through that experience,
Speaker 1: and I was like, there's funny stuff here that isn't
Speaker 1: the normal stand up abortion content. I feel like when
Speaker 1: people get up and talk about abortion and stand up,
Speaker 1: it's usually theoretical or someone liners. I feel like people
Speaker 1: don't tell the whole story because like no one really
Speaker 1: wants to sit in it that long, because it makes
Speaker 1: people uncomfortable even though it shouldn't. So I wrote a
Speaker 1: couple of jokes bombed so hard every time I told them,
Speaker 1: like the first like five times, just getting up and
Speaker 1: doing a ten or fifteen minutes set and in the
Speaker 1: middle like trying to slip in this abortion material, and
Speaker 1: like you could just you could feel people men crossing
Speaker 1: their arms, just like really closing down. And it's like
Speaker 1: it's because I wasn't confident and yet I was still
Speaker 1: you know, new jokes are always kind of weaker just
Speaker 1: because you're not ready to say them yet. And the
Speaker 1: way that you do when they're done, also popping them
Speaker 1: in the middle of a routine. That's sort of hard
Speaker 1: thing to right. But I eventually got to a point
Speaker 1: where that wasn't that hard because I like the jokes
Speaker 1: that like, I had the confidence where people were like,
Speaker 1: she's bringing this up and then being like we can,
Speaker 1: She's going to guide us through this, like this is
Speaker 1: not going to be awful. And so I kind of
Speaker 1: started getting the material together and I had like five minutes,
Speaker 1: and then I had ten minutes, and then I kept
Speaker 1: being like, oh, this and this, and and I all
Speaker 1: of a sudden I had like fifteen or twenty minutes
Speaker 1: that worked, and I was like, well, if I could
Speaker 1: do twenty, I could probably do an hour. I mean
Speaker 1: that kind of insane ego logic where I'm yeah, I
Speaker 1: can do anything, right. I went to Planned Parenthood in
Speaker 1: Soho in New York City, the fancy downtown neighborhood, because
Speaker 1: I'm a fancy bitch um, and I was nervous that
Speaker 1: there would be protesters, just because in TV and film
Speaker 1: and the news, I've always seen tons of protesters in
Speaker 1: front of abortion clinics. I'm like, I don't like wire
Speaker 1: hangers in my closet. I don't want them in front
Speaker 1: of my healthcare clinics. Okay, But I went and there
Speaker 1: were not like all, you know, there weren't all of
Speaker 1: the crazy things that you would expect. There were just
Speaker 1: like four old Catholic people standing across the street silently,
Speaker 1: like it just looks like that painted American gothic twice,
Speaker 1: but like less scary because they didn't even have a pitchfork.
Speaker 1: Thank god. There is a much more intimidating force outside
Speaker 1: of the Plan Parenthood and SOHO in New York that
Speaker 1: is threatening women who are seeking abortions, and that is
Speaker 1: across the street from Plan Parenthood there is a luxury
Speaker 1: maternity wear store called Hatch. What who own is that?
Speaker 1: Mike Pets Like, how did you determine what else you
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about? Because you talk obviously about growing up,
Speaker 1: and it really becomes kind of a full social commentary
Speaker 1: on your life in a way. I guess the most
Speaker 1: natural way to tell this story is to like step
Speaker 1: back and look at it from the bigger picture of like,
Speaker 1: how do I feel about sex and abortion? And I started?
Speaker 1: The thing that's changed the most since I started writing
Speaker 1: it is like, what is this serious thing I'm saying?
Speaker 1: And and what is the what is the come? Like?
Speaker 1: What am I trying to tell people by telling them
Speaker 1: about abortion? And it really because it happened to me
Speaker 1: when I was so much older. The motherhood conversation with
Speaker 1: myself was so real in a way that at five,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have thought about that, and it would
Speaker 1: and and it it impacts you know what people think
Speaker 1: your choices are less like if you're and need an abortion,
Speaker 1: no one's like and now she'll never be a mother,
Speaker 1: Like she's made her choice. No, you have a whole
Speaker 1: life of your fertility in front of you. But when
Speaker 1: you're older, it kind of is this definitive decision. Women's
Speaker 1: identity and motherhood are like so collapsed in our culture
Speaker 1: that it's actually everything you do, every decision you make,
Speaker 1: everything you do is kind of connected to this idea
Speaker 1: and this identity. And that's terrible. But what's hard about
Speaker 1: managing these fears about fertility is that, like there is
Speaker 1: no kitchen timer on men's fertility, women's fertility is very set.
Speaker 1: If you're a woman, you're and with all the eggs
Speaker 1: you're ever going to have forever and if you're pregnant
Speaker 1: with a daughter, all the eggs she's ever going to
Speaker 1: have are already inside of you, which explains a lot
Speaker 1: of our love of big purses, you know, just like
Speaker 1: dig around. You're like, all right, phone, pea's wallet, Kleenex,
Speaker 1: a Clementine from two and a half weeks ago, my eggs,
Speaker 1: her eggs. All right, let's go out. We're ready. Men
Speaker 1: create sperm throughout their lives. Men are creating sperm at
Speaker 1: the rate that everline is creating unflattering pants constantly. Like okay,
Speaker 1: to put it in context, Richard gear is seventy, his
Speaker 1: wife is thirty six. We don't have time to get
Speaker 1: into all of the problems with that relationship. But when
Speaker 1: they have sex, she is the one that's worried that
Speaker 1: she's not going to be able to be a parent
Speaker 1: because she's too old. She is the one who is
Speaker 1: worried the thirty six year old, not the seventy year old,
Speaker 1: which is crazy because in every other context, he's the
Speaker 1: one you're worried about walking downstairs eatings. What words we
Speaker 1: culturally decided we don't say anymore. Why did you decide?
Speaker 1: I mean, especially now, it's so prescient that this was
Speaker 1: an important piece of work for you to do and
Speaker 1: an important issue for you to tackle comedically. I just
Speaker 1: feel like abortion gets such like a heavy hand in
Speaker 1: pop culture so often, and it is always treated as
Speaker 1: this like trauma, and I think it is for many
Speaker 1: women who experience it, but it's not for everyone who
Speaker 1: experiences it, and it doesn't have to be necessarily. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the trauma is imposed by by
Speaker 1: society because of the the morality that is imposed on
Speaker 1: women who choose to terminate a pregnancy, yes, and also
Speaker 1: the women who have to jump through way more hoops
Speaker 1: to do it. I mentioned in the show, But like,
Speaker 1: of course I'm an incredibly incredibly privileged woman in the
Speaker 1: circumstance I had resource, says, I was in New York City, Like,
Speaker 1: I did not have to drive hundreds of miles or
Speaker 1: spend money I didn't have, Like it really was a
Speaker 1: lot easier for me, yeah, or not more or not
Speaker 1: be able to have an abortion all right, because you
Speaker 1: just didn't have access and you had no choice exactly,
Speaker 1: and so like, so much of that trauma is based
Speaker 1: on the politics of abortion. But also I think that
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of people with a narrative that
Speaker 1: looks like mine, and I hadn't seen it reflected in
Speaker 1: stand up. Very often when women talk about their bodies
Speaker 1: on stage, it's inherently politicized. I've heard so many men
Speaker 1: tell me so many things about their bodies into a
Speaker 1: microphone and it never once gets a reaction of like,
Speaker 1: but like when women do it all the time, it does.
Speaker 1: And so I've heard like here and there people talk
Speaker 1: about abortion a little in passing, just to be like
Speaker 1: starting that conversation, and I was like, I think I
Speaker 1: could tell the whole thing. Like I think laying out
Speaker 1: every detail makes it seem so much more mundane because
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, and then you do this, and then
Speaker 1: you do this, and you had to get there like this,
Speaker 1: and that, Like it makes it a task or like
Speaker 1: an errand um when presented procedure, like removing a skin
Speaker 1: tag or getting a colonoscopy, or like any of the
Speaker 1: things that like we easily can joke about and depict
Speaker 1: as not politicized and not traumas. And so I thought
Speaker 1: I could do this. Probably I've said abortion more in
Speaker 1: the last two years that I've said cumulatively in my
Speaker 1: entire life, and it does get easier, and even just
Speaker 1: talking about it like this or about the show with
Speaker 1: a friend, like I'm finding that like there's just ease
Speaker 1: to it, and like that's all that's my only goal
Speaker 1: for well, my goal is like for it to be
Speaker 1: funny first and foremost, and number two just be like,
Speaker 1: can't we just talk about this more? Can't we all
Speaker 1: just say this more? I had the incredible experience of
Speaker 1: many times when I first started working out the show
Speaker 1: in much smaller spaces where I was like, got off
Speaker 1: stage and I was like, well, now I'm in the
Speaker 1: crowd and we're all just hanging out because there's twelve
Speaker 1: of us here, um many women who would come up
Speaker 1: to me and just be like I had one too,
Speaker 1: and just instantly like feel like from seeing it, like
Speaker 1: the ability to share that in a way that I
Speaker 1: don't know how often they share that. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like very often usually, And I'm like, well, if that's
Speaker 1: what the show does, then that's like all I could
Speaker 1: possibly wanted to do is for people to feel able
Speaker 1: to tell someone me, a total stranger or like someone
Speaker 1: in their life about an experience they had and not
Speaker 1: feel bad about it. More on abortions, betrayal, and popular
Speaker 1: culture right after this. So what kind of an impact
Speaker 1: can film and TV have on shifting attitudes when it
Speaker 1: comes to heated social issues. You can look to gay
Speaker 1: rights for one example of the power of representation. I
Speaker 1: remember waking up and realizing we were in bed naked
Speaker 1: with each other, right because that happened? But what about abortion?
Speaker 1: For more than a decade, a team of researchers out
Speaker 1: of San Francisco have been trying to find out. My
Speaker 1: name is Gretchen Sistem. I'm a sociologist at the University
Speaker 1: of California, San Francisco in the Department of eccentric Skin,
Speaker 1: Ecology and Reproductive Science UM, and I'm the lead investigator
Speaker 1: for the Abortion on Screen program that studies how abortion
Speaker 1: and reproductive decision making are portrayed in American film and television.
Speaker 1: We started the program back in and the idea that
Speaker 1: time was to to start looking more at culture change
Speaker 1: and and and considering how abortion was part of our
Speaker 1: pop cultural conversations. One of the earliest depictions that we
Speaker 1: found as a silent film from nineteen sixteen called Where
Speaker 1: Are My Children? UM. It was made by filmmaker Lois
Speaker 1: Webber UM, who was herself a rarity at the time
Speaker 1: as as a woman filmmaker in the nineteen tens. The
Speaker 1: plot line is a bit convoluted, but it's it's effectively
Speaker 1: about a district attorney who's prosecuting a physician UM who's
Speaker 1: been performing abortions and has a patient die. And in
Speaker 1: the process of this investigation, the district attorney discovers that
Speaker 1: his wife has been kind of helping people find this provider,
Speaker 1: and then he also discovers that his wife has had
Speaker 1: abortions herself UM, which has led to her inability to
Speaker 1: get pregnant. It's not a sort of revolutionary depiction by
Speaker 1: any means. It just was the first one, right. It's
Speaker 1: very it's very stigmatizing. It talks about abortions being very dangerous,
Speaker 1: which it could often be at the time UM, but
Speaker 1: it also relied on UM a lot of racist and
Speaker 1: eugenicis ideas about both birth count role and an abortion.
Speaker 1: The first abortion story that we saw on television was
Speaker 1: UM the legal show The Defenders. The Defenders aired on
Speaker 1: April two. The episode is about the trial of an
Speaker 1: abortion provider, Mr Preston. In the past eight years, over
Speaker 1: twenty thousand expected mothers have come into my office each
Speaker 1: one of the morning an abortion twenty thousand. It's like
Speaker 1: deeply stigmatizing, right. It sort of presents abortion as as
Speaker 1: the choice of very desperate women. Um, the provider is
Speaker 1: very clear that, like, he doesn't do abortions for some women,
Speaker 1: for women who are, you know, too promiscuous and just
Speaker 1: don't want to deal with the consequences of their actions.
Speaker 1: On what the basis did you design to operate? More
Speaker 1: than half of them were married, Harry fused all them.
Speaker 1: Why there was nothing preventing them from having children? I mean,
Speaker 1: this defender's episode is absolutely a product of its time.
Speaker 1: It makes a strong case for legality. Right, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to feel for this doctor, You're supposed to see him
Speaker 1: as a moral character, But you're supposed to feel comfortable
Speaker 1: with abortion, not because it's something that women need and
Speaker 1: deserve as a right to control their own bodies, but
Speaker 1: because there's this paternalistic system of lawyers and doctors making
Speaker 1: these decisions, not really women making these decisions. By two,
Speaker 1: you have MOD, and MOD was actually an anomaly. I
Speaker 1: don't actually think MOD was reflective of its time. And like,
Speaker 1: if you look at the other stories that were being
Speaker 1: told around mod mod is exceptional. It was one of
Speaker 1: the first stories that focused on the woman making the
Speaker 1: decision and having the abortion. You don't have to think
Speaker 1: that way anymore. It's legal now. She's right, it's legal
Speaker 1: the New York stage, but to give that a thought,
Speaker 1: and her daughter kind of makes a joke like, well,
Speaker 1: it's just like going to the dentist now. And then
Speaker 1: she Maud turns around and trying to convince her husband
Speaker 1: now to get a vasectomy. She's like, I hear, it's
Speaker 1: just like going to the dentist together in a sectomy. Um.
Speaker 1: But Maud does end up getting getting her abortion, and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of protests at the time. By
Speaker 1: the early eighties, it's a lot of this, like both sides.
Speaker 1: One example that I think is really excellent UM excellent
Speaker 1: in that it is very reflective of the moment that
Speaker 1: in which it aired was Cagney and Lacy, which aired
Speaker 1: in and Cagney and Lacy were too police officers in
Speaker 1: New York City. This particular episode one inve UM was
Speaker 1: about character comes to the pre saying because she's trying
Speaker 1: to access an abortion and um, she's scared of getting
Speaker 1: through the line of protesters outside of the clinic, and
Speaker 1: Cagney and Lacey um kind of escort her there and
Speaker 1: get her through the engage with the protesters. You actually
Speaker 1: never find out if this woman gets her abortion. Excuse me, ma'am,
Speaker 1: I'm an officer of the law. This lady's going inside
Speaker 1: and stop and think about what you are doing before.
Speaker 1: So it's not about the woman getting the abortion in
Speaker 1: a meaningful way, it's very much about her story. Creating
Speaker 1: this conversation between Cagney and Lazy. I was raised Catholic.
Speaker 1: This is hard one for me. Oh, I see you doing.
Speaker 1: Women like Mrs Herrera are wrong. I don't have a
Speaker 1: right to make their own decisions. I didn't say that,
Speaker 1: But there are other choices besides abortion. So what you're
Speaker 1: seeing here is a lot of what was happening in
Speaker 1: the eighties. One protesters right, Like, we're seeing this ramping
Speaker 1: up of a really active anti abortion movement that's blocking
Speaker 1: clinic entrances, that's making the people seeking services uncomfortable. You
Speaker 1: see this like both sides, right, we have to be
Speaker 1: fair and balanced and how we're we're talking about this
Speaker 1: the most prototypical nineties story that I liked it On
Speaker 1: is the TV film UM, If These Walls Could Talk,
Speaker 1: If These Walls Could Talk, A sort of three A
Speaker 1: story about three vignettes. The first one is a story
Speaker 1: about illegal abortion. Stars Demi Moore. Her character is a widow,
Speaker 1: a recent, very recent widow. She has been in part
Speaker 1: of her grief having an affair with her late husband's brother,
Speaker 1: and she finds out she's pregnant. It's clear that it
Speaker 1: could not be her husband's child. Um, she seeks an
Speaker 1: illegal abortion. Anybody else here, no where's your kitchen. She
Speaker 1: has the abortion on her kitchen table, and she dies hospital.
Speaker 1: The next story is about a mother with teenage children
Speaker 1: who finds out that she is pregnant and she considers
Speaker 1: getting an abortion. Um. She doesn't really want to be pregnant,
Speaker 1: her children are older, she doesn't really want to start
Speaker 1: over with the baby. I just want you to understand
Speaker 1: how important school is to me. Come on, honey, I
Speaker 1: know that, No, you don't. If you did, you know
Speaker 1: that my quitting school isn't the answer to everything. Um.
Speaker 1: She really goes back and forth and weighs her choices.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to let you know what I decided.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have the baby. And this was really
Speaker 1: typical of what we saw in the nineties, which we
Speaker 1: call the averted abortion. Now this one was wasn't like
Speaker 1: typical of an averted story necessarily because a lot of
Speaker 1: these stories were a character gets pregnant, considers having an abortion,
Speaker 1: decides not to get one, and then has a miscarriage
Speaker 1: or then finds out that the pregnancy test was a
Speaker 1: false positive. Right, So in those cases, the character doesn't
Speaker 1: have to deal with the consequences of choosing to continue
Speaker 1: the pregnancy. There's no miscarriage in that particular story. But
Speaker 1: because of the structure of the film, with like sort
Speaker 1: of this one vignette that fades out, this next vignette
Speaker 1: that fades and you moved to an entirely different story. Basically,
Speaker 1: as soon as she decides to continue the pregnancy, that
Speaker 1: story is over and then you have the third fvignette
Speaker 1: is about an abortion provider who's put by Share and
Speaker 1: with Um with clinic violence and the provider being killed
Speaker 1: by the boyfriend of a patient that she is um
Speaker 1: that she's treating at the time. Can I I ask
Speaker 1: you a question, m It's all that you have to
Speaker 1: do is why do you, why do you still do this?
Speaker 1: Because I remember what it was like when it was
Speaker 1: illegal for women to make this decision. I don't ever
Speaker 1: want to see those days come again. And also when
Speaker 1: a woman comes to me and says that she doesn't
Speaker 1: know what she would have done without my health, I
Speaker 1: know I'm doing the right job. And so you see
Speaker 1: her like literally after being shot, like laying on the
Speaker 1: floor of the clinics, the doctors. But what we really
Speaker 1: see in the nineties is totally consistent with this like
Speaker 1: Bill Clintonian idea that was prevalent at the time, which
Speaker 1: is abortion is between a woman and her doctor, and
Speaker 1: we're striving for safe, legal and rare. When you look
Speaker 1: at like, why is the screenwriter including an abortion and
Speaker 1: the story in the nineties, it was because the decision
Speaker 1: is dramatic, The decision is hard. The decision is going
Speaker 1: to bring a character to a crisis point for a relationship,
Speaker 1: for a count, you know, like a put them on
Speaker 1: a different half. Right, the decision itself is what the
Speaker 1: story was about. Um And again, this is this is
Speaker 1: where we were in our politics, this is where we
Speaker 1: were in our cultural narratives. Is what we see on
Speaker 1: the screen when we come Back filmmakers on why they
Speaker 1: want to tell new abortion stories. The good news is
Speaker 1: filmmakers are breaking free of those old abortion tropes because
Speaker 1: of new streaming technology. There's frankly, just a lot more
Speaker 1: movies and TV out there, and more content means more
Speaker 1: abortion stories, and those stories are starting to take some chances.
Speaker 1: Here's Gretchen's co researcher, Steph Harold. So today you don't
Speaker 1: often see a character who's kind of going back and
Speaker 1: forth like, well, I have the abortion, why not? What
Speaker 1: am I gonna do? I need to ask everyone around me? Um?
Speaker 1: For example, we see just in the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: we've had shows like Shrill on Hulu where a character
Speaker 1: like as soon as she gets pregnant, she knows that
Speaker 1: she wants to have an abortion right and ultimately the
Speaker 1: the abortion actually helps her see more clearly other things
Speaker 1: in her life. I got myself into this huge fucking mess,
Speaker 1: but I made a decision only for me, for myself,
Speaker 1: and I got myself out of it. The abortion has
Speaker 1: become less about um um like drama in someone's life
Speaker 1: about the decision, and more about oh, this is a
Speaker 1: moment where a character is investing in themselves um and
Speaker 1: is realizing what, you know, what's going on in their
Speaker 1: life that they want to change or want to do differently.
Speaker 1: There have been a couple of movies that have come
Speaker 1: out in the last couple of years I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: um never rarely sometimes always I'm Pregnant, that have tried
Speaker 1: that have shown they're kind of like abortion road trip movies,
Speaker 1: like one is very serious and one is like a
Speaker 1: Buddy Coming. But they show these young teenagers who need
Speaker 1: to travel long distances to get the abortion that they
Speaker 1: need because they can't in their state because there are
Speaker 1: these laws that make it so they need to share
Speaker 1: with their parents and they don't want to. It shows
Speaker 1: that they have to travel, they have to figure out
Speaker 1: how they're going to know miss school and how that
Speaker 1: will be explained, they need to get the money to
Speaker 1: pay for the abortion, um and lots of various hijinks
Speaker 1: and sue along the way. Both of the movies some
Speaker 1: you know, like greatly serious, some hilarious. So I think
Speaker 1: those have done a good job at helping audiences to
Speaker 1: see and really make visible those kinds of experiences. Okay,
Speaker 1: I know We're not like close anymore, true, and I'm
Speaker 1: probably the last person that you want to help accurate.
Speaker 1: But you have a car there it is. Trust me,
Speaker 1: if if I could just go somewhere in town or
Speaker 1: to St. Louis, even I wouldn't even here. I'm Rachelie
Speaker 1: Goldenberg and I am the director and co writer of Pregnant.
Speaker 1: The earliest abortion media memory that I have is dirty dancing.
Speaker 1: You know, when I first thought, I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: that it was an abortion storyline. And then as I
Speaker 1: got older, you know, realized it and had actually heard
Speaker 1: the writer, heard eleanor Bursting talk about this and say
Speaker 1: that what she did was if you want to put
Speaker 1: abortion in a story, you need to make sure that
Speaker 1: it's essential to the plots that it cannot be cut out.
Speaker 1: If it's a new storyline and see storyline, it's gonna
Speaker 1: get cut out. But if you make something essential for
Speaker 1: your a storyline happen around it, then you get to
Speaker 1: hold onto it. And so uh so we did with
Speaker 1: I'm Pregnant. Is it's very much the a storyline. Unpregnant
Speaker 1: is based on the y A novel of the same
Speaker 1: name by authors Jenny Hendricks and Ted Kaplan. Rachel's movie
Speaker 1: came out in seventeen year old overachiever Veronica gets pregnant
Speaker 1: and needs an abortion, and because of Missouri's restrictive laws,
Speaker 1: she must drive a thousand miles to get one, and
Speaker 1: she enlists the help of her wild ex bests friend
Speaker 1: Bailey and Chaos and sues, Well, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things because my when my writing partner and I were
Speaker 1: reading the book and we said, can that be write
Speaker 1: a thousand miles? And we so we did, researched all
Speaker 1: the surrounding states. It just felt inconceivable that would literally
Speaker 1: be a thousand miles. And then yeahs is the closest,
Speaker 1: closest access that Ronica could have. As a quick side
Speaker 1: note amidst all the bad news about abortion in this country,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to report there is at least one improvement
Speaker 1: that would have dramatically cut down for Ronica's trip. As
Speaker 1: of mere days ago June one, Illinois no longer requires
Speaker 1: that minors seeking abortions get parental consent. You know, the
Speaker 1: the intention of the book was, you know, to to
Speaker 1: sort of show how difficult this journey is and to
Speaker 1: de stigmatized abortion, and so taking that mission but finding
Speaker 1: other ways to do that. In the film, was my mission.
Speaker 1: So for example, the the scene with the abortion itself
Speaker 1: where we go into the clinic, that was one of
Speaker 1: those things where it wasn't quite written in that detail
Speaker 1: or you weren't in the moment to moment with Veronica
Speaker 1: in the book for that. But I took a tour
Speaker 1: of a Los Angeles plan parenthood and they walked me
Speaker 1: through all the steps and I because my abortion was
Speaker 1: was a pill and so I hadn't been through the
Speaker 1: surgical process, and I was like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: didn't know any of this. We need to show people
Speaker 1: all of this. You know, they're shocking things like finding
Speaker 1: out that in under ten minutes you're in and out
Speaker 1: of the surgery room. It's actually not that complicated a procedure.
Speaker 1: So that sort of thing felt really important to me
Speaker 1: to bring bring to the table. But then, you know,
Speaker 1: the spirit of things that were in the book are
Speaker 1: ways that we just you know, the things that we
Speaker 1: brought to the film as well, like just not uh
Speaker 1: not having Veronica uh make a pro and con list.
Speaker 1: You know, she knew what she wanted to do. She
Speaker 1: was clear on her decision. And the problem and in
Speaker 1: the in the film is how do I get it,
Speaker 1: how do I get access? What was fascinating that I
Speaker 1: didn't anticipate when I started the process with Unpregnant was
Speaker 1: how I would become a vessel for people's stories. I'm interviewing,
Speaker 1: you know, two different casting directors, and they both are
Speaker 1: telling me about their auctions, and I'm, you know, hearing
Speaker 1: sort of all the different perspectives. And that actually was
Speaker 1: hugely informative in the process for the film, because I
Speaker 1: am so familiar with my own experience, but to hear
Speaker 1: other people's stories and really help broaden my understanding my
Speaker 1: own perspective was helpful for the film because when we
Speaker 1: did occasionally get the notes about should she make a
Speaker 1: pro and calm list or how difficult should you know,
Speaker 1: should this be for her? I could really draw from
Speaker 1: my own experience and defend how confident she was in
Speaker 1: her decision and how and how she moves on. And
Speaker 1: you know, the most difficult part for her afterwards is
Speaker 1: talking to her mom about it, not the fact that
Speaker 1: she did it. Not sure I'll ever understand. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I know. Is I love you, sweet people, so much
Speaker 1: more than all of that. Okay, She's like probably a
Speaker 1: lot of people in America who who have an understanding
Speaker 1: of abortion is something that's bad. But then if there's
Speaker 1: someone in their life that that that it touches, then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, they're not going to cut that
Speaker 1: person out of their life. You know, most parents love
Speaker 1: their kids more than they hate their choices. There's a
Speaker 1: perception that it's a hot button issue and people are
Speaker 1: on one side or the other, but the truth is
Speaker 1: that it's it's usually much more gray, And to me,
Speaker 1: that's an opportunity because it feels like there's a move,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of space to bring people over to acceptance.
Speaker 1: I am actually uh working on the next abortion project
Speaker 1: that's in a totally different space right now. Um that's
Speaker 1: not quite ready to be talked about, but it's um yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a totally different tone and totally different um subject matter.
Speaker 1: And so looking more critically at the history um of abortion,
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those things where it's like,
Speaker 1: is it anyone's responsibility? No, no one has to do anything,
Speaker 1: but this is a right that we're losing. It's like
Speaker 1: it's fucking diret right now. It's crazy. And so you know,
Speaker 1: anything that anyone can do in whatever space they're in.
Speaker 1: It's all important, and it's all necessary, and well, you
Speaker 1: don't have to do anything. It's almost like as much
Speaker 1: as anyone's doing isn't enough right now, we all have
Speaker 1: to be doing everything. Um so it's it feels, yes,
Speaker 1: very urgent. I think like film can help you understand,
Speaker 1: understand things are complicated, understand things that are foreign to
Speaker 1: you or to your experience. And so I hope that
Speaker 1: more people will be valuing film and making things that
Speaker 1: are sober and well considered and well researched, because in
Speaker 1: the you know, we have a truth problem, and and
Speaker 1: I think the only way to to address that it's
Speaker 1: to be really rigorous in our storytelling and not just
Speaker 1: appeal to people's heartstrings, but to do the hard work
Speaker 1: of you know, following A to B and allowing people
Speaker 1: to see for themselves what's really happening if they will look.
Speaker 1: My name is Dawn Porter, and I'm a filmmaker. I
Speaker 1: primarily make documentary films. Don Porter is part of a
Speaker 1: larger cohort of documentarians who are tackling the reality of abortion.
Speaker 1: Her film, called Trapped, looks at targeted regulation of abortion
Speaker 1: providers or trapped laws. It felt like for people like
Speaker 1: me who were like pro choice on paper, that we
Speaker 1: kind of needed to see what was really happening UM,
Speaker 1: And what was really happening is people who did not
Speaker 1: have access to birth control, who did not have medical
Speaker 1: insurance UM, who were on public assistance, were caught in
Speaker 1: a system where they were hoping to not get pregnant
Speaker 1: and hoping not to make this decision. And there were
Speaker 1: no faces to go along with what was happening in
Speaker 1: the clinics. And I thought people have this mistaken idea
Speaker 1: that it's irresponsible party girls, that people didn't give a
Speaker 1: lot of thought to the idea of abortion, and nothing
Speaker 1: could be further from the truth. There was nobody whooping
Speaker 1: and hollering and celebrating UM. The biggest reaction when we
Speaker 1: would ask people who were recovering and who agreed to
Speaker 1: talk to us was relief. I'm so glad that that.
Speaker 1: I'm so relieved, you know, they were with a doctor
Speaker 1: who kept them safe, that they you know, the actual
Speaker 1: procedure also takes five minutes. Five minutes. It is a
Speaker 1: clump of cells UM in most cases, and the overwhelming
Speaker 1: number of cases, I was shocked by that, and I
Speaker 1: thought people need to kind of see what it actually is,
Speaker 1: because there's so much rhetoric that happens that we are
Speaker 1: influenced by, even if we are a pro choice, that
Speaker 1: we kind of needed. I wanted to bring medicine back
Speaker 1: into it, but also some humanity, you know. I think
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful influences of film is the
Speaker 1: ability to um generate some empathy. Um. But also I
Speaker 1: think it was really helpful to destigmatize abortion. And at
Speaker 1: every single screening, without fail um, somebody stood up and said,
Speaker 1: I want to tell my abortion story for the first time,
Speaker 1: and many many people cried, and I think they were
Speaker 1: crying from relief that a lot of women had a
Speaker 1: lot of shame that they were somehow to blame for
Speaker 1: their abortion stories. When it comes to the greater landscape
Speaker 1: of abortion stories on screen, Don says, there's still a
Speaker 1: ways to go. I think that that there are some um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's some efforts in some awareness, and I
Speaker 1: think Planned Parenthood Karen's Bruk in particular, is part of
Speaker 1: her job is to help advise creators about what really
Speaker 1: happens in abortion situations. So I think that there are
Speaker 1: some bright spots, But um, I don't think it's really um. Still,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's realistic. I don't think we talked
Speaker 1: enough about the economics of abortion. I don't think we
Speaker 1: talked about the number of minority women who are making
Speaker 1: this choice. I really don't see those stories on TV.
Speaker 1: You see a young, attractive like girl who gets pregnant
Speaker 1: and is, you know, shouting her femininity. Um, but I
Speaker 1: think that that is um. That's not a full representation
Speaker 1: of what's actually happening. Again, here's step Harold. I need
Speaker 1: to see characters who are ordering pills online, having their
Speaker 1: abortions themselves at home, surrounded by their loved ones, having
Speaker 1: their friend there with them, googling because their friend did
Speaker 1: this last month, instead of a legal abortion being this
Speaker 1: kind of um dark thing that happened in the past.
Speaker 1: We need to see how characters are going to navigate
Speaker 1: this moment where abortion is illegal again, but now we
Speaker 1: have the technology to get the abortion pills ourselves, right,
Speaker 1: and what it means for them to do that medically safely,
Speaker 1: but have it be legally risky, which is what it
Speaker 1: is in real life. Right. Um. We need to see
Speaker 1: characters grapple with Now, if I'm caught, what will happen
Speaker 1: because we know that, you know, people across the country
Speaker 1: are already being criminalized for for managing their own abortions.
Speaker 1: And then I think it's just having an entire TV
Speaker 1: series that focus on abortion right, abortion clinics or abortion funds,
Speaker 1: abortion travel networks. If there's so much Mitch storytelling possibility there, um,
Speaker 1: instead of having it be you know, you're one really
Speaker 1: promiscuous character, it gets pregnant and has an abortion, and
Speaker 1: that's it. That's a wonderful story to tell, but it
Speaker 1: can't be the only one that we see. We need
Speaker 1: to see better representation of all kinds of people who
Speaker 1: have abortions on television and film. Right. We need more
Speaker 1: TV shows and films period that focus on characters of color.
Speaker 1: But we also need to see those characters having their
Speaker 1: abortions and supporting their friends and family having abortions. UM.
Speaker 1: That I think that is crucially important, UM for representation. Right.
Speaker 1: It helps everybody who's going through their abortions now feel
Speaker 1: us alone. UM, it helps um normalize abortion and abortion experiences. Obviously,
Speaker 1: representation doesn't fix everything, but it's a small step towards
Speaker 1: people feeling not alone, people feeling secure and safe. In
Speaker 1: their decision. My name is Jack, my pronouns are they.
Speaker 1: Then there's We're in sexual education and wellness, and I'm
Speaker 1: based out of Los Angeles. It's so weird. It's been
Speaker 1: ten years now. I had an abortion when I was twenty.
Speaker 1: I was in college and I was in a relationship
Speaker 1: with my high school sweetheart. We grew up in Miami
Speaker 1: together and we both ended up going to college in Orlando.
Speaker 1: It was not a good relationship, unfortunately. It was very
Speaker 1: toxic and it was very back and forth. And what
Speaker 1: had happened was is the condom broke. I did go
Speaker 1: ahead and take a Plan B, but that only really
Speaker 1: stopped too from ovulating. And apparently I'm just fertile. So
Speaker 1: I believe at about a month I want to say,
Speaker 1: like three or four weeks goes by. I had my
Speaker 1: twentieth birthday. I'm thinking everything should be fine, but I
Speaker 1: never start my cycle. So I grew up a pregnancy test,
Speaker 1: try it to be on it, and it immediately comes
Speaker 1: back positive. You know, at the time, I had fairly
Speaker 1: freshly come out as a non binary person. I think
Speaker 1: at the time I was identifying specifically as a gender
Speaker 1: and that I've always experienced dysphoria from having a womb.
Speaker 1: It's not really been so much of an external experience
Speaker 1: for me, Like I love, I'm cool with the way
Speaker 1: I look, I'm cool with all that. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: just the concept of having a womb and the concept
Speaker 1: of being pregnant is absolutely mortifying to me. So I
Speaker 1: communicated with the partner I had at the time, and
Speaker 1: we both were very much team abortion. We called I'm
Speaker 1: nervous as hell. I make an appointment for the first
Speaker 1: one that was available for saying in the morning, like
Speaker 1: eight in the morning. I believe as soon as I
Speaker 1: could get one was about a week out too, which
Speaker 1: was not fun because I'm sitting for a week going
Speaker 1: still pregnant, not not too stoked on that, you know.
Speaker 1: I remember walking in seeing protesters they had something there
Speaker 1: was there was a signage that was specifically um like
Speaker 1: targeting or marketing father saying like it's your baby too.
Speaker 1: And when I go in, the person in the whoever
Speaker 1: the receptionist was, was just the sweetest person in the
Speaker 1: world is immediately smiling at me, and a lot of
Speaker 1: my anxiety kind of went down after meeting them, and
Speaker 1: they were playing maide in Manhattan in the lobby. Oh
Speaker 1: Lord almost sund on your faith right there, and I'm
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican. So I was like, wait, this, lets you
Speaker 1: a sign JL. Yes, JL soothed my fears about this
Speaker 1: abortion situation. I chose to have a medication abortion specifically
Speaker 1: versus a surgical one because well, one, it was cheaper
Speaker 1: by about a hundred dollars and this was not something
Speaker 1: that I had pocket money for. Um. And the second
Speaker 1: big reason for me is I was really uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: the concept of having someone just in my crotch. UM.
Speaker 1: I did not want to be exposed to strangers in
Speaker 1: that way. I felt really uncomfortable with that. So I
Speaker 1: thought that this would be a better a better option
Speaker 1: because I could take I could take these pills, I
Speaker 1: could go home. You take one at the clinic and
Speaker 1: then you take the rest home like Unfortunately, that same year,
Speaker 1: something passed in Florida right before I went to get
Speaker 1: my abortion, where you had to get a transvaginal ultrasound
Speaker 1: that is an internal ultrasound. That is not the cute
Speaker 1: see in the movies. A little bit of Jillian your
Speaker 1: telling me, no, they put something inside you. And that
Speaker 1: is kind of what I was trying to avoid that
Speaker 1: kind of situation was exactly what I was trying to
Speaker 1: stare away from by choosing medication abortion. But unfortunately they
Speaker 1: wanted to, I guess, make sure that I was pregnant,
Speaker 1: even though I was pretty damn sure I was pregnant. Um,
Speaker 1: and then when I went back for a follow up
Speaker 1: in two weeks, I had to do that again. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at the time, this is this happened in two thousand eleven.
Speaker 1: I want to stay around there. You know, at the time,
Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of conversations about trans people in
Speaker 1: medical spaces, especially in healthcare situations. You know, there's no
Speaker 1: you'll see it now, especially now that I live in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, you know, and you fill out your forms,
Speaker 1: there's a space for a preferred name, there's a space
Speaker 1: for your pronouns. I feel like now we're beginning to
Speaker 1: recognize that not everybody who has a uterus or needs,
Speaker 1: you know, this kind of reproductive health care is going
Speaker 1: to identify as a woman. So fantastic, but again, ten
Speaker 1: years ago, not not a thing. So I had to
Speaker 1: go into this thing by myself and have conversations with
Speaker 1: you know, very sweet staff. Really, I really appreciate how
Speaker 1: much they were trying to help me, But it was
Speaker 1: really difficult to go in for service where every two
Speaker 1: seconds you're being miss gendered and you're being talked to
Speaker 1: and about as if you are of an identity that
Speaker 1: you're not. Being miss gendered is very much an act
Speaker 1: of violence, and it's very upsetting to have to be
Speaker 1: in that space where you're already vulnerable something I don't
Speaker 1: like being, and then I have to navigate that. I
Speaker 1: didn't tell very many people about it either. I live
Speaker 1: with my older sister at the time too, and I
Speaker 1: never mentioned it. You know, clearly I was unwell, but
Speaker 1: I didn't talk about it. I didn't even tell my
Speaker 1: family till years later. For me, the experience was something
Speaker 1: that I just it was in the way. It was
Speaker 1: just something I needed to get done, um so I
Speaker 1: could continue my life. I've never felt guilty about it.
Speaker 1: I've never felt um, you know, ashamed of having had
Speaker 1: an abortion. It was just it's a thing. It happened.
Speaker 1: I had my feelings, and I'm moving on. I did
Speaker 1: a fellowship UH and an internship with Planned Parenthood specifically,
Speaker 1: and I volunteered with Nayral and other other organizations, other
Speaker 1: reproductive rights UM organizations, and the experiences weren't weren't great.
Speaker 1: I feel like even though that these people, you know,
Speaker 1: we're definitely trying to fight for the same endgame where
Speaker 1: you know, obviously abortion accesses is fully there. The way
Speaker 1: that I was spoken to, especially then, was not acceptable.
Speaker 1: You know, it was always very much you know, we
Speaker 1: have to make sure women have access to this first,
Speaker 1: and then we'll cover nuances like you know, transgender not
Speaker 1: conforming people accessing abortion, or people of color neating abortion.
Speaker 1: The narrative was always very much around sis gendered white women,
Speaker 1: and I just I was always put off by that
Speaker 1: because it just doesn't that's not how this works. It's
Speaker 1: never it's never been successful to just aim to support
Speaker 1: one group and then it trickles down. That's it's never worked.
Speaker 1: So I don't know where that idea came from. So
Speaker 1: when I was finally presented with an opportunity to be
Speaker 1: in a cohort where the majority of the people there
Speaker 1: are people of color, and eventually, you know, I was
Speaker 1: the only trans person at first, but eventually not Now
Speaker 1: there are other trans people talking about similar experiences. When
Speaker 1: I first heard that there was another trans person who
Speaker 1: was going to be joining me testify. I cried because
Speaker 1: I had not I've never met or spoken to any
Speaker 1: other trans person that's had an abortion. I know where,
Speaker 1: I know we're there, I know we're out here. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a completely different experience. We can actually interact
Speaker 1: with that person when other people actually, um, you know,
Speaker 1: you've come to me other trans folks and then gender
Speaker 1: not conforming folks come to me with you know, you
Speaker 1: made me feel like like I'm okay, like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be fine. You know, we're out here. This is normal.
Speaker 1: My heart I can't. It kills me, but it's good.
Speaker 1: It's good. High listeners for all of you who have
Speaker 1: been with us these last four episodes, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Two quick things. One, if you're interested,
Speaker 1: Alison Leave's comedy show Oh God to show about abortion
Speaker 1: got extended. Find more about how to see it in
Speaker 1: l A or New York at oh God show dot com. Also,
Speaker 1: how are you all doing considering all that's happened. I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can call this number
Speaker 1: one eight four four four seven nine seven eight eight
Speaker 1: three and leave me a message about what you're thinking.
Speaker 1: Or maybe the actions you're taking, or even things you
Speaker 1: have learned want to share about abortion. Your message might
Speaker 1: be included in a future episode, and we really will
Speaker 1: appreciate hearing from you. All that number again one eight
Speaker 1: four four four seven nine seven eight eight three. Abortion
Speaker 1: The Body Politic is executive produced by me Katie Curic
Speaker 1: and was created by small team led by our intreptid
Speaker 1: supervising producer Lauren Hansen, editing and sound designed by Derrick
Speaker 1: Clements researched by Nina Perlman. Production and editing help for
Speaker 1: this episode from Julia Weaver and Mary do and a
Speaker 1: special thanks to k c M producers Courtney Litz and
Speaker 1: Adriana Fasio