Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Before we start this week's episode, UM, I
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know that this episode will be
Speaker 1: for all of the men, women and everyone in between
Speaker 1: UM to definitely just open your ears, UM, be open
Speaker 1: to learning. We are bringing you, guys an episode that
Speaker 1: a lot of you have asked for, UM, and with
Speaker 1: the current climate going on, I think that we would
Speaker 1: do disservice to all of you by not having this conversation.
Speaker 1: So for the next hour UM, across from us, we
Speaker 1: do have professionals. We will be digging into everything regarding
Speaker 1: women's rights and what's going on with abortions, UM, and
Speaker 1: of course just our bodies and what the rights that
Speaker 1: are being taken away from us right now. So I'm excited.
Speaker 1: It's a Monday morning. We here as always, it's horrible decisions.
Speaker 1: I'm your girl, Mandy. Hi, I'm easy, and we have
Speaker 1: two wonderful people here to join us in this conversation.
Speaker 1: Can you go ahead and introduce your selves to our
Speaker 1: listeners and let them know why you guys are sitting
Speaker 1: across from us. Hi, thank you guys for having us.
Speaker 1: I'm Lacy and here with Danielle UM. I am kind
Speaker 1: of a newcomer to this work. I've been more deeply
Speaker 1: involved in the last year, but um, prior to that,
Speaker 1: I worked in media for like the last ten years
Speaker 1: and really wanted to help put the medicine in the
Speaker 1: sugar and have recently transitioned into working in sexual and
Speaker 1: reproductive health and rights. And Danielle actually who you'll meet
Speaker 1: in a moment um. I attended a meeting with her
Speaker 1: in January of oh seven, ye of seventeen, dating myself.
Speaker 1: I came to a meeting in my community and she
Speaker 1: was speaking about, like, you know, post Trump, like what
Speaker 1: was going on, and she lit a fire under my
Speaker 1: ass and I started to volunteer and become an advocate
Speaker 1: and eventually work for an organization that does this work.
Speaker 1: So here to talk about everything, yes, yes, and then YEA,
Speaker 1: what is it that you do? U, I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to be here. I'm excited to have you. UM. So
Speaker 1: I work for an organization called the National Institute for
Speaker 1: Reproductive Health. I am the vice president of Political and
Speaker 1: Government Affairs, which is a lot to say with my
Speaker 1: very long first and last name. As well. We heard, girl,
Speaker 1: I gotta like gear up to do it in meetings, um,
Speaker 1: and what that means is and I r H as
Speaker 1: an organization that works at the state and local level
Speaker 1: to try to UM improve access to abortion another reproductive
Speaker 1: health care UM. One of the things that I always
Speaker 1: clarify and this is important for like the general public,
Speaker 1: but also people in the movement. We're a reproductive health
Speaker 1: and rights organization. So what that means is we focus
Speaker 1: on changing laws UM. With that comes culture change and
Speaker 1: UMU community organizing. But it's all sort of with the
Speaker 1: the premise of trying to change laws in policies. There
Speaker 1: is UM an additional movement called Reproductive Justice UM, which
Speaker 1: is what we try to use to inform the work
Speaker 1: that we do. But that is really a much more
Speaker 1: holistic movement UM designed to advocate for people to have
Speaker 1: children and families when they want to and where they
Speaker 1: want to, and for it to be safe and healthy
Speaker 1: for them to do that UM. And it's a movement
Speaker 1: that is created by and led by people of color,
Speaker 1: started by black women primarily UM. So I always feel
Speaker 1: like I want to like clear if I where we
Speaker 1: sit within the movement well, and I also want to
Speaker 1: touch on just kind of how hard I know that is,
Speaker 1: especially with the climate change so on one of my flights.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what city I was going to, but
Speaker 1: I ended up watching On the Basis of Sex, which
Speaker 1: is about Ruth Ginsburg. If you guys, um watched that movie.
Speaker 1: It was literally a woman lawyer who took I guess
Speaker 1: her law studies to go and change women's rights and
Speaker 1: kind of all of the outdated laws that are specific
Speaker 1: to gender mostly women. UM. So I just know that
Speaker 1: that's very hard to do. And before we start this conversation,
Speaker 1: I guess one of the things that you actually came
Speaker 1: in and said before we start having the conversation, you said,
Speaker 1: we need to touch on who has abortions, before we
Speaker 1: get into the stigma surrounding it, before we bring up
Speaker 1: any myths, and before we even talk about the shape
Speaker 1: surrounding it. We want to talk about who has abortions.
Speaker 1: So what is your who has abortions? I mean we do,
Speaker 1: I'm the same, Um. The answer is sort of everyone.
Speaker 1: Abortion is extremely normal. Um. There's not a ton of
Speaker 1: medical procedures in this society that we treat the way
Speaker 1: we treat abortion. And by not a ton, I mean
Speaker 1: like none, Um, other than abortion. You don't have to
Speaker 1: go to a tonsilectomy clinic. To get your tonsils removed,
Speaker 1: you go to the hospital where you get the rest
Speaker 1: of your medical Um. So the people who have abortions
Speaker 1: are um, of every age, of lots of genders. Some
Speaker 1: men have women who have abortions. Um, some men have abortions. Uh.
Speaker 1: Anybody who can become pregnant can have an abortion. How
Speaker 1: do men have abortions? Trans people, gender binary people identify
Speaker 1: people who frankly have an even harder time accessing medical
Speaker 1: care than women do. Right. Um, and uh, the statistic
Speaker 1: it changes a little bit. It's one in four, one
Speaker 1: in five women have had an abortion, one in four
Speaker 1: recently when I was looking it up and whether it's
Speaker 1: one and four and one and five five percent difference,
Speaker 1: But like it's crazy how I went online on our
Speaker 1: Twitter like the day the Georgia thing happened or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want men to send in
Speaker 1: your abortion stories. And I was really grateful for the
Speaker 1: men that stood by women and saying like, hey, this
Speaker 1: happened to me too. I mean, we didn't get ourselves
Speaker 1: pregnant it, you know what I mean. And a lot
Speaker 1: of times men don't include themselves in this conversation as
Speaker 1: far as the abortion experience goes, as far as the
Speaker 1: emotions that go behind the confusion, the financial worries, like
Speaker 1: it's a two part job, but only one person holds
Speaker 1: the baby. But yeah, consider ourselves lucky if we get
Speaker 1: a ride to the clinic right right when you're right,
Speaker 1: two people were involved in or even not only that,
Speaker 1: even even the experience from the man automatically saying, well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna abort it. So there's also the pressure that's
Speaker 1: automatically given from the man. But then I also know
Speaker 1: a lot of men who didn't feel like they were
Speaker 1: a part of the decision that was made. So like
Speaker 1: the man has felt it from either side. So I
Speaker 1: think that that's very interesting. I wanted to get into
Speaker 1: I guess now that we know everyone is a part
Speaker 1: of the abortion conversation, UM, I wanted to get into
Speaker 1: some of the myths UM. And before we get into this,
Speaker 1: as you guys know, Weeie and I have both shared
Speaker 1: our abortion story on this show before and I said
Speaker 1: something that I would like UM to possibly mend um
Speaker 1: or correct um. And as you guys know, I this
Speaker 1: is a learning process for me with this podcast, with
Speaker 1: bringing people on with learning, you know more about a
Speaker 1: ton of things. So something that I said and something
Speaker 1: that I guess and I don't even know how I
Speaker 1: learned it, and I guess you guys can make me
Speaker 1: unlearn it. There's a lot of misinformation, a lot. So
Speaker 1: in the abortion episode, I did mention that there could
Speaker 1: be caused, um, fertility issues could be caused with abortions.
Speaker 1: Um and Lacy was like, girl, Um, so what is
Speaker 1: the actual physical damage that can be done to the
Speaker 1: reproductive system if having an abortion? And if not, where
Speaker 1: did that come from? So abortion is like exceptionally safe.
Speaker 1: It's one of the safest medical procedures out there. It's
Speaker 1: safe here now. Seriously, abortion is exceptionally safe. Um. That
Speaker 1: misinformation come from the anti abortion movement, and the anti
Speaker 1: abortion movement is loud and it is not concerned with
Speaker 1: the truth or accuracy in any um and Son. It's
Speaker 1: designed to scare you. Um, and it's designed to make
Speaker 1: you question this decision that you've already decided is right
Speaker 1: for you. Right. So abortion is exceptionally safe. Um. When
Speaker 1: abortion is done in UH safe setting, where it's legal,
Speaker 1: where providers are trained, where you're receiving abortion care. The
Speaker 1: way you're receiving healthcare. In general, abortion is exceptionally safe. Um,
Speaker 1: when folks can access abortion earlier in pregnancy, of course. Um,
Speaker 1: but of course we've thrown up all these barriers to people,
Speaker 1: um accessing the religion. What are the other tactics like
Speaker 1: you're seeing needs to make people guilt chip their abortion?
Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot. The one thing I
Speaker 1: do just want to add before I address that, though,
Speaker 1: is abortion is significantly safer than childbirth. You are far
Speaker 1: more likely to die in childbirth than you are to
Speaker 1: die in an abortion, especial especially now, especially if you
Speaker 1: were a black woman. The rates of maternal mortality in
Speaker 1: the US are at astronomical. Abortion is safer than pushing
Speaker 1: it out, and for black women it's something like twelve
Speaker 1: times higher than for everyone else. High in New York City.
Speaker 1: In New York City, I was going to say, that's
Speaker 1: what I heard about New York too. I heard it's
Speaker 1: higher in New York than anywhere else. We're up there.
Speaker 1: It's not the high, but it's high. Although if you
Speaker 1: start breaking the numbers don't even further. If you're a
Speaker 1: black woman giving birth in the South, ron and it's
Speaker 1: basically it's dangerous thing you can do in the US,
Speaker 1: black women having babies in the hospital complaining about issues pain,
Speaker 1: that doctor is not listening to us. That's where the
Speaker 1: safe situations happened for black women, right, So right, it's
Speaker 1: Serena Williams not being believed, and she's Serena Williams in
Speaker 1: the world, just a black woman just saying this doesn't
Speaker 1: feel right and a doctor just not believing her. Now,
Speaker 1: I guess can I get that to the other spectrum?
Speaker 1: So if a white woman says, hey, this hurts, is
Speaker 1: she just being attended to more? She's more likely to
Speaker 1: be believed believe. But like, we're not all just human
Speaker 1: bodies are the color of our skin doesn't change. Are
Speaker 1: anatomy is working? No? Of course, friends of mine or
Speaker 1: doesn't friends of mine who are having children right when
Speaker 1: I'm at thirties, um, like we're always having conversations like
Speaker 1: whether they have a partner in the picture or not.
Speaker 1: Like bring an advocate in the room, Like I know
Speaker 1: you guys had a doula episode, right, Bring someone in
Speaker 1: the room who knows what you want, who knows that
Speaker 1: at a certain point during um, you know the birthing
Speaker 1: process that the physician can't come over and just like
Speaker 1: snip you, because that's what he or she feels is
Speaker 1: the next step, and that you've given your permission to
Speaker 1: have something done to your body. Or by snip, she
Speaker 1: means an episiotomy, which is cut in the skin between
Speaker 1: the bottom of your vaginal opening, which is I believe
Speaker 1: Naya may have mentioned that she had We had a
Speaker 1: guess that that mentioned friends that have a vaginal birth
Speaker 1: that didn't get snipped. So and and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of every single one concern about that, right because oftentimes
Speaker 1: will and I'm not an expert on childbirth, birth to
Speaker 1: child UM, but also I'm in my mid thirties and
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time talking to people who have UM,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of concern. It's much harder to
Speaker 1: heal from a decision than it is from a natural
Speaker 1: time to talk about it. I feel it in my
Speaker 1: feel it. And that's just like one thing in the
Speaker 1: like soup to nuts like process that of like what
Speaker 1: your wishes are, what you're consenting to, So overall, like yes,
Speaker 1: black women definitely bear the bront of the statistic for show,
Speaker 1: but if you know anyone who's being who is pregnant,
Speaker 1: like tell them to have an Everyone should have an
Speaker 1: advocate who knows there was this. I like that. So
Speaker 1: one of the other myths that I wanted to get
Speaker 1: on is that many people believe only young, irresponsible women
Speaker 1: seek to have abortions. So I wanted to maybe go
Speaker 1: through some of the reasons why someone may want to
Speaker 1: have an abortion outside of them being younger irresponsible. I
Speaker 1: think that's a terrible title to put on a you know, well,
Speaker 1: so oneing for a women I've had an abortion. There's
Speaker 1: four of us sitting in this room, and the number
Speaker 1: is already higher, right, Um, yeah, abortion, I've liked one.
Speaker 1: So and I'll speak from my own perspective. I've had
Speaker 1: two abortions and I am thirty nine years old. I
Speaker 1: am a product of absolute like AIDS panic. Um. I
Speaker 1: grew up as a kid with just AIDS being the
Speaker 1: absolute specter of the most terrifying thing that can So
Speaker 1: I have a lot of like sex paranoia about that
Speaker 1: I've never had the only that's not true I had
Speaker 1: unprotected sex on my wedding night. That is the only
Speaker 1: two I have not had unprotected sex. And I still
Speaker 1: had two abortions because birth control is not infallible. I
Speaker 1: want to wait, wait, wait, wait, but like I really
Speaker 1: appreciate hearing that. I think it's what adi eight point
Speaker 1: something percent. I've had condoms break as far as like
Speaker 1: unrightly point something per cent. I don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: but like not saying if you're having a lot of sex,
Speaker 1: helping your odds of something going wrong. I currently use
Speaker 1: a diaphragm for contraception because I wanted a non hormonal method,
Speaker 1: and because did the men not believe you in your experience?
Speaker 1: Like were they like, oh we used the condom? Did
Speaker 1: they like make you feel No? But they were like partners,
Speaker 1: like long term and like they knew the condom. Bro, Well,
Speaker 1: it's not only it's not only even the contraceptive, but
Speaker 1: like we even just had a recent conversation about the
Speaker 1: Plan B pill, and there is proven fact that for
Speaker 1: women for a certain way, it's not as effective for
Speaker 1: we're just talking about that. Yeah, and that was something
Speaker 1: for me, Like I just lost, um, almost eighty pounds
Speaker 1: in last year, but that was important for me to get,
Speaker 1: you know, to my friends who are listeners already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we read it it was saying that they were
Speaker 1: it was like a test study, and I think it's
Speaker 1: only a hundred and sixty pounds. It's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: or something. It's somewhere. It's more like very A lot
Speaker 1: of people are over two hundred pounds. Like America, I
Speaker 1: think the average weight of a woman was like seven
Speaker 1: pounds away from what it was, which is sucking that crazy.
Speaker 1: And so people contraception contraception fails. Um Contraception isn't always
Speaker 1: available because you have a partner that won't use it,
Speaker 1: because you can't access it yourself, because you're assaulted, because
Speaker 1: of a whole host of reasons. Um, people don't have
Speaker 1: a great understanding of their body. Not only there a
Speaker 1: timing things properly and our but a lot of people
Speaker 1: will even just go based off of their period coming,
Speaker 1: which in fact, you can still be pregnant and still
Speaker 1: be having a period. She said it wasn't a real period,
Speaker 1: but she's like I definitely saw some blood and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, yeah, people and people don't really know
Speaker 1: how their fertility cycle works. There was just as also
Speaker 1: as a side note, there was just a thing one
Speaker 1: of the fertility tracking apps it was just released, was
Speaker 1: actually like GAUM or something it's with an F and
Speaker 1: it just came out that it was created by and
Speaker 1: paint abortion by anti abortion Shut the fun Up, which
Speaker 1: is an app that was created essentially to allow women
Speaker 1: to track their ovulation. And what it was is it
Speaker 1: was purposefully making the relation that it was purposely doing
Speaker 1: anything wrong. But what it was was taking that information
Speaker 1: and sending it back to an organization that was specifically
Speaker 1: trying to you limit abortion rights, which at a time
Speaker 1: when we're seeing a I'm trying to figure out the
Speaker 1: best way to say this, a complete dissolution of our
Speaker 1: government is really terrifying. Not to get to handsmad handmade
Speaker 1: tally here, but like also with like you know, all
Speaker 1: of the how they were finding that they were tracking
Speaker 1: periods for like UM for the girls with migrant children
Speaker 1: girls what Scott Lloyd, who was the head of the
Speaker 1: Office of Refugee Resettlement, it's o r R. That might
Speaker 1: not be what it actually stands forth something like that
Speaker 1: UM like it had to spreadshetension camps, had to spreadsheet
Speaker 1: to when these of all of them teenagers, when they
Speaker 1: were men, they were men, were seeking an abortion and
Speaker 1: was trying to prevent them from getting them civil liberties
Speaker 1: had to do, like lawsuit after lawsuit after laws. So
Speaker 1: like if they imagine if they're tracking that information, how surprising,
Speaker 1: How surprising is it that like an app that you
Speaker 1: don't really know where it comes from? Who opulation cycle
Speaker 1: after that? Like I mean, you know they sell the
Speaker 1: kid like so you can figure it out and then
Speaker 1: from there you can make sure. But even like to
Speaker 1: this day, I used to app. I've been on the
Speaker 1: the method for three years, havn't gotten pregnant. But one
Speaker 1: of my friends doctor we've had on doctor Kim Natural
Speaker 1: Happy Doctor. She's like, even with your discharged, like make
Speaker 1: sure if that's it, says the fifth, check yourself and
Speaker 1: see if that's really coming out of you, Like this
Speaker 1: is how women have done it for years, like fun
Speaker 1: the apparelling a machine, right, which is what I said,
Speaker 1: Like hopping on planes every weekend and habits changing, all
Speaker 1: of that can effect when you get your periods. So's
Speaker 1: around you? Who's around you? Oh, your period will match
Speaker 1: sometimes just even the women that are around you. So
Speaker 1: like to me, yeah, the app thing, I've kind of
Speaker 1: always said, I'm not gonna have it a good, tell
Speaker 1: me it's a good, Like engauge. I've never had an
Speaker 1: exactly always one or two days off, but tracking the
Speaker 1: obulations through the kid is what let me know. It's
Speaker 1: just more of like a p s A for your listeners,
Speaker 1: like the things that we are using to collect our
Speaker 1: own data, like we're not the only people who are
Speaker 1: who have So I wanted to get into me. I
Speaker 1: wanted to get into now our vanilla ship for this week,
Speaker 1: and we're pretty much gonna do a larger segment um
Speaker 1: than normal for our vanilla ship. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: get into what we're facing now with the government and
Speaker 1: these bullshit as state laws um. And there are now
Speaker 1: fifteen states who have went as far as to pass
Speaker 1: these abortion laws um, and some that have made abortion
Speaker 1: criminal as a criminal fence, others who are making it
Speaker 1: a much shorter time frame in which you can actually
Speaker 1: have an abortion, which of course I believe. When I
Speaker 1: was growing up, I lived in the state of Georgia,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get it after in like the third trimester,
Speaker 1: which is or the second trimester. It was at like
Speaker 1: six after five months, you couldn't get it in Georgia.
Speaker 1: But right now it's six weeks, which a lot of
Speaker 1: time we have a monthly cycle. Like we just said,
Speaker 1: we can be a week off and still not be part.
Speaker 1: You may not even know, you may not never, We
Speaker 1: may not know in the sixth um weeks. So I
Speaker 1: wanted you have your little space. Um. And of course
Speaker 1: one of the laws or one of the states that
Speaker 1: made the most of us about this was Alabama recently. Hum.
Speaker 1: So the first thing I want to start by saying
Speaker 1: is that abortion is technically at least legal in all
Speaker 1: fifty states. Still. That is really important to know all
Speaker 1: of those states. It is legal for all of these
Speaker 1: states that have passed these six week bands in the
Speaker 1: last few months. Uh, none of them have gone into
Speaker 1: effect yet they are there's a political strategy behind passing
Speaker 1: these laws that are that's aiming to get to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. So that's the key thing to know. If
Speaker 1: you are in Ohio or Mississippi or Georgia or Alabama,
Speaker 1: it is still legal for you to access abortion states
Speaker 1: and there are people who are trying to help you
Speaker 1: access the abortion care you need. So that's really important.
Speaker 1: And we'll give I'll give you a full list of
Speaker 1: like all the resources you can put it up and
Speaker 1: will definitely our Patreon, but it'll be in the description
Speaker 1: of this episode. So there's there's a bunch of places
Speaker 1: that there are laws about abortion right at the state level.
Speaker 1: All of this is done under the umbrella of Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 1: which is a Supreme Court decision. We will talk about
Speaker 1: like it as federal law, but it's not a law
Speaker 1: to Supreme Court decision. This is the moment where I
Speaker 1: always clarify I'm not a lawyer. I talked to lots
Speaker 1: of lawyers all of the time. I think none of
Speaker 1: being lawyers. We see these these new articles that we
Speaker 1: don't know what it means. So I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: I thought that it was effects already. But I'm not
Speaker 1: a lawyer. But I am a lobbyist, so I'm very
Speaker 1: concerned about the goings on of government right so um
Speaker 1: I also, and I r H is a nonpartisan organization.
Speaker 1: If I had a bunch of pro Traice Republicans to
Speaker 1: talk about I would, but I don't. So I watch
Speaker 1: your opinion on something, Daniel. I used to work with
Speaker 1: a woman that voted for Trump and we would always
Speaker 1: sit naw you about it, and she said to me
Speaker 1: one day, you act like they can turn like turnover
Speaker 1: roversus weight like you need to relax, And I want
Speaker 1: to know your opinion on that because we're watching all
Speaker 1: of this go on within the last two years of
Speaker 1: having a ship bag. Yeah, run the office, and I
Speaker 1: am curious to know what you think as far as
Speaker 1: rovers it goes in if that really could happen to
Speaker 1: so yes, and no Supreme Court decisions are unlikely to
Speaker 1: just be flipped over. And what Roe says is that
Speaker 1: you have the right to access an abortion up to
Speaker 1: twenty four weeks or later than that if the life
Speaker 1: or health of the woman is in danger or in
Speaker 1: cases of fetal inviability. That is the standard of Row
Speaker 1: and the subsequent cases that came after it. Right, So
Speaker 1: that's like our national umbrella. What we think is going
Speaker 1: to happen is that states have been passing laws, and
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be any of these
Speaker 1: more recent law So I think it's gonna be ones
Speaker 1: that have already been passed um that have been working
Speaker 1: their way through the court system and getting to circuit
Speaker 1: courts in an effort to get to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: And what I think we're going to see, and this
Speaker 1: is just sort of guessing but like educated guessing is
Speaker 1: a chipping away at access. So abortion will still technically
Speaker 1: be legal, but the states will be allowed to put
Speaker 1: in put in place so many barriers you won't be
Speaker 1: able to access it. As far as the cause, as
Speaker 1: far as far as clinics open, clinics being open if
Speaker 1: the patient specifically is is um uh could be made
Speaker 1: available to have care um insurance issues documentation status, right, like,
Speaker 1: just start putting rules in place that I have. This
Speaker 1: is not new. These are things that in many of
Speaker 1: these states have been going on for years and years
Speaker 1: and years are before been setting the stage for forgetting
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court that we have now. And even I
Speaker 1: mean as far as even just funding for like the organizations.
Speaker 1: I think we all know of Planned Parenthood, but even
Speaker 1: when Trump came into office, that was one of the
Speaker 1: number one thing like that was one of the first
Speaker 1: things he did was cut funding for that organization amongst
Speaker 1: other organizations. Correct sort of. Uh, there's already a prohibition
Speaker 1: on federal funding for abortion care. It's called the Hide.
Speaker 1: You guys brought up the Hide monument on your last show. Um.
Speaker 1: It's named after guy named Henry Hyde who said I
Speaker 1: can't make it impossible for everyone to get an abortion,
Speaker 1: so I'll just make it impossible for poor women, like
Speaker 1: said it out loud, said the inside part outside. And UM,
Speaker 1: what that means is that Medicaid in most states can't
Speaker 1: cover abortion. In some states, like in New York, we
Speaker 1: put state dollars in to fund abortion for Medicaid patients.
Speaker 1: But more people in New York can abortion care. So
Speaker 1: he didn't actually cut abortion funding. What he cut, or
Speaker 1: what he's trying to mess with, is funding for family planning,
Speaker 1: for contraceptive care, for sex said for all of the
Speaker 1: things around in it and saying I'm cutting money to
Speaker 1: those terrible abortion organizations because he can't actually there's no
Speaker 1: money for him to cut. He did implement. UM. There's
Speaker 1: a thing called the global gag rule which goes back
Speaker 1: and forth with the parties UM, which says, when Republicans
Speaker 1: are in charge, they say that international organizations can't get
Speaker 1: US aid dollars if they're going to talk about abortion,
Speaker 1: so like in foreign countries, huge geopolitical issue. UM, and
Speaker 1: he's trying to implement basically a domestic gag rule that
Speaker 1: says that organizations in the US, if they're going to
Speaker 1: provide a refer for abortions. Also, that's kind of an
Speaker 1: ongoing fight right now. That's a lawsuit that's working its
Speaker 1: way up. So the answer to the Supreme Court question
Speaker 1: is like, it's not gonna it's I don't think it's
Speaker 1: gonna get overturned, but I do think that it's going
Speaker 1: to get chipped away out enough that the states will
Speaker 1: be able to block people from actually having meaningful access
Speaker 1: to care. So we have this like over arching umbrella
Speaker 1: like the rights that Row gives us. And then there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of states that had bands before Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 1: which passed in nineteen seventy three. So prior to nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, they passed bands on abortion, which were then
Speaker 1: deemed unconstitutional by Row. So if Row were to be overturned,
Speaker 1: they would it would still be banned in those states,
Speaker 1: like automatically. There's a bunch of states that post Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade passed what we call trigger bands, which is if
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade gets overturned, then it becomes illegal in
Speaker 1: the states. So there's like six of them, so they're
Speaker 1: already liked they were just prepared like the late seventies,
Speaker 1: this has been done since then. There are states that
Speaker 1: have essentially total bands, but none of them are in effect.
Speaker 1: And these are the ones that we're hearing about in
Speaker 1: the news, right, Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: North Dakota. Places that you might expect, and then they're
Speaker 1: a bunch of places. And this is always really important
Speaker 1: for me to talk about that are actually passing proactive
Speaker 1: expansions of abortion rights. And that's something that we did
Speaker 1: in New York this year. Um, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Delaware,
Speaker 1: Illinois just did it like last week. Um now in Ohio, Nevada. Correct,
Speaker 1: isn't Ohio like completely that's a six week right, I
Speaker 1: was a six week band, but as the Alabama again
Speaker 1: not in effect. That I actually before we had this
Speaker 1: episode a few days ago, because I knew it was
Speaker 1: coming up, called plant Parenthood, asked for medical records and
Speaker 1: I wanted to see how many weeks I was when
Speaker 1: I got my abortion. And just so you guys know,
Speaker 1: I got an abortion the week after I found out
Speaker 1: I was pregnant, and that was eight weeks, which is
Speaker 1: which is crazy because so when I got mine, I
Speaker 1: actually argued with them dates told me I was six weeks.
Speaker 1: I knew to the day. I knew when it happened
Speaker 1: who it was with, becuse I didn't even have I
Speaker 1: knew what it was and I was exactly four and
Speaker 1: a half weeks. They told me six. It's because of
Speaker 1: the way they date pregnancy, which is so so that
Speaker 1: also affects so I could have gone in there even
Speaker 1: though they're I'm telling them the exact date this happened.
Speaker 1: Who it was with. I knew fourth of July weekend. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I was literally four and a half weeks. This is
Speaker 1: when we went to Tampa, bich But anyways, I was
Speaker 1: four and a half weeks. I found out the next
Speaker 1: I knew my body something wasn't right. I ended up
Speaker 1: taking a goddamn pregnancy test in a Kroker bathroom because
Speaker 1: I was ship face scared. I was going into so.
Speaker 1: I was actually in Georgia, but we had like we
Speaker 1: we ended up going to Tampa that weekend. I went
Speaker 1: back home and my body just wasn't right. I knew
Speaker 1: I was four and a half weeks, and on you know,
Speaker 1: when I have my bours, Nay, we'll give you a picture. Um,
Speaker 1: So I got the picture of my my stomach and
Speaker 1: my mom asked me over and over do you want
Speaker 1: to see it? Do you want it? It It was nothing
Speaker 1: but a dot. It was literally a dot, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't feel connected at all. We'll get
Speaker 1: into my story a little bit later, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was four and a half weeks and they told
Speaker 1: me I was sick. So for you to know your
Speaker 1: time and what was that your exact date, well, I
Speaker 1: called them and asked and so like that was on
Speaker 1: my records. But um, I mean yeah, I do remember
Speaker 1: letting a week go by because I was stressed out
Speaker 1: with works. I was like, okay, so maybe my period
Speaker 1: will kind of right. It didn't. Um, but that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's like crazy. And I actually took a pregnancy test
Speaker 1: the night of our Toronto show because the app was
Speaker 1: freaking me out. My app was updating me like you're
Speaker 1: one day late, and I was like, fuck, someone follow
Speaker 1: my girlfriend. She's like, bitch, you definitely pregnant. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: but I feel like cramp. She was like I did too,
Speaker 1: So I go to take care of it while you're
Speaker 1: in right right, I'm feeling out, dude. I walked to
Speaker 1: the I don't know what the grocery store, I mean,
Speaker 1: like whatever they have there. But anyway, I couldn't even
Speaker 1: like hold on, like I don't know why we all
Speaker 1: do it in like supermarketing, like pharmacy bathrooms can't well,
Speaker 1: I was an age. I was like, I am not
Speaker 1: doing this in my home, and I was ship base
Speaker 1: scared to even bring it back to me. All I
Speaker 1: know is like when I actually told my mom that
Speaker 1: I was pregnant and she listened to the show so
Speaker 1: shout out to you, mom um. I literally had it
Speaker 1: in my hand and I took two because the first one,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, maybe the first one broke, So
Speaker 1: I took the second. No, ship so I took the
Speaker 1: second one that she came. I just started bawling tears,
Speaker 1: and so I walked home. I couldn't even tell my mom.
Speaker 1: So I walked into her room and at this point,
Speaker 1: I'm just literally bawling crying, and she's like, what's wrong,
Speaker 1: what's wrong? Tell me? And she just started shaking her head.
Speaker 1: I think she knew and all I did was show her.
Speaker 1: I handed her the things, and then that became like
Speaker 1: a whole conversation because my mom, I won't say the number,
Speaker 1: but I was her first child after her having multiple abortions,
Speaker 1: so it was to a point where she loved having me.
Speaker 1: My my last sister was almost aborted, and that's a
Speaker 1: conversation we've had, and so like her immediate response was Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? And she gave me
Speaker 1: that option, but she like when ahead and shared how
Speaker 1: much she kind of regretted the one before the abortion
Speaker 1: before me and seeing how her daughters came out after
Speaker 1: like the ones that she didn't have, and so it
Speaker 1: affected her mentally after and so she just wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure I was okay with it. Shout out she did,
Speaker 1: and she even all the way up until me going
Speaker 1: to the clinic, it was just like, are you sure
Speaker 1: this was And she literally had the conversation with me
Speaker 1: about her regrets of her abortions, just you know, because
Speaker 1: she just didn't want me to feel what she felt. Hey, guys,
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Speaker 1: get back to this conversation. So now let's get back
Speaker 1: to the episode. Was there any type of conversation that
Speaker 1: you and your mom had, because I know you being
Speaker 1: your mom's only with so my mom had me at forty,
Speaker 1: she did know she would have kids. I think and
Speaker 1: my aunt rest in peace of aunt. But she had
Speaker 1: like five miscarriages or something, so like childbirth is like
Speaker 1: really hard, um, which not like it's funny, but I'm
Speaker 1: just saying. So when I was like pregnant, I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: I was like, the way should be going with my
Speaker 1: family And I don't even know if this thing Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, bro, my grandma said it. My aunt had
Speaker 1: five miscarriages, my mom had three. I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe like lots of lots of pregnancies and
Speaker 1: in miscarriage outside that's not even right. So um, but
Speaker 1: so yeah, anyway, when I ended up having my abortion,
Speaker 1: my mom was super supportive, Like I was in my opinion,
Speaker 1: like I don't care. I'm twenty eight years old right now.
Speaker 1: If I got pregnant today, I'm not ready. I still
Speaker 1: feel like a kid. You know, I might be financially stable,
Speaker 1: but I'm not mentally stable for a kid. My mom
Speaker 1: was talking about how you know, she's like, I just
Speaker 1: accepted my life without a kid as much as I
Speaker 1: wanted you. She was talked about that postpartum, about how
Speaker 1: bad it was and how regretful she was feeling. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a real thing. I couldn't imagine thinking
Speaker 1: I was going to have an abortion abortion felt shamed
Speaker 1: enough for guilty enough to keep it and then end
Speaker 1: up with this kid the whole time. I know people
Speaker 1: in my life right now that probably shouldn't have had kids.
Speaker 1: And it's also okay to just not want children, Like
Speaker 1: it's okay to just not want what motherhood sucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's nothing wrong with having an abortion and
Speaker 1: also want to add the shaming around abortion, like I
Speaker 1: felt it too, and like even from friends like making
Speaker 1: jokes about it, like it's funny and we laugh and whatever,
Speaker 1: but like is it though in the moment they're like damn,
Speaker 1: and like you laugh, but you laugh, I think to
Speaker 1: cover up how you might really feel, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean we all got to feel a little sup you
Speaker 1: asked earlier about like besides religion, which I don't think
Speaker 1: is besides. I think it's a really big piece of
Speaker 1: big like what are the other sort of like forces
Speaker 1: around the stigma of abortion. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things. One um, religion is a huge piece
Speaker 1: of it. Family absolutely, but also all of it comes
Speaker 1: back to a need culturally to control women. It also
Speaker 1: obviously impacts other people who can get pregnant. But this
Speaker 1: cultural need is to control women, and the best way
Speaker 1: to control women is to keep them out of control
Speaker 1: of their fertility. If you can't control that when you're
Speaker 1: having a child, or how many children you're having, or
Speaker 1: if you're having children, you can't be in control of
Speaker 1: your economic life. You can't be in control of your career,
Speaker 1: your happiness. Can you control of your happiness? You uh,
Speaker 1: get removed from society at ways. Talk about Sorry, I
Speaker 1: just loved my dream of dreams, not the shame. I'll
Speaker 1: come back to it. There's there's a Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Speaker 1: quote that I'm going to rutalize, apologize, but about um,
Speaker 1: the ability to control ones one's reproduction is like intrinsic
Speaker 1: to women being a full member of society. Oh that's
Speaker 1: the gist of it again, or I've got it. A
Speaker 1: lot of people have said the heartbeat bill and oh
Speaker 1: well later abortions. Uh, it's not good because maybe you
Speaker 1: could feel it. Maybe we could do this. Can we
Speaker 1: talk about maybe, I mean as far as you can
Speaker 1: speak to but like how true all that is? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, like because they pretty much which mine is
Speaker 1: not so bad because if it's only six weeks, mine
Speaker 1: looks like it didn't have a heartbeat at the point
Speaker 1: twenty seven days or something as heartbeat said that in
Speaker 1: the other and then you guys shared your stories initially,
Speaker 1: So what is the what date is a heartbeat thing?
Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor, so I'm I like, don't know specifics,
Speaker 1: but from what I've read, like that's more of like
Speaker 1: a pulsation from like, it's not a heartbeat. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: not a heartbeat. Again, this is a symptom of missing
Speaker 1: amation that people do to pull it heartstrings at people
Speaker 1: who are already inclined, whether it's their family pressure or
Speaker 1: huge to be like that's crazy. I am almost I'm
Speaker 1: going to send you the pulsations not a heartbeat paraphrase
Speaker 1: point where Fauslop developing the mechanism that is a heart
Speaker 1: These heartbeat bills are not about that point. They are
Speaker 1: about a moment in which, during ultrasound you can hear
Speaker 1: what sounds like a pulse um but really full well,
Speaker 1: it's it's happening. It's something happening. It could be ship
Speaker 1: moving because now it's getting ready. It's just the thing
Speaker 1: that and and I am an unapologetic pro abortion person.
Speaker 1: People are always like, nobody is like pro abortion, Like
Speaker 1: I am absolutely am. I was right. Didn't get her fired? Well,
Speaker 1: the men don't want her to like anything. I don't
Speaker 1: want to work with her, but I'll take that one point.
Speaker 1: I come from a perspective that abortion is not a tragedy.
Speaker 1: It's not a difficult, tragic, horrible decision. Abortion is a
Speaker 1: social good. Abortion is a medical procedure that allows women
Speaker 1: to engage in society fully. That is, people legislators love
Speaker 1: to ask, like, well, how do we reduce the abortion rate?
Speaker 1: I don't care about reducing dis abortion rate. I care
Speaker 1: about being there being exactly as many abortions as people need.
Speaker 1: That is, if someone is listening to us right now
Speaker 1: and truly believes, but you're murdering, You're killing a human being,
Speaker 1: You're killing a person, which is what this This where
Speaker 1: the criminal aspect of it comes from. You like, you're
Speaker 1: killing a human life. For the listeners that are listening
Speaker 1: and truly believe that it, Like, I guess what would
Speaker 1: you say to that? Or I think you can believe it, fine,
Speaker 1: knock yourself out. You can also believe anything else that
Speaker 1: you want I don't care what you believe. I cared
Speaker 1: deeply about what people legislate. Now, there's still harm in
Speaker 1: your believing that, because that's where we enter all of
Speaker 1: this cultural stigma. But it's when people start legislating based
Speaker 1: on these medically inaccurate, religiously based, oppressive, all over google
Speaker 1: which is all over everything contry. Yeah. Um, that's where
Speaker 1: we have a problem. Okay. You know there are legislators
Speaker 1: out there who are saying, I'm voting for this pro
Speaker 1: abortion bill because of my religious beliefs. It's something that
Speaker 1: Governor Cuomo is said. I am a Catholic, but I
Speaker 1: am I am a legislator who is running the state
Speaker 1: of New York and this is important and good. So like,
Speaker 1: it's not Evangelicals and Catholics don't have a monopoly on
Speaker 1: religious belief about abortion, but they would like you to
Speaker 1: believe that they do right. And it still should be
Speaker 1: a separation between Welsh state. Maybe I was just no,
Speaker 1: I was just about to say that. Um, you know
Speaker 1: you asked the question about if someone who's listening, if
Speaker 1: they feel like they're you know, hurting a fetus or
Speaker 1: killing or you know, taking a life. Um, I read
Speaker 1: this recently from on the Daily Beast, there was a
Speaker 1: piece according to the founding fathers, a fetus is not
Speaker 1: an American person. The United States Constitution clearly indicates that
Speaker 1: human life begins at birth, not at conception. So like
Speaker 1: on a legal level of New York definds a person
Speaker 1: as someone who is born in life. So I mean
Speaker 1: that could be one Maybe that might make sense to
Speaker 1: someone who's listening. I understand there's a lot of like
Speaker 1: moral back and forth on this, of course, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: when once you're in the world, yours are there like
Speaker 1: resources or groups or like women that have felt like
Speaker 1: too much shame or like or any like so many,
Speaker 1: so many, there's so there's lots of folks who are
Speaker 1: doing like anti stigma work around abortion. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: group called Shout Your Abortion that publishes I've been seeing
Speaker 1: the stories online about that publishes people's abortion stories that
Speaker 1: they submit to them. They wrote a whole book. I
Speaker 1: think Lindy West hadn't had an excerpt in there. And
Speaker 1: our home mail for this episode, guys will actually be
Speaker 1: and we want to think um our listeners. So when
Speaker 1: weezy you know, ask people to share their stories. We
Speaker 1: did get some emails as well, so we'll be sharing
Speaker 1: an abortion experience from one of our listeners. Just even
Speaker 1: the fact that you guys have shared yours, the fact
Speaker 1: that this is like a kind of a movement that's
Speaker 1: brewing and more people are like adding to that. The
Speaker 1: more we talk about this stuff and people share their
Speaker 1: experiences and like, just you know, especially men in our lives,
Speaker 1: and get them more in involved in having the conversation
Speaker 1: and what are it affects like women they know where
Speaker 1: their partners or whomever, Like this is something we need
Speaker 1: to keep talking and even because in our mainstream too lately.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys watched the game, there
Speaker 1: was an episode UM where I believe it was Tea
Speaker 1: or Tamara, I don't know which one is on there,
Speaker 1: but um, one of the twins Um went to the
Speaker 1: doctor with her partner at the time, and she had
Speaker 1: never let him know that she had an abortion previously.
Speaker 1: And so even having that conversation with your partner, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of women do feel the shame of
Speaker 1: even bringing up, Hey, I've done this before and he's
Speaker 1: sex in the city. I don't know if you guys,
Speaker 1: Carrie lied, she's because He's like, have you ever had one?
Speaker 1: She's like, oh god, now, oh god no, and like
Speaker 1: she's like, why the fund did I do that? Why?
Speaker 1: And the most sex positive show of the nineties, Like
Speaker 1: why even in that, why did we do that? We
Speaker 1: set at this table, like I can't believe we're doing this.
Speaker 1: I can't believe literally we we We did the whole
Speaker 1: preface and me and her were just like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: I didn't think I would ever show you know what
Speaker 1: I didn't. It's not so acknowledge that we're sex positive,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of truth behind hor phobia and
Speaker 1: abortion shame and feeling like what are they going to
Speaker 1: think of me? And even as people like this, you
Speaker 1: watched Carrie right who, second to Samantha, was the most
Speaker 1: sex positive person, but we still feel that that really
Speaker 1: tells you how our upbringing has shaped us to feel
Speaker 1: shame about it. Agree on I was talking to um
Speaker 1: Lacy actually and a part of kind of my abortion
Speaker 1: that I didn't share, and I was talking to her
Speaker 1: about UM and I guess we can talk to it
Speaker 1: as well. It's kind of like the PTSD or the
Speaker 1: aftermath of what people are feeling after they have abortions.
Speaker 1: And so I was talking to a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: UM shout out to Cecilia. We were having a conversation
Speaker 1: and we talked about oh my God, like the casual sex,
Speaker 1: me wanting a boyfriend, me doing all of these things.
Speaker 1: And during our conversation, I burst into tears UM because
Speaker 1: I realized, and I'm on the podcast a lot talking
Speaker 1: about I love condom dick. I like fucking guys with condoms.
Speaker 1: I only you know, I don't like raw dick. There's
Speaker 1: like I'm scared of ship to have raw sex. And
Speaker 1: not only, of course, I'm concerned about catching something, but
Speaker 1: having a baby is like, to me right now outside
Speaker 1: of a disease, of course, is kind of the worst
Speaker 1: thing that could happen because to me, I genuinely feel
Speaker 1: like I don't want to go through the abortion UM
Speaker 1: experience again. And talking to her, I realized why UM
Speaker 1: when I had my abortion UM, and I just I
Speaker 1: think this is more so of a personality trait. I
Speaker 1: like to prove people wrong. I hate to feel like
Speaker 1: I disappoint people. And with that decision, I felt like
Speaker 1: I let three people down. I let my mom down.
Speaker 1: She was in tears, crying and we Also at that
Speaker 1: point I lied to my mom. I went a year
Speaker 1: with my period and didn't even tell her. So in
Speaker 1: terms of my body and me growing up, I never
Speaker 1: felt like I had anyone to really talk sex or
Speaker 1: anything about my body with growing up UM, so at
Speaker 1: that when I let her down, I felt like I
Speaker 1: let my homegirl down. Shout out to Kita Um. She
Speaker 1: was the one My mom could not afford my full abortion,
Speaker 1: even though we had healthcare. She didn't have the money too.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't have been able to pay our bills that
Speaker 1: month if she so. I literally reached out to my homegirl,
Speaker 1: who worked at an ice cream shop, and she sent
Speaker 1: the money up for me to be able to pay
Speaker 1: for my abortion. The third person I felt like I
Speaker 1: let down but also kind of affected me was the
Speaker 1: person who got me pregnant. When I told him I
Speaker 1: was going to do it, he was I rate and said,
Speaker 1: you're killing my son. He had a daughter already. He
Speaker 1: was just certain that I had his son, and so
Speaker 1: he didn't want me to get it. He didn't help
Speaker 1: send money for UM when I was pregnant, and then,
Speaker 1: of course, in the process of the two weeks to
Speaker 1: me to set the clinic appointment and all of that things.
Speaker 1: He actually ended up getting locked up, so go figure.
Speaker 1: But he made it hell because he felt like I
Speaker 1: was killing his son, So he guilt shamed me into
Speaker 1: me believing like I'm killing his son that he wants.
Speaker 1: So having that experience of letting three people down with
Speaker 1: this one decision, I just know I probably I just
Speaker 1: don't want to ever experience that again. And so I
Speaker 1: feel like that's even why I'm so like pro condom.
Speaker 1: I you know, because I feared it again. Listen, I know,
Speaker 1: I mean A sure things happen. Also, it's probably a
Speaker 1: lot easier to enjoy sex if you're not worried about, right,
Speaker 1: If that's what you're comfort like, you've learned what works
Speaker 1: for you, which is important. Yes, it's a I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't I'm sad that you've had all those feelings. Right.
Speaker 1: Those are hard feelings. Those are not necessarily abortion feelings.
Speaker 1: Those are relationship feelings for sure. They're triggered by your
Speaker 1: mom's feelings about her choices. They're triggered by your partner
Speaker 1: at the time not frankly respecting your bodily out toime
Speaker 1: me enough to support you in that decision. They're triggered
Speaker 1: by the feeling of having to rely on other people
Speaker 1: like your friend, which also was an amazing friend. She
Speaker 1: shouldn't like, we're all gonna like candles for her instead
Speaker 1: of feeling but like, instead of feeling badly towards her,
Speaker 1: or that you disappointed her, how about finding gratitude that
Speaker 1: she helped you in that moment. Of course, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, and I know that that's oversimplification, but
Speaker 1: but also all of those things, all of those feelings
Speaker 1: happened because barriers have put up been put up against
Speaker 1: you accessing cameras, because that guy had been told that
Speaker 1: his feelings mattered more than yours, because your mom had
Speaker 1: been told she did something wrong right, all of those
Speaker 1: things are the compounding effect of God, damn, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just saying, look, I don't I don't know,
Speaker 1: You're not. Are you gonna feels like your tonsils didn't
Speaker 1: get a chance to live? You know, I had a
Speaker 1: different experience because I think I was so sure that
Speaker 1: this is what I had to do, like how a
Speaker 1: relationship that person was my boyfriend. It was like I
Speaker 1: was positive and honestly, even now, like people ask me
Speaker 1: like how like I don't even attach those feelings, and
Speaker 1: then when I watched certain movies or talk to certain people,
Speaker 1: they'll know the ages that they would have been down
Speaker 1: to the day. I don't regret it, I will say,
Speaker 1: it's not a regret where where I saw even me
Speaker 1: in her life like us just trying to figure out
Speaker 1: life on our own. At all of my friends who
Speaker 1: have children or just one child to have to take
Speaker 1: care of themselves and a whole note, I was so dumb,
Speaker 1: honestly for real, Like I think I just got over
Speaker 1: the dumb hump at like act even I don't know
Speaker 1: how to call you. I don't you know, people figure
Speaker 1: it out right, but you have the opportunity to decide
Speaker 1: if you want to figure it out right. So I
Speaker 1: want to think, can I say one more thing on that,
Speaker 1: just to echo again what she said, but also like
Speaker 1: as you were talking and saying that, seeing your facial
Speaker 1: expression change and like thinking about that time. It's just
Speaker 1: interesting too for I think as people are going through
Speaker 1: these situations to try and make like to differentiate what
Speaker 1: their feelings are on the process versus the outside input
Speaker 1: they're getting from people they care a lot about and
Speaker 1: and the pressure that that kind of comes with that.
Speaker 1: And I just I just as you were talking, I
Speaker 1: want to say one more thing. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of women and trans people who are in relationships like
Speaker 1: that that gentleman friend of yours who pressure them to
Speaker 1: stay in them by getting them pregnant. Like, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of domestic violence. Uh, reproductive coortion is very very
Speaker 1: really and you just you know, you barely touched on
Speaker 1: like this. This guy who you were dating, like pressured
Speaker 1: you into you know, want to keep there right mind you.
Speaker 1: And again, like I said, he had sometimes not the
Speaker 1: ones that listen. But yeah, I don't know what what
Speaker 1: he planned. He was in the streets at the time.
Speaker 1: That's probably also I don't deal with him type of
Speaker 1: nigs nor um. But like, yeah, like what you're saying
Speaker 1: is exactly what it was like. And while a lot
Speaker 1: of men that we would think pressure woman to have
Speaker 1: an abortion because they don't want it, I got the
Speaker 1: opposite of him saying, oh my god, you're gonna kill
Speaker 1: my baby. It's my it's my little boy. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: his life forever. So I wanted to ask you, guys, um,
Speaker 1: what are the steps so if someone wants to have
Speaker 1: an abortion. What are the steps and which you would
Speaker 1: do to get one? Because both of you are are
Speaker 1: in the space like some some people don't even know
Speaker 1: where to be game. It varies a little bit based
Speaker 1: on where you live, which is unfortunate. So if you're
Speaker 1: in a state like New York or Massachusetts or California, UM,
Speaker 1: you can go to a your doctor, if you're a
Speaker 1: public hospital, any medical provider, and in those states they
Speaker 1: should be able to refer you to an abortion provider,
Speaker 1: whether it's in the hospital. You can get an abortion
Speaker 1: at bellevue like not all procedures, but like you don't
Speaker 1: always have to go to a clinic. If you're in
Speaker 1: a place where there is less access to care, you're
Speaker 1: going to have to do a few things. You're going
Speaker 1: to have to find a provider, and there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of ways to do that. You can look for Planned
Speaker 1: parenthoods if they don't provide abortion in your state, they'll
Speaker 1: refer you to an abortion provider. You can look at
Speaker 1: the National Abortion Federation, which represents all of the independent clinics.
Speaker 1: They have a website. But if you're going to google,
Speaker 1: like abortion Cleveland, one of the things you know, like
Speaker 1: whatever where an abortion UM. One of the things you're
Speaker 1: going to have to look out for is there are
Speaker 1: these fake anti abortion clinics UM that present themselves like options.
Speaker 1: You may remember on the subway. This dates me a
Speaker 1: little bit, but there used to be signs where like pregnant, scared,
Speaker 1: and like had a phone number. And what these are
Speaker 1: are it's the same people who protest outside clinics UM.
Speaker 1: Crisis pregnancy. Crisis pregnancy centers are fake clinics. And what
Speaker 1: they do is they try to convince you, to convince
Speaker 1: you'd either keep it or delay you until you legally
Speaker 1: can't get an abortion in your state. And there's already
Speaker 1: for in many states, so many tax tactics that delay you.
Speaker 1: As it is that like you wander into one of
Speaker 1: these clinics, you know, fake clinics, thinking that you're getting
Speaker 1: help and like actual unbiased opinions, and they're strategically making
Speaker 1: you How does someone tell the difference? But a clinic
Speaker 1: that's going to do that and a clinic that can
Speaker 1: actually help you. One of the things that you can
Speaker 1: do is take a look at their website. If they
Speaker 1: talk about post abortion syndrome, they're a non abortion clinic
Speaker 1: that is a made up fake thing. If they tell
Speaker 1: you your abortion abortion might give you breast cancer, they
Speaker 1: are not a real clinic. That is fake and a lie. Um.
Speaker 1: If they talk about pre abortion counseling but not actually
Speaker 1: about abortion care, they are not a real clinic. Um.
Speaker 1: But also you can always check against something like the
Speaker 1: nav National Abortion Pederation website to see if this is
Speaker 1: listed as one of their clinics. So say you've now
Speaker 1: found an actual provider and you're like, ship, now I
Speaker 1: have to pay for it. You might need to go
Speaker 1: in seventy two hours in advance and have a first appointment.
Speaker 1: Some states have waiting periods. You don't need to wait
Speaker 1: to buy a gun, but you gotta wait to have medicine. So, um,
Speaker 1: initial consultation, you drive like hundreds of miles. Let's say
Speaker 1: you know two, you have that initial consultation, then in
Speaker 1: some states the same physician has to see you for
Speaker 1: again the actual abortion, but not until three days later.
Speaker 1: So imagine like you have you already have children, right,
Speaker 1: because take your time. People who have abortions, by the way,
Speaker 1: are very often women who already have to already mothers
Speaker 1: already have children, you know, So like, what do you
Speaker 1: what do you do for childcare? What do you do
Speaker 1: for taking time off? During that time? Do you sleep
Speaker 1: in your car? We know you know their people who
Speaker 1: tell these stories all the time. The later the later
Speaker 1: you wait to get a procedure. It also gets exponentially
Speaker 1: more expensive because the medicine behind your changes at six weeks.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys had a medication abortion
Speaker 1: or a physical one, but you can do either. A
Speaker 1: medication abortion is literally taking some pills and going home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I have the same. My body had something
Speaker 1: almost identically to Plan B S to a medication abortion,
Speaker 1: where I was right, don't enjoy this at all. I
Speaker 1: think I have something something. You had a physical procedure,
Speaker 1: surgical and medical. Yeah, surgical is yeah, so there's a
Speaker 1: medical abortion, which is the pills. Oftentimes it's referred to
Speaker 1: a surgical but that implies like cutting. Okay, yeah, that
Speaker 1: it was like a vacuum. I think. So all make
Speaker 1: a face. So you have to go, you have to
Speaker 1: maybe you have to wait. Maybe you have to hear
Speaker 1: a state mandated script the full of medical and accuracies,
Speaker 1: because states passed those laws where the doctor has to
Speaker 1: read you a thing and then be like none. If
Speaker 1: this is true. I had to tell you that because
Speaker 1: the state mandated that I tell you that, UM, And
Speaker 1: then you get the procedure. You may have to wait
Speaker 1: for somebody to come and pick you up because you
Speaker 1: can't leave alone, especially if you had I used to
Speaker 1: do in high school. And then there's the question of
Speaker 1: how are you going to pay for it? If you
Speaker 1: are poor and you don't live in a state, Medicaid
Speaker 1: won't cover it, your insurance may not cover it. In
Speaker 1: New York, they are mandated to cover it at pay
Speaker 1: or they'll do a portion of it, or they'll cover
Speaker 1: a portion of it. Um. And then you have to
Speaker 1: come up with the rest. Now the resources to help
Speaker 1: you come up with the rest. There is a network
Speaker 1: of abortion funds across the country. UM. They are amazing.
Speaker 1: They are by and large volunteer run and driven by
Speaker 1: individual donors, and they will help you pay for your
Speaker 1: abortion like a good grassroots They're they're incredible, incredible, they
Speaker 1: have they are primarily run by and I believe founded
Speaker 1: by women of color. They've existed for a long time.
Speaker 1: Some of them pay for abortion hair, some of them
Speaker 1: help with travel logistics, some of them can we talk
Speaker 1: about National Network of abortion funds. Someone who's listening who
Speaker 1: maybe can't get pregnant but wants to help, either men
Speaker 1: listening or women that can't get whatever, how can they
Speaker 1: help in their communities? UM, I know we have escorts
Speaker 1: in some places. I don't know what it was called
Speaker 1: that I did, but basically, if I was free, I
Speaker 1: would call the planned parent wouldn't be like yo, if
Speaker 1: anybody needs help, and they would call me back. Like
Speaker 1: it wasn't even a real sign up thing. There was
Speaker 1: no real place to do this. I was sixteen, I
Speaker 1: just got a license, maybe like online. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure there is now. Yeah, basically I would
Speaker 1: go and they would just have me meet the girl
Speaker 1: like maybe an hour before, and then I would drive them.
Speaker 1: And even when I was sitting in the parking lot,
Speaker 1: people would go off because I knew what I was doing.
Speaker 1: They've seen before. So there's a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: people can be involved in this. UM. The baseline is
Speaker 1: making this a decision point. You're voting and not voting
Speaker 1: for anti choice politicians, not just at the presidential level,
Speaker 1: not at just at the federal level, but at the
Speaker 1: state level and local level. State elections. Um, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of places that need your money. The abortion
Speaker 1: funds and they exist in every part of the country
Speaker 1: rely exclusively on grassroots dotations. So you are helping someone
Speaker 1: pay for their abortion care, I'll reach out for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And um, the other pieces to talk about it, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm part of why I was so excited to come
Speaker 1: here is because healthcare is an important part of being
Speaker 1: sex positive, and worshion is part of having set. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'm so excited that we're talking about this, and
Speaker 1: You'm so glad that our listeners are gonna like I've
Speaker 1: learned so much literally just sitting across from you in
Speaker 1: the last hour. Um. And I'm sure just even our
Speaker 1: listeners like they'll be able to do more further research
Speaker 1: on their own. And for any of our listeners who
Speaker 1: are having, you know, the struggles psychologically or with the
Speaker 1: people in their life, like pressuring them to either have
Speaker 1: one or not have one, genuinely just listening to this
Speaker 1: episode and hopefully making the decision for themselves, I feel
Speaker 1: like there's going to be someone who listens that it's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're just basically acting like aborson is not a big deal.
Speaker 1: Much like our HIV episode when people were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys make it that and hurt bees. You make
Speaker 1: it not like a big deal. But I feel like
Speaker 1: out of everything that we've ever covered, abortion is the
Speaker 1: most not like normal. You said it was normal in
Speaker 1: the which has been a king to the league, like
Speaker 1: it's we've both had it. I can't address these statistics
Speaker 1: on that, but I just don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: how many people, Like four people have Okay, has anyone
Speaker 1: in this room ate ship? No, but three of us
Speaker 1: had there. We go, all right, you know my dog does.
Speaker 1: But oh my god. Pink Flamingos is a John Waters
Speaker 1: movie featuring Divine who was a drag queen and she
Speaker 1: eats ship in it. Hello, that's the only drag queen
Speaker 1: movie right now on Classic Oh, del delve into the
Speaker 1: world of John Water and eating ship. You guys been
Speaker 1: in the Box, Well, I've been to the Box, but
Speaker 1: not doing one of their shows. It's it's here and
Speaker 1: so it's a lesque show show, but like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really out there. I actually saw Sophie Turner, who has
Speaker 1: sons from Games from there, and I lost it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is she good? Because if she here, I need
Speaker 1: to be here. It is very yeah one of those venues.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's to the lower east side, right,
Speaker 1: So I go. And the second act that I saw
Speaker 1: was like a fake toilet coming out and I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was real ship or not, but he
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't real. He smeared all over himself. The third
Speaker 1: person I saw that came out and put a water
Speaker 1: bottle inside of a pussy and like squirted in the
Speaker 1: audience pete and like or like squirted into like a
Speaker 1: person like drink. It was great, you guys gotta go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they you look at the Yelp reviews, you'll either
Speaker 1: see five stars or people five nobody's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't expect whatever nobody feels like about it. The
Speaker 1: one other thing I wanted to say, I think, and
Speaker 1: we hear this a lot with abortion. We hear this
Speaker 1: with like sexual harassment and rape and all of the
Speaker 1: things that impact women and other people who aren't straight men. Basically,
Speaker 1: they you'll often hear men say like I don't know
Speaker 1: anybody that's happened to I don't know anybody has had abortion.
Speaker 1: And but it's also like those conversations have you actually
Speaker 1: tried to have you know a man that's had have
Speaker 1: one with the right your homeboy then made a bitch
Speaker 1: having abortion, but you don't know your friends. Ask your
Speaker 1: male friends, ask your female friends. If you're gonna do it,
Speaker 1: you have to be prepared to like actually have that
Speaker 1: conversation and not be an asshole about it for sure,
Speaker 1: and be genuinely interested in hearing from your friends. But
Speaker 1: talk about it. You'll learn. Talk to your mom comfortable
Speaker 1: with like talking to your mom about it, Talk to
Speaker 1: your aunts, talk to your you know, like other elders
Speaker 1: and your family who could who would probably be like
Speaker 1: a little bit more inclined to have the conversation because
Speaker 1: they know that you're not going to get it. Asked
Speaker 1: about abortion with when we were I went to see
Speaker 1: your roar with it like last week and um my
Speaker 1: mom and I are having a conversation on Georgia and
Speaker 1: like you know, we're talking about learning stuff and whatever,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, Grandma, did do you ever have an abortion?
Speaker 1: And she was like just look and she's like I
Speaker 1: don't think I could have got it. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: if my mom is in the car, mind she had
Speaker 1: three fucking kids, and I'm like, this is awkward, but also,
Speaker 1: like she was saying to me, she was like, and
Speaker 1: even if I could, She's like, but I've had enough money,
Speaker 1: Probably not, I would have been in the same place.
Speaker 1: And that's the sad thing about it then, So maybe not,
Speaker 1: which makes it significantly less safe, you know, which is
Speaker 1: what they're trying. Like just just if abortion if these
Speaker 1: bands go through, which hopefully, I don't want to talk about,
Speaker 1: how do unsafe What is an unsafe abortion? We all
Speaker 1: know about a fucking hanger, but that sounds very like
Speaker 1: you thrown down the stairs like those probably on the
Speaker 1: what is the most realistic as it did drink? Someone
Speaker 1: takes like how are women culturally having unsafe abortions? Like
Speaker 1: in what way? Well today, so there's a couple of ways. Um,
Speaker 1: they're having a procedure done by someone who isn't licensed. Um,
Speaker 1: and they're doing that because they can't access the care
Speaker 1: and be available to them. Turned out by the way
Speaker 1: third world countries, Ireland, just an abortion become legal like
Speaker 1: that ship is really if you couldn't afford to fly
Speaker 1: out what you want. Yeah, I just want to be
Speaker 1: clear that, like the reason people don't access like the
Speaker 1: provision of medical care is usually because there are barriers
Speaker 1: put in place, so they perhaps ordering pills on the internet,
Speaker 1: which can be more or less safe depending on the pills.
Speaker 1: There are herbal remedies which are more or less safe.
Speaker 1: Some of them have been used for really essentially have
Speaker 1: a safe miscarriage quote unquote, well, there's no means of
Speaker 1: deciphering between the two. If you like went to the
Speaker 1: hospital afterwards, they can't tell if it's safe if you've
Speaker 1: had an abortion or if you're miscarrying. Okay, But then
Speaker 1: there are places and I'm forgetting what country it was,
Speaker 1: it was in South America where they were dealing with
Speaker 1: an abortion ban, and activists were circulating videos teaching women
Speaker 1: how to throw themselves in front of a bus it
Speaker 1: looked like an accident to terminate their pregnancies, or how
Speaker 1: to trip and fall super human right, how to how
Speaker 1: to physically induce a miscarriage because they couldn't access abortion.
Speaker 1: That's insane. Literally, this shouldn't never be the measures that
Speaker 1: women have to resort to. Listen, if the answer is
Speaker 1: you have to take herbs, then it worked for thousands
Speaker 1: of years, Like okay, fine, Like that's not ideal, but like,
Speaker 1: all right, but to have to cause physical harm to yourself,
Speaker 1: and people take top beats, they drink bleach, which really
Speaker 1: doesn't work. Those things are not connected, but people are
Speaker 1: pretty unaway. Bodies were a movie precious, that's right. She
Speaker 1: had an abortion by some like neighborhood doctor Lady. That
Speaker 1: movie came with a while ago, but I do remember
Speaker 1: that was the first time I had kind of watched
Speaker 1: it like that and had questions for myself and when
Speaker 1: I was dancing that but that was the shout out
Speaker 1: to New Paul. Yeah, I want to read um before
Speaker 1: we get out of here. Our homemail this week again
Speaker 1: is from one of our listeners who shared her abortion experience.
Speaker 1: She says, Hey, y'all, I just want to start by
Speaker 1: saying I love y'all. I listened faithfully every week and
Speaker 1: was so happy to hear you guys mentioned abortion. Here's
Speaker 1: my story. I was fourteen when I had an abortion.
Speaker 1: I had only had sex eight times and knew nothing
Speaker 1: about what I was doing. I was a freshman in
Speaker 1: high school sneaking around with a nineteen year old senior.
Speaker 1: He was the star of the football team, and he
Speaker 1: made me feel special. Eventually, we stopped having sex because
Speaker 1: I found out he had a whole girlfriend, not a
Speaker 1: half one, a whole one. Fast forward, I start throwing
Speaker 1: up all day long after every meal. I can't make
Speaker 1: it through basketball practice anymore. I sleep all day long,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I can't see my feet
Speaker 1: in the shower anymore. One morning, one morning, I threw
Speaker 1: up after I had breakfast, and my mom straight up
Speaker 1: asked me if I was pregnant. I hadn't told anyone
Speaker 1: but my big sister that I was having sex, so
Speaker 1: I was in shock, but I was honest. I told
Speaker 1: her I didn't know. Her reaction was what any black
Speaker 1: mother's reaction would be. She was pissed. She called my dad, stepmom,
Speaker 1: and stepdad, and they made me explain everything. My dad
Speaker 1: called the whole team. My dad called me a hot
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe maybe my dad called me at home.
Speaker 1: My stepmom told me this baby was going to ruin
Speaker 1: my life and they were going to let it. They
Speaker 1: then made me take them over to the house. His
Speaker 1: mom was there, but he wasn't, and she basically acted
Speaker 1: like she didn't care. Then they made me call him
Speaker 1: and he told my parents it wasn't his and he
Speaker 1: didn't know me. Oh my god, God, he was the
Speaker 1: only person I had ever had sex with. So then
Speaker 1: my parents were really pissed. They made me call and
Speaker 1: tell my grandparents, and they told everybody else. I felt
Speaker 1: so ashamed, but at the same time, I still didn't
Speaker 1: really know no much. For that night, I was at
Speaker 1: my dad's house and got a call for my mom.
Speaker 1: She had her first child at eighteen. She told me
Speaker 1: she's seen me make so many of the same mistakes
Speaker 1: that she did, but she didn't want this to be
Speaker 1: one of them. She asked me if I had wanted
Speaker 1: to keep it. I was honest and said no, I
Speaker 1: was a baby. What was I going to do with
Speaker 1: a baby? She told me we didn't have to tell
Speaker 1: anybody and she would take care of it. Right. I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up with a lot of money, but my
Speaker 1: mom took the rest of her income tax money and
Speaker 1: paid for the doctor's visit where we found out I
Speaker 1: was eight weeks along and the and they took care
Speaker 1: of the abortion. She gave me the chance that nobody
Speaker 1: else wanted to. Now I'm in college grad, I'm a teacher,
Speaker 1: and I'm influencing more girls like me not to make
Speaker 1: the same mistakes. It really hurts sometimes to see people
Speaker 1: openly speak against something they could never understand. All shout
Speaker 1: from the mountaintops that a woman should have the right
Speaker 1: to choose what she does with her body. Thanks for
Speaker 1: my eyes are watering reading that. But I'm also really
Speaker 1: emotional right now with my anxiety. But dude, because I
Speaker 1: just that was messed out. You are already the four
Speaker 1: team if you don't even think you're pregnant, you're that
Speaker 1: oblivious and everyone everyone's letting him off the hook like
Speaker 1: it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal.
Speaker 1: I'm not wishing bad on nobody, but yesabok and just
Speaker 1: see and if he ain't, let's all rejoice. Email us.
Speaker 1: You know that was But also again, as a woman
Speaker 1: like you, feel the shame from every The kid was
Speaker 1: probably scared to his parents, who sure you know, mom,
Speaker 1: who knew, who knew, and who knew that she also
Speaker 1: had to hide that from all of those other people,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And that's what it becomes
Speaker 1: like this roal, intergenerational like trauma that gets passed down
Speaker 1: and it doesn't. I get frustrated because it doesn't have to.
Speaker 1: But also for any of any for anyone who's a
Speaker 1: mother of a teenage daughter for her first response to
Speaker 1: be to call everyone in the family without first having
Speaker 1: that conversation where her, Because now even though you did
Speaker 1: take her to have the abortion, everyone knows she was pregnant.
Speaker 1: How you think the baby just disappeared? So without even saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to take her to get an abortion, it's
Speaker 1: wanting to shame, but a lot of I was recently
Speaker 1: talking to the lady when I was getting my hair braided,
Speaker 1: and she was like, we watched this woman embarrass her
Speaker 1: kid in the hair song, right, And I was like,
Speaker 1: as gonna say, it's like a lesson, right, Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: my mom had done a few things to try to
Speaker 1: embarrass me, Like I think I was really young, and
Speaker 1: like I made front of this girl about what she
Speaker 1: was wearing, so my mom wouldn't let me wear my
Speaker 1: certain things. I was a kid as an element elementary school,
Speaker 1: but I understood that lesson. To me, that's a value, right,
Speaker 1: It's like I still have clothes to wear to school,
Speaker 1: but it's not what I wanted. That was her way
Speaker 1: of letting me feel it. When parents try to embarrass
Speaker 1: kids like I really don't believe it's this transformative justice
Speaker 1: at all, Like it's degrading as fun. My sister soul
Speaker 1: something one time and my mom turn it literally made
Speaker 1: her back. I got difference from versus like telling everyone's
Speaker 1: like to own up to. In this girl's scenario, she had,
Speaker 1: what that's not a thing you have to own up to.
Speaker 1: That's the thing you do, and that's an okay choice
Speaker 1: in the rate, right, So it's not like stealing is
Speaker 1: wrong depending on who you're stealing. A lot of you
Speaker 1: might be hearing this age fourteen and like all high school,
Speaker 1: but high school, I mean that's the age one of
Speaker 1: the y and one of the things that we also
Speaker 1: advocate for. Obviously, abortion is sort of our centerpiece, like
Speaker 1: that is the thing, but it's also the thing that's
Speaker 1: most under attack. Access to contraception is so important and
Speaker 1: harder than it should be. Um. But the other thing
Speaker 1: is that sex said in this country is like you know,
Speaker 1: if you're at a public you know who's providing some
Speaker 1: of that sex said in some schools, those fake clinics.
Speaker 1: Governments are bringing them in to do abstinence only education.
Speaker 1: So there's a real need to reform that. It's something
Speaker 1: that should be like a K through twelve learning experience.
Speaker 1: You're not going to send a kid to college and
Speaker 1: be like, do calculus if you didn't teach them how
Speaker 1: to count in kindergarten. But we're sending kids off graduating
Speaker 1: out of high school and being like, you need to
Speaker 1: understand consent, You need to understand your body under not
Speaker 1: wanting your kid to be in sex. You have to
Speaker 1: get permission to be able to teach it to kids.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the legislators love to say, well,
Speaker 1: parents really want to teach that at home. No, they
Speaker 1: know they didn't learn it themselves, Like they don't know
Speaker 1: how to conversation. And we wouldn't have such a consent
Speaker 1: problem in this country if that was true. And get
Speaker 1: pregnant only like my mom told me, Like I just
Speaker 1: didn't ask those specifics right right, Well, like my mom
Speaker 1: told me about sex. My mom told me how I
Speaker 1: can get pregnant, like I got to use a condom,
Speaker 1: birth control, things like that. But I still really was like, yo,
Speaker 1: pa swallow, never know baby gonna swim down connected. But
Speaker 1: people don't know that. They don't people don't get taught that.
Speaker 1: Do you guys have any sort of emails or anything
Speaker 1: that we would be able to let our listeners know
Speaker 1: if they have any questions to you or I guess
Speaker 1: we can go ahead and also just shout out on
Speaker 1: before we get out of here, the places that they
Speaker 1: could do outreach to UM and maybe find the answers
Speaker 1: they want regarding the laws that are going cover from
Speaker 1: thing now. I don't know if you did when I
Speaker 1: was in the bathroom the effects of too many like
Speaker 1: is there a two high number? No? No, but we
Speaker 1: talked about it not affecting the reproduction and also like,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't affect the reproduction, right, what are the
Speaker 1: statistics that we are fucking seeing like that? Like we
Speaker 1: sat in this episode, Mandy heard it, I said, no way,
Speaker 1: googled it and it came up like it was fucking gospel,
Speaker 1: Like are there studies that are like it? Could could
Speaker 1: there be a false about fertility? Yeah? Fertility the one
Speaker 1: thing that I would really really not like. So okay
Speaker 1: on that episode again, I keep going back to it.
Speaker 1: When you guys talked about it, you pulled something up
Speaker 1: and started reading. In my head as I'm listening, I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is this source? What is the website? Is this Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: is it? Pro life dot com? Is it? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, where are people finding information? People
Speaker 1: update Wikipedia? They can just go in there and the
Speaker 1: update anything one of the things, um that is just
Speaker 1: coming out in particular, And this isn't fully the same thing,
Speaker 1: but um, in the last year and a half, studies
Speaker 1: of the Facebook algorithm show that in particular, anti abortion
Speaker 1: stories get lifted up in social media more than other sources.
Speaker 1: So life news gets like elevated in shares of life news.
Speaker 1: Get life news dot com, which is they're not good
Speaker 1: life news dot com. Okay, not a good source. It's ironic, right,
Speaker 1: like life sounds like a good thing. Inevitably, if you
Speaker 1: were reading about reproduction and there's the word life in
Speaker 1: the title, it is almost always an anti abortion source.
Speaker 1: So um, there's lots of resources out there that makes sense,
Speaker 1: right and that I actually shout out to an EQUO
Speaker 1: used to work with. She sent an article to me
Speaker 1: this morning on this. Right wing sources dominate abortion related
Speaker 1: news on Facebook. Sixt of links and se Facebook um
Speaker 1: posts are coming from right leaning like this is again
Speaker 1: this is something honestly, don't even get it anymore, Like
Speaker 1: I unrelated but like posted a picture with the girl
Speaker 1: I'm dating and I kissed her. You wouldn't believe the
Speaker 1: amount of fake pages that like has ship to say about.
Speaker 1: I literally talked about eating a cream pie out of
Speaker 1: someone before, but seeing me kiss this girl on Instagram
Speaker 1: was too fucking too far. Certain that we have for
Speaker 1: other people and their bodies, the concern that men have,
Speaker 1: it's it's all it's all about control, it's all about Um,
Speaker 1: this is where I start to sound like a little cookie,
Speaker 1: but like, it's it's all about a system of oppression. Um,
Speaker 1: you're talking to POC and we're women. Like, there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of systems in place to keep non white people oppressed, right,
Speaker 1: you know, all sorts of voter suppression, redlining, like every
Speaker 1: horrible racist policy that exists in this country. Right, There's
Speaker 1: all sorts of systems in place to keep gay people oppressed.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of systems to keep women oppress. All
Speaker 1: of the systems are in place to keep everybody except
Speaker 1: for straight white men oppressed. Design and it's my design, right,
Speaker 1: It's on purpose, And they're freaking out right now, and
Speaker 1: all these laws are passing right now because women are
Speaker 1: standing up, because gay people are standing up because because
Speaker 1: black people are standing up and they're scared because we're
Speaker 1: making a lot more progress than we ever have. Right.
Speaker 1: So there's a ton of resources out there. Organization. I mean,
Speaker 1: I will put in a plug for our website, which
Speaker 1: is UM and I are health dot org. And if
Speaker 1: you're interested in like the local level laws that are
Speaker 1: being passed, what's going on at that level, it's a
Speaker 1: great place. VP. We ain't gotta ask nobody else. We
Speaker 1: come a right, you just call me Daniel name. You
Speaker 1: will not be the first person just call me now
Speaker 1: that I'm also everyone's aunt who like they're like, oh hey,
Speaker 1: my kid needs to ask you a question, like all right, hey,
Speaker 1: and and I'm like, okay, well you remember when your
Speaker 1: mom was pregnant. Okay, let's start there. UM. So we
Speaker 1: have a lot of information on the local stuff that's happening.
Speaker 1: There's an organization called bedsider that if you're trying to
Speaker 1: find the right contraception for you, they're an excellent resource.
Speaker 1: Everything that's like laid out really nicely. Some other non
Speaker 1: hormonal besides I do the rhythm method, you use a diaphram,
Speaker 1: some um any other ones that maybe are it's really
Speaker 1: once you're doing non hormonal, you're talking about physical barriers, right,
Speaker 1: so a diaphermo or cervical care, both things that go
Speaker 1: inside you. A non hormonal I U D or or
Speaker 1: condoms and tracking um. There are a ton of hormonal
Speaker 1: methods that work really well for people, but you do
Speaker 1: sometimes have to find the one that works for you.
Speaker 1: The first pill that your doctor puts you on might
Speaker 1: not be the best one for your body. May not be.
Speaker 1: And that's why I stopped, Like I just I didn't
Speaker 1: like taking a pill every day, and I felt crazy,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to take the effort to go
Speaker 1: through finding already acquired crazy. Not to mention when I
Speaker 1: got the depot. I remember coming back and like, hey,
Speaker 1: I gained weight, and he was like, yeah, the depot
Speaker 1: didn't make you gain weight. Maybe your appetite went up.
Speaker 1: And I was like, probably because of the depot, believe
Speaker 1: it or not. But you are not the first person
Speaker 1: who had that explained. It was such a Remember there
Speaker 1: was the thing that came out where they had been
Speaker 1: working on hormonal birth control for men, but the side
Speaker 1: effects was just too much, and the side effects were
Speaker 1: like bloating and like remember that I was like, only
Speaker 1: try every month you got bloated, take the pill. Man.
Speaker 1: If men I would get pregnant, we all would not
Speaker 1: be sitting here right now. We would not be having
Speaker 1: this conversation. Y'all. Motherfuckers need to go ahead. There's bout
Speaker 1: of control for men too. So if y'all are out
Speaker 1: here not wanting a baby, but y'all want to sit
Speaker 1: here and keep sucking bitches all, there are vasectomes or
Speaker 1: very easy procedures. They are out patients them. I know
Speaker 1: I'm talking to a lot of men who have vasectomies.
Speaker 1: The second may rates go up during whatever the best
Speaker 1: whatever the basketball thing is, college basketball thing, March madness
Speaker 1: really because they during March bad time and they have
Speaker 1: to take three days off and they can watch basketball tea.
Speaker 1: We want to true, but one would be good for us.
Speaker 1: Then literally any day you get to sit at home, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't even I feel like we always go ahead
Speaker 1: and do it liber day week in a Memorial weekend
Speaker 1: when you don't have to take a day off of
Speaker 1: work because they pay, you know, during a long weekends
Speaker 1: where it's different because they're like, we have to take
Speaker 1: days off work for a vasectomise so we can watch
Speaker 1: March Randness and you're like, I don't want to chakeboy jays.
Speaker 1: Can I start one more little bit of outrage if
Speaker 1: you want to get a tub bulligation as a as
Speaker 1: a woman is getting your tubes tied, getting your tubes tied,
Speaker 1: it's really like a lot of times if you're not
Speaker 1: a certain age, haven't happen. They will freshure you and like,
Speaker 1: you know how many women I know who have who
Speaker 1: had conversations with their doctor and they're like, I just
Speaker 1: don't feel right about it because you're still a child bearing.
Speaker 1: So my mom has her tubes tied. So that was
Speaker 1: a conversation I've had with her, and she got it
Speaker 1: after my youngest sister. There's three of us, and they
Speaker 1: still we're trying to even though she had, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of thoughts of even writing the third one because
Speaker 1: of financial reasons, they still almost were like trying to
Speaker 1: tell her She's like, I'm done. I think I would
Speaker 1: know for kids. She's like no, And she had you know,
Speaker 1: her male partner if they were to walk in, no problem,
Speaker 1: No questions asked, when do you need a schedule, which
Speaker 1: is what happened to neil Um and Monetta. I believe
Speaker 1: it's his ex wife. She she agreed to have the
Speaker 1: her tubes tied um and now he has a baby
Speaker 1: with someone else. So that's yeah, that w kumal Bell
Speaker 1: just did an episode where he broadcast his sect to me.
Speaker 1: He was like, this is how I'm I'm this is
Speaker 1: what I'm bringing to our relationship, Like we're done having
Speaker 1: kids and she doesn't want to be on the pill anymore,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to get a second me and he
Speaker 1: like broadcasted. But also this is something that again like
Speaker 1: abortion needs to be a conversation. A friend of mine,
Speaker 1: her partner when I got off a sect to me
Speaker 1: without letting her know. Um and so again, even even
Speaker 1: those conversations, if you are in a relationship and your
Speaker 1: partner may or may not be complete with having children,
Speaker 1: that's also again another conversation that you need to have
Speaker 1: with your partner if you should be if you're in
Speaker 1: a relationship you should be making if you change decisions
Speaker 1: that you can adopt all those fucking crazies out there
Speaker 1: who are convincing us to keep them forcing motherhood. You
Speaker 1: can adopt those kids if you change your mind. So
Speaker 1: I want to thank um once again, Danielle and Lacey
Speaker 1: for coming to the horribless pots having this conversation, and
Speaker 1: we hope that all of you guys not only learned something,
Speaker 1: but got a couple of lasts and there it wasn't
Speaker 1: is planning, but you know, we're just trying to educate
Speaker 1: you all. Again. We're sitting across the table um from
Speaker 1: two professionals and Weezy and I are taking in and
Speaker 1: learning um every episode that we do with this podcast,
Speaker 1: So we want to do your research. Guys. UM, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of good tips in here, and again
Speaker 1: we're gonna put the information not only in the description
Speaker 1: of this episode, but on our patron on our Patreon,
Speaker 1: I do want to give a huge shout out as
Speaker 1: well to our patrons. As you guys know, for an
Speaker 1: additional five dollars a month up to fifteen Dallas, you
Speaker 1: guys can get three bonus episodes per month and those
Speaker 1: are dropped. If you guys are all caught up with
Speaker 1: all one hundred plus episodes, we are sitting in a
Speaker 1: vault of about another forty almost UM, so check out
Speaker 1: our bonus episodes, become a Patreon because we are an
Speaker 1: eight teen plus community. You do have to type in
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com backslash Horrible Decisions And as always, we're
Speaker 1: gonna leave you with a clip from one of our
Speaker 1: bonus episodes. At the end of this episode. Um, we
Speaker 1: want to thank again Lacy, We want to thank again
Speaker 1: Danielle for coming in dropping them knowledge Box, thank you
Speaker 1: for all of that. And again with condoms, y'all with condoms. Um,
Speaker 1: but once again this has been yet another episode of
Speaker 1: Horrible Decisions by They identify as straight. Some of them
Speaker 1: even have wives, they have children, they have whole families. No,
Speaker 1: they don't like the they like getting head from guys,
Speaker 1: and they don't they don't. They don't look at oral
Speaker 1: sex as full sex with the man and he says
Speaker 1: it all the day. Do's like dog, these niggers just
Speaker 1: want me to head. They just want head from men.
Speaker 1: And I've met a lot of men that actually like that.
Speaker 1: And so it's like they won't sure, but they won't
Speaker 1: identify as gay, questionable by curious They're like none, I'm straight,
Speaker 1: but they like getting head from guys. And Nicold has
Speaker 1: went to Evard like midnight talking about night. Oh, she
Speaker 1: talks about you know, I don't know, there's a guy
Speaker 1: speaking in the book about the Jaws. He was like stronger,
Speaker 1: Like they do have stronger. Yeah, the next one, and
Speaker 1: it's non binary. So you guys might hear this one
Speaker 1: a lot. Um. It's a gender identity and experience that
Speaker 1: embraces a full universe of expressions in ways that of
Speaker 1: being that resonate for an individual. It might be an
Speaker 1: active resistance to binary gender expectations. And by the way
Speaker 1: that sentence, an active resistance. What is that I say
Speaker 1: non binary when I want to piss people off? What
Speaker 1: is non binary? Um? Right now? Because so it means
Speaker 1: that you don't conform to any of them. It's gender nonconforming,
Speaker 1: like we just oh, so, well not a man, I'm
Speaker 1: not a woman. But it's not sexuality because so we
Speaker 1: just had a coe and gender. Oh's gender okay, because
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, we just had a couple on
Speaker 1: and we asked them their sexuality and they were like, well,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to say straight, they didn't want to
Speaker 1: say by, they didn't want to say anything. They were
Speaker 1: just like we just to me, But okay, I think
Speaker 1: they just didn't know how to identify. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's like but this is so gender but gender, so
Speaker 1: we gotta remember gender and sexual orientation are two different things.
Speaker 1: For example, Chris Jenner, I mean Chris Jenner, Caitlyn Jenner
Speaker 1: would be ambian or queer. So lesbians are not female.
Speaker 1: Lesbian is woman attracted to woman. But so here's my thing,
Speaker 1: trans identify as women. So can you not say that
Speaker 1: there that Caitlyn Jenner is the lesbians, you know, the
Speaker 1: different to women and female. Yes, for those of you
Speaker 1: who aren't listen, who are listening and you get a
Speaker 1: little confused. Actually, when Sam White came and he was
Speaker 1: like when guys say female, and he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're truping. Remember that, I get it. I get female
Speaker 1: describes you by your genitalia, your gender, that it was
Speaker 1: assigned at birth. Women is how you identify, like I
Speaker 1: identify as a woman. Um, so apparently Caitleen Jenner is lesbian.
Speaker 1: But lesbian is women attracted to women, not female attracted
Speaker 1: to female. So yeah, um, but I think it's queer
Speaker 1: because she's try but whatever, whatever it was. The next
Speaker 1: one omni sexual. Okay, this is new a person who
Speaker 1: has attracted to people from across the gender spectrum. I
Speaker 1: think this is what I am. Similar to pan sexual
Speaker 1: omni sexual, people recognize potential partners, genders are attracted to
Speaker 1: all genders and make decisions about partners based on their gender.
Speaker 1: So maybe I'm only sexual Beach. I know I've said
Speaker 1: pant sexual before, but I think it's a live because
Speaker 1: when I'm women, so in those pay and sexual people
Speaker 1: say they're like, oh, it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Now I'll be looking at just for who they are. Same.
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna always look at like hair, the nape
Speaker 1: of the neck, lips, like hips, like I definitely is
Speaker 1: there is there like, um, I don't think any of
Speaker 1: Oh I guess there is one. Maybe no, So like
Speaker 1: for me when it comes to say all genders, like
Speaker 1: because I watch all types of port, I watch gay, straight,
Speaker 1: and transport. But even when I watched transport, I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: and again I'm sorry if I have had anyone, but
Speaker 1: when I watched transport, and I want them to be
Speaker 1: super feminine looking but with big old dicks, and I
Speaker 1: have a problem with the don't have what you want.
Speaker 1: So this isn't a I didn't do pant sexual or
Speaker 1: polly for this one because we discussed it with um
Speaker 1: MARSI je maybe, but anyway, passing is also gay slang.
Speaker 1: It's the act of being perceived by others this one's
Speaker 1: preferred identity. Now imposed did you watch POK I meant
Speaker 1: to watch it. I know they talk about there's an
Speaker 1: electro whose imposed makes comments to this other call. She's like,
Speaker 1: she's like, you're just mad because I'm passing and you're not.
Speaker 1: I can pass. I could go to Bergdwarf and they're
Speaker 1: gonna wait on me. They won't do it for you,
Speaker 1: like they were using that as like a I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. Shout out to Jamie Paris who
Speaker 1: came on the show Beautiful Mitch, and I'm considered a
Speaker 1: quote unquote passing and and that's what the funds you
Speaker 1: probably have a problem with you right now. So I
Speaker 1: just I just feel like you're dramatic because this bitch
Speaker 1: really just pulled out her and hailer. We're not smoking weed.
Speaker 1: It's not about the is it? Because this room isn't closed? No,
Speaker 1: I fucking went. I just near not in workout clothes.
Speaker 1: So what did you do that? You just had your
Speaker 1: It's not always like I don't have to be doing
Speaker 1: something in the moment. Sometimes it could just be like
Speaker 1: backed up from later. I don't know, Mandy. I felt
Speaker 1: like I really I was listening this show. Wasn't I wheezing.
Speaker 1: I was starting to hear it. I didn't hear a bit.
Speaker 1: You don't have your headphones on.