Speaker 1: Good evenings and a landmark ruling. The Supreme Court today
Speaker 1: legalized abortions to majority and to raise the dignity of
Speaker 1: woman and give her freedom of choice in this area
Speaker 1: is an extraordinary event. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric, and
Speaker 1: this is Abortion the Body Politic Part three. Today we
Speaker 1: explored that historic nineteen seventy three decision and it's unraveling
Speaker 1: in the five decades that followed. But let's begin where
Speaker 1: we left off. When someone doesn't really know who I
Speaker 1: am and have heard that I'm a lawyer, but they
Speaker 1: don't know how much about me? When I'd say, well,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of the case of roversus Wade?
Speaker 1: And then they're usually stunned, because I mean, it's aten
Speaker 1: still described as the most one of the most well
Speaker 1: known cases in favor of shouldn't that there is? My
Speaker 1: name is Linda Nelling. Coffee and Iron, my late friend
Speaker 1: Sarah Weddington were the two women did that pursued the
Speaker 1: case of Roe versus Wade. It's impossible to talk about
Speaker 1: the abortion rights movement without first talking to Linda. Linda
Speaker 1: is the last living Road prosecutor after Sarah Weddington died
Speaker 1: on December Linda knows the case intimately, and at eighty
Speaker 1: she's witnessed the decades long fight to chip away at Row.
Speaker 1: She spoke to us from a studio not far from
Speaker 1: her home, which she shares with her longtime partner Becky Hart.
Speaker 1: I had the distinct honor of having a blind day
Speaker 1: with Lee Cogan December night three, and over the course
Speaker 1: of a whole evening, she said that she had worked
Speaker 1: with Sarah Winnington on this Ruby Wade case. I said, well, no,
Speaker 1: if that can't be, I'm a Dallas side. It was
Speaker 1: a Dallas attorney named Linda Coffee, and her face fell
Speaker 1: because she's that introverted. So for thirty eight years we've
Speaker 1: been together, She's done mostly bankruptcy law, and I've done
Speaker 1: different jobs and things. Linda is a lifelong Texan and
Speaker 1: lives in a small town about eighty five miles east
Speaker 1: of Dallas. She was born in Houston, graduated from Rice University,
Speaker 1: and went on to law school. I went to University
Speaker 1: of Texas at Austin and there were only about including me,
Speaker 1: there was only about six women into the class that
Speaker 1: that I started with, and we all would talk together
Speaker 1: in the one place we usually could talk and and
Speaker 1: not have to worry about anyone overhearing us was in
Speaker 1: the the women's restroom, which was on the first floor
Speaker 1: of the building. We were coming up at a time
Speaker 1: when things were changing quickly for women. That was really
Speaker 1: excited to think about helping women prepared to gain higher
Speaker 1: positions and to seek a way of continuing their education
Speaker 1: and not be compromised or having to worry about being
Speaker 1: fired if they became pregnant or had someone decided they
Speaker 1: had to meet children and they might not continue to
Speaker 1: do a good job. After graduating from law school with
Speaker 1: honors in getting the second highest score on the state
Speaker 1: bar exam, Linda earned a coveted clerkship with Judge Sarah Hughes,
Speaker 1: Texas is first female federal judge who was best known
Speaker 1: for swearing and Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force one
Speaker 1: after President Kennedy was assassinated in nineteen sixty three that
Speaker 1: I was thankfully once again, here's Becky Hart. It's hard
Speaker 1: to get a clerk job for the judges. You have
Speaker 1: to be intelligent and do very well in law school. Succinctly,
Speaker 1: Linda's scores were so high that she applied for that job,
Speaker 1: and she got it. It's an honor, and that's what
Speaker 1: set the whole ball in motion on abortion rights. The
Speaker 1: first case that I was aware of was the case
Speaker 1: out in California in nineteen sixty seven. California Governor Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan was among the first to liberalize abortion laws, extending
Speaker 1: exceptions for therapeutic abortions. But the case Linda's talking about
Speaker 1: came two years later in nineteen sixty nine, the People
Speaker 1: Versus Bellis. The four to three decision from the state
Speaker 1: Supreme Court declared California's eighteen fifty criminal abortion law unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: The ruling helped repeal a conviction of Dr Leon P. Bellis,
Speaker 1: who helped a woman get an abortion. It was a big,
Speaker 1: big news deal. So I've just read about the case
Speaker 1: just in the Dallas Morning News, and then I knew
Speaker 1: there were some other cases that then followed, like there
Speaker 1: was a case in Wisconsin, and then there was a
Speaker 1: case in New York. So that's why I thought that
Speaker 1: there would be a decent chance to win the case
Speaker 1: if we filed in Texas. I still kept in contact
Speaker 1: with some of the with Sarah what Eaton and some
Speaker 1: of the other women that that I knew in my
Speaker 1: class that it graduated. One of the things I did
Speaker 1: when I decided that I had a sufficient basis was
Speaker 1: I wrote to Sarah because I had heard she was
Speaker 1: plady to follow them suit against the Texas abortion Law.
Speaker 1: So I wrote her a letter and said to see
Speaker 1: if she was interested in and enjoining me in that suit.
Speaker 1: They teamed up and on March third, nineteen seventy, Linda
Speaker 1: filed a suit in Dallas on behalf of their client,
Speaker 1: Norman McCorvey, using the pseudonym Jane Rowe. The hearing before
Speaker 1: the three judge Corey in Dallas went went pretty smoothly.
Speaker 1: The lower court unanimously ruled in Jane Roe's favor, finding
Speaker 1: the Texas abortion law unconstitutional because it violated the right
Speaker 1: to privacy. But when the district Attorney Henry Wade yes
Speaker 1: that Wade announced he would continue to pursue abortion cases,
Speaker 1: Linda was able to file a repeal directly to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Oral arguments were set for December thirteenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one. We here arguments number eighteen against whenever you're ready,
Speaker 1: Mr Chief Justice, and may have pleased the court. The
Speaker 1: instant case is a direct appeal from a decision of
Speaker 1: the United States District Court of the Northern District of Texas,
Speaker 1: and then again on October eleventh, nine first eighteen to
Speaker 1: roll against Wade Yes Lyndon. Sarah had to reargue the case,
Speaker 1: a rare occurrence because there were only seven justices present
Speaker 1: the first time. Weddington, you may proceed when here you're ready,
Speaker 1: Mr Chief Justice, and may have placed the court. We
Speaker 1: are once again before this Court to ask relief against
Speaker 1: the continued enforcement of the Texas Abortion Statute, and asked
Speaker 1: that you affirm the ruling of the three judge court below,
Speaker 1: which held our statute unconstitutional for two reasons, the first
Speaker 1: that it was vague and the second that it interfered
Speaker 1: with the Night Amendment right of a woman to determine
Speaker 1: whether or not she would continue or terminate a pregnancy.
Speaker 1: As you will recall there are Linda recalls a few
Speaker 1: details that stand out about her Supreme Court experience. The
Speaker 1: closest restroom to where the Supreme Court held their arguments
Speaker 1: was three three big staircases below. People would probably notice
Speaker 1: that if they were women, but not not men. And
Speaker 1: at one of the arguments, some of the justices wives
Speaker 1: were sitting in the courtroom. I wouldn't have recognized the wives,
Speaker 1: but I just told us we were walking in that
Speaker 1: several of the wives of the Supreme Court were there.
Speaker 1: So I just assumed that that probably meant from people
Speaker 1: that had been around more Supreme Court arguments than I had,
Speaker 1: that that was probably a good sign that that wasn't
Speaker 1: considered important by the court. While Linda and Sarah split
Speaker 1: the oral arguments and the lower court, it was Sarah
Speaker 1: who presented and the Supreme Court. Linda took notes. She spoke,
Speaker 1: and I thought she did very well, and uh, it
Speaker 1: was kind of hard to write everything down, so I
Speaker 1: tried to just write down the questions because I figured
Speaker 1: i'd remember the the answers. I think I was probably
Speaker 1: more nervous that time. I wasn't that nervous before the
Speaker 1: three judge court in Dallas, but to get it when
Speaker 1: you're really going for the highest court in the land. Curiously,
Speaker 1: the original Road decision was leaked to a Supreme Court
Speaker 1: clerk shared the court ruling on background to a Time
Speaker 1: magazine reporter, But when the decision was delayed slightly and
Speaker 1: Time a weekly ran the story anyway, it appeared in
Speaker 1: print the day before the actual decision was handed down.
Speaker 1: I first read the Time magazine that said the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court was ready to overrule the Texas abortion law and
Speaker 1: it was going to be about a serace of seven
Speaker 1: to vote. So I had read about it, I think
Speaker 1: the day before it came out. And Sarah said she
Speaker 1: found out about it when she heard the decision that
Speaker 1: was rendered the next day, and that's when she started
Speaker 1: getting her phone was calling and and at first she
Speaker 1: wasn't sure what it was, and they were they were
Speaker 1: saying that we had won, and that was just that
Speaker 1: was just great because the phones were calling and everything
Speaker 1: was mostly mostly on the only the people that called
Speaker 1: were very positive about it. I really thought that was
Speaker 1: gonna be it after the first Supreme Court victory. But
Speaker 1: the afternoon after the decision in Roe versus Way came out,
Speaker 1: L b J died. The senior partner in the firm
Speaker 1: that I was with came in and said, well, you've
Speaker 1: been knocked off the front page because L b J died,
Speaker 1: And and that's what was the headline and the Dallas
Speaker 1: Morning News and then our story I think it was
Speaker 1: below what they called below the fold. Here's abortion legal
Speaker 1: scholar Mary Ziggler to help explain the details of the decision.
Speaker 1: Gen the Supreme Court voted seven to two in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three that that law was unconstitutional and that it
Speaker 1: violated a constitutional right to privacy that the Court had
Speaker 1: recognized in earlier rulings on things like marriage and contraception.
Speaker 1: The Court held that right to privacy was broad enough
Speaker 1: to encompass the decision about whether to have an abortion,
Speaker 1: and the Court laid out what at the time was
Speaker 1: called the trimester frameworks that would be used to determine
Speaker 1: if abortion laws were constitutional. The Court also rejected a
Speaker 1: lot of key anti abortion arguments, like the argument that
Speaker 1: the Constitution recognized fetal personhood, which would have made abortion
Speaker 1: unconstitutional nationwide. So, coming out of Row, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the majority of state laws that were then on the
Speaker 1: books were rendered unconstitutional. We'll be right back. Well, I
Speaker 1: think it depends on where you stand and who you are,
Speaker 1: whether you think that Row was successful or unsuccessful. Historian
Speaker 1: Ricky Solinger. When feminists and other women experienced the Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade decision in they expected that a nationalization of the
Speaker 1: right to abortion would lead to a number of transformative
Speaker 1: experiences for women in the United States. They expected marriages
Speaker 1: that were more equal, They were possessors of their own sexuality,
Speaker 1: that they could have premarital sex without the fear of
Speaker 1: unwed pregnancy and the shames that that had carried for
Speaker 1: several decades. They felt much safer embracing their own sexuality
Speaker 1: and pursuing it. Then, of course, there were the economic
Speaker 1: expectations that if you can control your fertility, you have
Speaker 1: a much better chance of being able to pursue the
Speaker 1: educational programs that you said before, yourself, making professional choices,
Speaker 1: being able to get a job, that you can time
Speaker 1: your maternity according to your professional growth, that you can
Speaker 1: stay or go where you can be an equal to
Speaker 1: your husband and also be economically independent, changes the landscape
Speaker 1: so profoundly that you're hardly the same person anymore that
Speaker 1: that has enormous repercussions for what woman means. Other women
Speaker 1: have been very clear eyed about the limits of the
Speaker 1: impact of legalization. As Black women, we knew that role
Speaker 1: was going to be inadequate to protect us from the
Speaker 1: intersectional oppression. Activists. Academic and one of the founders of
Speaker 1: the reproductive justice movement, Loretta Ross, the National Council of
Speaker 1: Negro Women wrote a statement about that in nine three
Speaker 1: in response to ROW, when they talked about how role
Speaker 1: will become just another way to deny Black women are
Speaker 1: full human rights, are full right to self determination. And
Speaker 1: the reason we know that, or knew that well because
Speaker 1: there were so many way other ways that we had
Speaker 1: already experienced where Black women's parenting and reproductive options were
Speaker 1: being threatened, like with sterilization abuse, but more gregious and
Speaker 1: more obvious. Was at any time Black women became civically
Speaker 1: active around voting rights or housing rights or trying to
Speaker 1: fight violence that was technical any of that time, the
Speaker 1: first thing the government would do would be to threaten
Speaker 1: to take our children away, you know, and fighting well
Speaker 1: abortion rights didn't address that. We always knew that even
Speaker 1: if we had fully funded abortion services that were totally
Speaker 1: safe and totally accessible, we still suffer from a racialized
Speaker 1: gender oppression that we had to fight. The leaders of
Speaker 1: Reproductive Justice point out regularly that abortion has been legal
Speaker 1: for fifty years, but how accessible has it been two
Speaker 1: women without resources to be adequate consumers. So we know
Speaker 1: that Within two years of ROW, the Congress worked very
Speaker 1: hard to pass the High Amendment, which by the by
Speaker 1: the was complete, which said no federal funding for abortion
Speaker 1: the one medical prostidure that was singled out to be
Speaker 1: excluded from federal funding um under the Medicaid Act, and
Speaker 1: that meant that poor women were poor choicemakers. The pro
Speaker 1: choice framework assumed that you have choices, it's a marketplace idea,
Speaker 1: when actually the marketplace doesn't work well for people who
Speaker 1: don't have you know, the currency or the privileged as
Speaker 1: a marketplace doesn't the same way the SBA. The Texas
Speaker 1: abortion ban is not gonna fall most heavily on women
Speaker 1: with the means to go to another state. It's gonna
Speaker 1: fall it was heavily on the people who are trapped,
Speaker 1: who can't go anywhere. The Norman G. Mccorby's of the world,
Speaker 1: the original Rose who idonically was from Texas. Loretta understands
Speaker 1: this all too well. She's the survivor of sexual violence
Speaker 1: and sterilization. You might recall some of Loretta's story from
Speaker 1: episode two, but how a university while I was a
Speaker 1: student there, I accepted implantation of the i U D
Speaker 1: called the Dalkon shield in despite her i U causing
Speaker 1: acute pelvic inflammatory disease. A doctor refused to take out
Speaker 1: the device and her fallopian tubes burst. I didn't enter
Speaker 1: this movement fighting for abortion rights. I was into the
Speaker 1: movement fighting for the right to have children. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until I got into the work that I saw
Speaker 1: that they were two sides of the same coin, and
Speaker 1: it's all about denying women the right to con to
Speaker 1: make our own reproductive decisions, whether to have a child
Speaker 1: or not to have a child. And then when you
Speaker 1: intersect the sexual violence I had been through, then I
Speaker 1: knew that we needed a larger framework than what the
Speaker 1: current discussions were paralyzed by that pro life pro choice dichotomy,
Speaker 1: which was so inadequate for describing my lived experiences. And
Speaker 1: so how reproductive justice developed was at a conference organized
Speaker 1: by the Illinois Pro Choice Alliance in June in Chicago.
Speaker 1: On the first day of the conference, we heard a
Speaker 1: presentation by representative of the Clinton administration. Hillary Clinton had
Speaker 1: been put in charge of the Clinton administration effort to
Speaker 1: do health care reform, but this representative said that they
Speaker 1: knew was going to be a fight to get healthcare
Speaker 1: reform past the Republicans, and so they conceptualized that if
Speaker 1: they omitted or at least reduced all references to reproductive healthcare,
Speaker 1: that that would increase his chances of passage. There were
Speaker 1: twelvels black women who were at this conference. The prefer
Speaker 1: might have been even more but able. Mabel Thomas, who
Speaker 1: was a Georgia state representative at the time, called us
Speaker 1: together in her hotel room that night after we heard
Speaker 1: this presentation, and she's like, this doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Why would they come to a feminist conference, a pro
Speaker 1: choice conference asked us to endorse a healthcare plan that
Speaker 1: omitsreproductive healthcare. That's like the most male centric health care
Speaker 1: plan you could think of, because reproductive healthcare is what
Speaker 1: drives women to the doctor. That was the night in
Speaker 1: which we conceptualize to reproductive justice because the other thing
Speaker 1: that we realized was that we were dissatisfied with how
Speaker 1: abortion was always isolated from social justice issues, and that
Speaker 1: isolation wasn't doing us any good. Are representing what black
Speaker 1: women went through because any time a woman is pregnant,
Speaker 1: oh well, let's put it this way, she doesn't even
Speaker 1: have to be pregnant. Any time her period is just late,
Speaker 1: she has what we call all these oh my God conversations,
Speaker 1: Oh my God, am I pregnant? Oh my God? What
Speaker 1: am I gonna tell my mom? Or what am I
Speaker 1: gonna tell my partner? Am I gonna keep my job?
Speaker 1: Or can I stay in school? Or do even I'm
Speaker 1: in bedroom to put this child in. So she's got
Speaker 1: good answers to the oh my God questions, This is
Speaker 1: gonna turn an unplanned pregnancy into a wanted child. But
Speaker 1: if she has bad answers to the oh my God question,
Speaker 1: she may even turn a planned pregnancy into an abortion.
Speaker 1: And so for the pro life movement and the pro
Speaker 1: choice we with the both start with the pregnancy is
Speaker 1: starting too far downstream in our opinion. If you really
Speaker 1: want to quote reduce the need for abortion, really talk
Speaker 1: about how actual human beings make decisions and address those
Speaker 1: things that discourage people from becoming parents. And so we
Speaker 1: spliced together social justice and reproductive rights to create the
Speaker 1: term reproductive justice. We define reproductive justice as the right
Speaker 1: to have a child, the right not to have a child,
Speaker 1: and the right to raise your children in safe and
Speaker 1: healthy environments. And then that was how we articulated in
Speaker 1: a but by two thousand and four, a new generation
Speaker 1: of activists were coming up Black women in particular, who
Speaker 1: are arguing that the original three tenants didn't include gender
Speaker 1: not conforming in LGBT people, and so they added a
Speaker 1: fourth tenant to talk about the right to gender identity,
Speaker 1: sexual pleasure, and self determination in terms of one's reproductive
Speaker 1: options and choices. I'm pleased to say that even though
Speaker 1: we didn't intend it to move so successfully from the
Speaker 1: margins to the center, it has done that, and it
Speaker 1: is supplanted how people talk about reproductive politics moving up
Speaker 1: beyond that pro choice, pro life. Binary people have realized
Speaker 1: that that framework, that limited framework, has outlived it's useful this.
Speaker 1: My name is Laurada Lee Wallace, and I am a
Speaker 1: organizer based in othern California, and I am work with
Speaker 1: our statewid abortion front here in California called Access Reproductive Justice.
Speaker 1: So my first abortion, the pregnancy test came back positive,
Speaker 1: and before I could even get off the toilet with
Speaker 1: the pregnancy test in my hand, I had messaged one
Speaker 1: of my friends who I knew was very active in
Speaker 1: the reprosidais and was also on the board of our
Speaker 1: abortion from back home, who was also like my supervisor
Speaker 1: at the time at the Reproductive dresses order that I
Speaker 1: was working with. Um, it was like, Hey, I'm pregnant,
Speaker 1: don't want to be what do I do? Like verbatim,
Speaker 1: And she was like, perfect, you came to the right place.
Speaker 1: We'll get you squared away. Like what do you need?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I can't afford an abortion. First and foremost,
Speaker 1: I was a Medicaid recipient, and we know because of
Speaker 1: the High Ammendment that you can't medicate recipients, can't you know,
Speaker 1: use their Medicaid to provide to cover abortion costs. It
Speaker 1: was also a full time student at the time a
Speaker 1: couple of years emancipated from the foster care system. So
Speaker 1: I was essentially like on my own, um, and I
Speaker 1: have messaged her and asked her like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't really know what I need right now, um,
Speaker 1: but I just need the money. UM. So I was
Speaker 1: able to pledge maybe like a hundred dollars to my
Speaker 1: abortion at the time, but that was all I could
Speaker 1: do and the Abortion Fund covered the rest. But as
Speaker 1: I was in the clinic, I was like watching a
Speaker 1: bunch of news coverage around the murders of Brianna Taylor
Speaker 1: in the mad Aubrey as I'm sitting in this abortion
Speaker 1: clinic as I'm also thinking, like I hope I don't
Speaker 1: get COVID, and also as my support people can't come
Speaker 1: in with me to the clinic because of COVID. So
Speaker 1: I'm like sitting here in this clinic for like I
Speaker 1: have like three appointments, like two and a half three
Speaker 1: hours at a time, um if like peak covid. Um So,
Speaker 1: I was able to get my abortion medication. But I
Speaker 1: had my appointment on a Friday, and because the clinic
Speaker 1: wasn't open on Saturday or Sunday, and there's that twenty
Speaker 1: four hour waiting period. Even though I had had them
Speaker 1: my ultrasound and like everything was good to go, I
Speaker 1: had to wait until that following Monday to then get
Speaker 1: my medication. But then I had to wait another two
Speaker 1: and a half hours after the doctor got done seeing
Speaker 1: everybody to just to get my medication. UM So I
Speaker 1: was able to get you know, my medication and go
Speaker 1: home and you know, finish my abortion and went back
Speaker 1: a few weeks later to make sure that um I
Speaker 1: didn't have like any retain products um of the pregnancy,
Speaker 1: and I didn't, so I was fine. Um but I
Speaker 1: did like the cart was outside of the abortion clinic.
Speaker 1: Was so happy that it was finally over because I
Speaker 1: knew immediately when I was pregnant that I wanted to
Speaker 1: have an abortion. There was also no shame in it.
Speaker 1: I was actually also very empowered that for the first
Speaker 1: time in my life and realizing, you know that this
Speaker 1: is a decision that I'm making for me and historically,
Speaker 1: you know, black women and them have not been able
Speaker 1: to make their own reproductive decisions. And also as someone
Speaker 1: who has essentially been a word of the state, you know,
Speaker 1: being owned, you know, by the state as a foster,
Speaker 1: as the foster care youth, it made all the difference
Speaker 1: for me because I'm like, Wow, this is like one
Speaker 1: of the biggest decisions for me, um in my life
Speaker 1: that I'm going to going to make or to not
Speaker 1: make right regardless of what happens, is going to impact
Speaker 1: the trajectory of my life forever. So being able to
Speaker 1: make that decision as a black person first and foremost
Speaker 1: um and also for myself made all the difference for me.
Speaker 1: When we come back how abortion got politicized before Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 1: the pro life movement was not partisan. Daniel Williams is
Speaker 1: a historian and author of Defenders of the Unborn. The
Speaker 1: pro life movement before Roe v. Wade, if one had
Speaker 1: to describe it as associated with a particular ideology rather
Speaker 1: than the other, it would be more accurate to describe
Speaker 1: it as a liberal political movement than a conservative one,
Speaker 1: because the majority of pro life activists before Row were
Speaker 1: for the most part Democrats who believed in the principles
Speaker 1: of an expanded social welfare state. The pro life movement
Speaker 1: was overwhelmingly Catholic before Roe v. Wade, and most Northeastern
Speaker 1: and Midwestern Catholics had in the nineteen sixties and early
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies been shaped to at least a certain extent
Speaker 1: by the assumptions of of New Deal liberalism, the assumptions
Speaker 1: that the state had an obligation to care for the
Speaker 1: less fortunate. A number of pro life activists in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies were also hosted
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. The number were very liberal Democrats. UH number
Speaker 1: head concerns about capital punishment. UH and some of the
Speaker 1: pro life organizations at the time advocated expanded a maternal
Speaker 1: health insurance, subsidized daycare, other ways to to encourage women
Speaker 1: to not have abortions and to empower them to make
Speaker 1: the decisions not to have abortions. What I call the
Speaker 1: abortion myth is the fiction that the religious right galvanized
Speaker 1: as a political movement in response to the Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wage decision of January twenty two, nineteen seventy three. I'm
Speaker 1: Randall Balmer, John Phillips, Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College,
Speaker 1: and my most recent book is Bad Faith, Race and
Speaker 1: the Rise of the Religious Right. To understand the context,
Speaker 1: you have to understand that for roughly fifty years before
Speaker 1: that moment, evangelicals were not engaged politically, certainly not in
Speaker 1: an organized way. Many were not even register devote, and
Speaker 1: so there emergence as a political force in the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies was a major event, and as we see now,
Speaker 1: it really began the reshaping of the American political landscape
Speaker 1: on the subject of abortion, and eventually row evangelicals were
Speaker 1: actually supportive in Christianity. Today magazine, which is the flagship
Speaker 1: magazine of evangelicalism, conducted a conference with the Christian Medical Society.
Speaker 1: Twenty three heavyweight theologians from the evangelical world showed up
Speaker 1: and over several days debated the morality of abortion. At
Speaker 1: the conclusion of that meeting, they issued a statement saying,
Speaker 1: we can't decide whether or not abortion is a moral issue,
Speaker 1: but we think it should be available. In seventy one,
Speaker 1: the Southern Baptist Convention, not known as the redubt of Liberalism,
Speaker 1: passed the resolution calling for the legalization of abortion, which
Speaker 1: they reaffirmed in nineteen seventy four, the year after Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 1: and again in nineteen seventy six when the Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade ruling was handed down. Several evangelical leaders praised the
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade decision. The mobilization of evangelicals as a
Speaker 1: political movement did start with a court ruling, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't row. It was a ruling on segregated private schools
Speaker 1: that came out of a district court in Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: And on June thirty nine, seventy one, the district court
Speaker 1: ruled that and the organization that engages in racial segregation
Speaker 1: or racial discrimination is not, by definition a charitable institution,
Speaker 1: and therefore it has no claims on tax exempt status.
Speaker 1: As the Internal Revenue Service began to enforce that ruling
Speaker 1: over the course that I seventies. It got the attention
Speaker 1: of places like Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: a fundamental school that had segregation virtually written into its charter,
Speaker 1: as well as people like Jerry Folwell, who had started
Speaker 1: his own segregation academy in Lynchburg, Virginia in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: It's time now for the Old Time Gospel Hour with
Speaker 1: Jerry Folwell, master of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Speaker 1: We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. That
Speaker 1: is what proved to be the catalyst for the organizing
Speaker 1: surrounding the religious way. So how did the evangelical movement
Speaker 1: go from supporting school segregation to the powerful conservative force
Speaker 1: in American politics that it is today. The answer a
Speaker 1: man named Paul Wyrick. Wyrick was clever enough to realize
Speaker 1: that organizing a political movement to defend racial segregation was
Speaker 1: not likely to generate a huge grassroots audience, so he
Speaker 1: made two moves. The first move he made was to say, no,
Speaker 1: we're not defending racial segregation. We are defending religious freedom,
Speaker 1: which is writing a page from the current current religious
Speaker 1: right Republican Party playbook his second move really fell into
Speaker 1: his lap, and that was the abortion issue, and that happened.
Speaker 1: In the midterm elections. Wyck determined, according to his own account,
Speaker 1: to go out at elect some improbable people in He
Speaker 1: focused on four Senate races, and in all four of
Speaker 1: those elections. The final weekend, pro lifers leafletted church parking lots,
Speaker 1: and two days later all four favored Democratic candidates lost
Speaker 1: to anti abortion Republicans. He finally had found the issue
Speaker 1: that he could use to mobilize grassroots evangelicals. Abortion is
Speaker 1: a very fairly low cost political issue. The fetus does
Speaker 1: not demand healthcare, a fetus does not demand an education,
Speaker 1: and so the adoption of abortion as the central plank
Speaker 1: of the religious right early in the nineties really it
Speaker 1: didn't didn't cost them much in terms of a political price.
Speaker 1: In the ninety six presidential election, evangelicals voted for one
Speaker 1: of their own, Jimmy Carter, a proud born again Christian.
Speaker 1: But ahead of the nineteen eighty election, evangelical leaders openly
Speaker 1: targeted the Democrat and sought to find a candidate who
Speaker 1: would do more for their cause. They began sort of
Speaker 1: canvassing the Republican field, looking for a challenger two, Jimmy Carter,
Speaker 1: and finally, of course, they settled on Ronald Reagan, an
Speaker 1: unlikely choice because here you had governor of California, Hollywood actor.
Speaker 1: Hollywood was not exactly known as a province of piety
Speaker 1: to many evangelicals, and somebody who had been divorced and remarried,
Speaker 1: who in nineteen sixty seven had signed into law of
Speaker 1: the most liberal abortion bill in the country. And nevertheless,
Speaker 1: the religious right decided that Reagan was going to be
Speaker 1: their political messiah. In night, I came across a memorandum
Speaker 1: from within the Reagan Bush campaign, and I don't remember
Speaker 1: the precise state, but I believe September of nine, and
Speaker 1: the internal memorandum said, we're in trouble here. Uh, we're
Speaker 1: not pulling away from Carter. We have to somehow rejig
Speaker 1: our message. And one of the recommendations was to start
Speaker 1: talking about abortion. If there's even a question about when
Speaker 1: human life begins, isn't it our duty to err on
Speaker 1: the side of life. We must not rest. And I
Speaker 1: a pledge to you that I will not rest until
Speaker 1: a human life amendment becomes a part of our constitution.
Speaker 1: With a so called pro Life President in the White House.
Speaker 1: Thanks to his evangelical base, the anti abortion movement gets
Speaker 1: to work once again. Legal scholar Mary Ziggler. Initially, the
Speaker 1: anti abortion movement focused its attentions on a constitutional amendment
Speaker 1: that would have not just overturned Robe, but banned abortion
Speaker 1: coast to coast. By the early eighties, it was becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly clear that that just wasn't going to happen. So
Speaker 1: then the movement kind of changed its focus, and its
Speaker 1: inspiration in part came from Supreme Court decision where Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan's first nominee, Sandra Day O'Connor writes this descent, essentially
Speaker 1: suggesting that Rod doesn't make a lot of sense. And
Speaker 1: so the anti abortion movement looks at this descent and says,
Speaker 1: you know, more people like Sandra Day O'Connor on the court.
Speaker 1: We might not be able to get abortion banned nationwide,
Speaker 1: but we could at least get real overturned for groups life.
Speaker 1: The National Right to Life Committee overturning Roe v. Wade
Speaker 1: has become the Holy Grail, has has become the race
Speaker 1: on detra of the pro life movement, which it never
Speaker 1: originally was. Again Daniel Williams and once the strategy shifted
Speaker 1: to that as the goal, then it became very difficult
Speaker 1: for any pro life activists to imagine supporting Democratic presidents
Speaker 1: or Democratic senators who would not want to see the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court shifted to the right on this particular issue,
Speaker 1: And similarly, with the Republican Party, became more and more
Speaker 1: difficult for most pro choice Republicans who care strongly about
Speaker 1: the issue to imagine staying in a party that was
Speaker 1: moving so decisively toward making Row a thing of the past.
Speaker 1: If the goal is to appoint particular Supreme Court justices,
Speaker 1: then the situation that we're in today is one where
Speaker 1: Republican presidents are going to make sure that the justice
Speaker 1: that they appoint is going to likely vote overturn Row,
Speaker 1: and Democratic presidents, on the other hand, are always going
Speaker 1: to try to appoint a justice who supp courts abortion rights,
Speaker 1: who wants to leave the parameters of route intact. It
Speaker 1: was not clear until the early at least that Supreme
Speaker 1: Court appointments would decide the fate of Row. The Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: it's what it's all about. The justices that I'm going
Speaker 1: to a point will be pro life. They will have
Speaker 1: a conservative bent. I think the case that most people
Speaker 1: are thinking about right now, in the case that every
Speaker 1: nominee gets asked about, Role v. Wade, Can you tell
Speaker 1: me whether Roe was decided correctly? Center Again, I would
Speaker 1: tell you that Roe versus Wade decided in seventy three
Speaker 1: as a president United States Supreme Court, it has been
Speaker 1: reaffirmed well as a general proposition. I understand the importance
Speaker 1: of the precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade. But again,
Speaker 1: I can't pre commit or say yes, I'm going in
Speaker 1: with some agenda because I'm not. I don't have any agenda.
Speaker 1: I have no agenda to try to overrule casey um.
Speaker 1: I have an agenda to stick to the rule of
Speaker 1: law and decide cases as they come. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Even if evangelicals didn't rally around the anti abortion movement
Speaker 1: until the late nineteen seventies, the anti agitation started almost
Speaker 1: immediately after row Here's sociologists Carol Joffey Roll versus Wade
Speaker 1: was decided in January nineteen seventy three. Literally four days
Speaker 1: later in Congress Um there's a resolution introduced the so
Speaker 1: called Church Amendment, named after Senator Frank church A, that
Speaker 1: no entity would lose any phones if they refused to
Speaker 1: perform abortion. So it was clear to me that this
Speaker 1: was going to be an issue that was very divisive.
Speaker 1: They called me and they said, would you be willing
Speaker 1: to help but start UH an outpatient abortion clinic in Boulder,
Speaker 1: And I said, yes, I think that would be an
Speaker 1: important thing to do, because I thought that that we
Speaker 1: mean implementing the roll versus way decision, which wouldn't mean
Speaker 1: anything unless doctors were doing abortions. Dr Warren Hern is
Speaker 1: a physician and director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Boulder, Colorado.
Speaker 1: He specializes in abortions that are harder to get, the
Speaker 1: ones later in pregnancy. He's been doing this work for
Speaker 1: more than fifty years. I thought I would do this
Speaker 1: for a year or two then go back to school.
Speaker 1: I helped start this clinic. I was the founding medical director.
Speaker 1: I set up the clinic, I got the ments in
Speaker 1: the equipment, I wrote the protocols, I devised the whole system,
Speaker 1: and then I was performing all the abortions there. And
Speaker 1: by the end of that first year, it was clear
Speaker 1: to me that the performing abortions was the most important
Speaker 1: thing that I could do in my medical career. Immediately,
Speaker 1: I became the target of very vicious attacks by the
Speaker 1: anti abortion people. I started getting obscene death threats in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night two weeks after we opened
Speaker 1: the office. There was a lot of hostility among in
Speaker 1: the medical community. There were some doctors who supported what
Speaker 1: we were doing, but it was very tense and very difficult.
Speaker 1: It became clear to me that the resistance of this
Speaker 1: was really fanatic, but the anti abortion people were really frightening.
Speaker 1: They were threatening me and other people, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: understand why this was so controversial because we were helping women.
Speaker 1: There were five shots fir the front windows of my office.
Speaker 1: One of the bullets just missed a member of my staff.
Speaker 1: I had just walked through the front room. I really expect,
Speaker 1: have expected for all this time to be assassinated at
Speaker 1: any time, So when I'm leaving my office, I checked
Speaker 1: the perimeter to see if they're out there. I cannot
Speaker 1: use the front door of my office when the anti
Speaker 1: abortion people who are demonstrated are out there, because I
Speaker 1: have to assume that they're armed and they will kill
Speaker 1: me at the first opportunity. Five of my medical colleagues
Speaker 1: have been assassinated several at point blank range. I have
Speaker 1: received letters from the anti abortion fanatics saying, don't bother
Speaker 1: wearing a bullet proof vest. We're gonna go for a
Speaker 1: head shot. And that's what they did to Dr Tiller.
Speaker 1: One of the nation's most well known late term abortion doctors,
Speaker 1: Dr George Tiller, was and killed in church yesterday on
Speaker 1: me the thirty first, two thousand nine. Doctor George Tiller
Speaker 1: was was an usher for his Lutheran church in his
Speaker 1: wife was singing in the choir. Dr Tiller was in
Speaker 1: the foyer of the church. Uh Scott Rhodor walked up
Speaker 1: to Dr Tiller and shot him in the head, assassinating him.
Speaker 1: To the abortion providing community, Dr Tiller was a saint,
Speaker 1: I mean, and they literally referred to him as Saint George.
Speaker 1: To the anti abortion community, he was this egregious murderer.
Speaker 1: Once again, Carol Joffe. There's only a handful of clinics
Speaker 1: in the United States where people can get later abortions
Speaker 1: later here, meaning post twenty four weeks. Doctor Hearne for
Speaker 1: many years, has been one of them. He's been targeted
Speaker 1: for years. Dr Tiller in Wichita, who was a very
Speaker 1: close friend of of Dr Hearne. He for years was targeted.
Speaker 1: Um Bill O'Reilly when he had his Fox News show
Speaker 1: repeatedly referred to him as Tiller the killer. Later that week,
Speaker 1: the week that Dr Tiller was assassinated, I was invited
Speaker 1: to speak at the Temple Manuel in Denver by the
Speaker 1: rabbi and the head of the religious Coalition for Abortion Rights.
Speaker 1: I was there taking there in an armored car by
Speaker 1: the the US Federal Marshals. My family was not allowed
Speaker 1: to be with me. They got there by other means,
Speaker 1: and there was a large group of people in the temple.
Speaker 1: It was a very very emotional situation to talking about
Speaker 1: my friend who had been assassinated. And and so we're
Speaker 1: surrounded by armed officers. And at one point our son
Speaker 1: said to his mom, Mommy, are we the good ones?
Speaker 1: Are the bad ones? On several occasions when Dr Tyler
Speaker 1: was assassinated, I was put under the twenty four protection
Speaker 1: of US Federal Morrison, who were heavily armed. And one
Speaker 1: of the things they said, you may not sit with
Speaker 1: your back to the window. So when I'm out with
Speaker 1: friends or my family, you know I'm in a wresting,
Speaker 1: I I don't sit with my back to window at home,
Speaker 1: we will not leave the window shades up at night.
Speaker 1: We closed the window shades. Where else an American medicine
Speaker 1: would we tolerate. This very important concept for me in
Speaker 1: my work on abortion and trying to understand it is
Speaker 1: the idea of abortion exceptionalism and the idea that abortion
Speaker 1: is treated like no other aspect of of the health
Speaker 1: care system in America. It's a common procedure. Uh Women
Speaker 1: who have babies at different time in their lives have abortions,
Speaker 1: um Sometimes they have babies first and then an abortion.
Speaker 1: Sometimes have an abortion and then have babies when they're
Speaker 1: more ready to have children. A very common procedure. But
Speaker 1: where else do we see pickets? Do we see blockades?
Speaker 1: Do we see shootings? Do we see regulation that that exists? No?
Speaker 1: Nowhere else? I mean the state legislators over a thousand
Speaker 1: restrictions passed over the years. I mean, just regulating in
Speaker 1: ways that are inappropriate. I will never forget the young
Speaker 1: woman who was a teenager in high school from northern
Speaker 1: state and she looked at me said thank you for
Speaker 1: giving me back my life. Well, you know, nothing takes
Speaker 1: the place of that another young woman. The first year
Speaker 1: I was doing this told me how she felt. It
Speaker 1: makes me choke up every time I think about it,
Speaker 1: and and she said, he's going ever stopped doing this,
Speaker 1: So you know this, This moves me fifty years later, okay,
Speaker 1: to think about it. So I think that it's very
Speaker 1: important to concentrate on this human interaction, this human process
Speaker 1: of one person helping another person. That's what the practice
Speaker 1: of medicine is. To be an abortion doctor then and
Speaker 1: now takes a particular type of person. We wanted to
Speaker 1: learn more about the people going into this profession in
Speaker 1: the midst of all this controversy. I think I was
Speaker 1: attuned to the need to fight free to reproductive freedom
Speaker 1: because I was born at home and home birth is
Speaker 1: also very controversial, so when I was born in Connecticut,
Speaker 1: it wasn't legal. So I feel like I came into
Speaker 1: this world being like, Yeah, you need to fight for
Speaker 1: your bodily autonomy and for your reproductive experience. I'm Caitlin
Speaker 1: Gregory Davis, and I am a medical student at UVM
Speaker 1: Larner College of Medicine from a fourth year and I'm
Speaker 1: going into O b G I N at Brown. So
Speaker 1: I really always wanted to be a midwife. That was
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do when I was younger, and
Speaker 1: so to get involved UM, I first became a duela UM,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, a non medical labor and pregnancy
Speaker 1: support person. I got trained with the DULA Project of
Speaker 1: New York City, which is actually an organization that does
Speaker 1: birth dualer services, but it also does abortion dualer services,
Speaker 1: and I ended up absolutely loving my abortion dealer shifts UM.
Speaker 1: I would go into the Planned Parenthood and up in
Speaker 1: the Bronx and also in Brooklyn UM and would just
Speaker 1: be with people through their abortion. And so from there
Speaker 1: I decided that I wanted to be an abortion provider UM,
Speaker 1: which kind of steered me into a different path than
Speaker 1: midwif free UM in part just because you know, nurse
Speaker 1: midwives can do abortions in some states, but it's a
Speaker 1: little bit limited. And yeah, I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: limited by anything, and I knew that, like politically, things
Speaker 1: could always change, and so I felt like I needed
Speaker 1: to get a degree that would be the most likely
Speaker 1: UM for these procedures to be accessible to me. So,
Speaker 1: in terms of abortion training, I think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of places, and especially now as laws are going
Speaker 1: to change, if a hospital is not able to do abortions,
Speaker 1: then like nobody can get trained, right, Like there needs
Speaker 1: to be the procedures in order to train the next generation.
Speaker 1: So if a hospital or a state UM decides that
Speaker 1: it's illegal, then like no students in that state are
Speaker 1: going to be able to get trained. I think it's
Speaker 1: probably already happening. I know it's been a big issue
Speaker 1: in Texas UM since SP eight, and that has had
Speaker 1: a big effect on where I applied to residency UM.
Speaker 1: So I was applying in this this past fall. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, sp A was under way, and I pretty
Speaker 1: much did not apply or at least an't interview UM
Speaker 1: at any states where I felt like if Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade was overturned, abortion would become illegal. I came to
Speaker 1: medical school so that I could do this work. I
Speaker 1: didn't come to medical school to like be an m
Speaker 1: D so that I could deliver babies all the time,
Speaker 1: although that's great UM, and so I have had the
Speaker 1: thought like, oh my gosh, what if this becomes like
Speaker 1: entirely illegal, And then I went to medical school and
Speaker 1: can't do the thing that I wanted to do UM
Speaker 1: and so that feels really kind of like an uncertain future. UM.
Speaker 1: But it also just inspires me to do everything I
Speaker 1: can to keep this accessible and also to get all
Speaker 1: the training that I can get. My name is Dr
Speaker 1: Bob and Kumar use he him pronouns, and I'm a
Speaker 1: family medicine physician working at Plant Parenthood, so I provide
Speaker 1: abortion care here. I'm also the medical director for Primary
Speaker 1: and trans Care, so provide some primary care and gender
Speaker 1: care as well. Um and I've been in Texas for
Speaker 1: about seven years now. For me growing up in Corsicana,
Speaker 1: being we were undocumented at the time, and then being
Speaker 1: you know, brown skinned, gay, and then experiencing UH in
Speaker 1: that town and the over racism and really recognizing what
Speaker 1: life is like for people like me compared to other people.
Speaker 1: And then once I was in medical school, I was
Speaker 1: pro choice, had no sense of, you know, wanting to
Speaker 1: become an abortion provider, but then learned about how safe
Speaker 1: it is, how common it is, how few providers there are,
Speaker 1: and what a drastic difference it makes. Recognize that there's
Speaker 1: a concentration of abortion access among folks of color, that
Speaker 1: most people are low income or poor, and it just
Speaker 1: was like, you know, of course, if I want to
Speaker 1: help people like me, even though I can never become pregnant,
Speaker 1: then the best thing I can do is the doctors
Speaker 1: to provide abortion care. The abortion care that Dr Kumar
Speaker 1: had wanted to provide has been severely restricted since September
Speaker 1: when Texas enacted Senate Bill eight, which effectively prohibits abortions
Speaker 1: after six weeks. So we went from providing care up
Speaker 1: to um twenty weeks of conception, which we were able
Speaker 1: to see the vast majority of folks. Now with Senate
Speaker 1: Bill eight, I would say we're seeing about a third
Speaker 1: two a half of the patients that come into our
Speaker 1: clinics and providing an abortion for them, and the rest
Speaker 1: of the patients or folks that we're seeing where instead
Speaker 1: helping them figure out how to get out of state
Speaker 1: so that means travel, um taking time off of work.
Speaker 1: About sixty folks that access abortion in the country already
Speaker 1: had children at home. We're spending a lot of time
Speaker 1: navigating that. There is a lot of anxiety stress that
Speaker 1: is new and different from what I've experienced in the
Speaker 1: last seven years providing abortion care among people and also staff,
Speaker 1: because I think for me and the staff that I
Speaker 1: work with, we all show up to help people. They're pregnant,
Speaker 1: they know that they can't be pregnant. We can make
Speaker 1: them feel better, we can help them with that. That's
Speaker 1: what our job is, and that's been taken away from us.
Speaker 1: And now we're in crisis with our patients and they're
Speaker 1: asking us, am I going to get there? What if
Speaker 1: the clinic closes, what if I don't make it, what
Speaker 1: if my car doesn't make all of these questions, and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, we can't help you when we feel
Speaker 1: their stress. So it is I think even as I'm talking,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling the stress of my neck was like, because
Speaker 1: it is every single day for the last eight months
Speaker 1: of seeing so many patients that we're not able to help,
Speaker 1: it is just very very heavy and traumatic, I think
Speaker 1: for all of us. So last summer, my husband and
Speaker 1: I found out we were pregnant with our first child
Speaker 1: um and after being cautiously optimistic through the first trimester,
Speaker 1: doing a variety of testing and sonograms, we believe we're
Speaker 1: in the clear and began to share the news with
Speaker 1: our friends and our family, and at around thirteen weeks
Speaker 1: we had a routine sonogram where the doctor suddenly saw
Speaker 1: a thickened band behind the baby's neck, flagging us to
Speaker 1: go get additional imaging by kind of assuring us that
Speaker 1: it was probably nothing to worry about. A week later,
Speaker 1: the fetal medicine sonographer was able to get a clear
Speaker 1: picture and see a variety of health issues with our baby.
Speaker 1: And following that sonogram, we went and sat in this
Speaker 1: room and heard a group of doctors and geneticists explain
Speaker 1: the findings and let us know that it was unlikely
Speaker 1: that our baby would survive past birth, and their recommendation
Speaker 1: was to do a CBS test that day to try
Speaker 1: to define what exactly it was which they were thinking
Speaker 1: was likely chromosomal, and unfortunately the results of this test
Speaker 1: can take weeks to get back. So we went home
Speaker 1: that day knowing that our pregnancy likely would need to
Speaker 1: be terminated, but with no real clear answer on when
Speaker 1: we would know exactly what was causing the issue. So
Speaker 1: over the next several days we deliberated over what to do.
Speaker 1: And with something like medical termination, the doctor cannot explicitly
Speaker 1: tell you what to do. But with nothing but the
Speaker 1: sonogram findings, that's all we really had to go off of.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: talking about what our options were, and I just couldn't
Speaker 1: bear holding our baby for weeks as my belly began
Speaker 1: to grow, knowing that it was only really a matter
Speaker 1: of time until we would have to end the pregnancy,
Speaker 1: and so we ultimately decided to end the pregnancy with
Speaker 1: a DNA procedure, which is UM a surgery that it's
Speaker 1: done when you're in your second trimester, so it's a
Speaker 1: little bit more involved. And so as soon as we
Speaker 1: made the decision, it quickly became very cut and dry, UM,
Speaker 1: and it was it was pretty void of emotional support
Speaker 1: from that point on, and my doctor or the doctor
Speaker 1: who was performing the surgery actually had to meet with
Speaker 1: me UM to confirm that I understood what this decision
Speaker 1: meant UM, and that this was something that I wanted
Speaker 1: to do UM, which you know, obviously this was the
Speaker 1: furthest thing from what I wanted to do. I was
Speaker 1: given medicine a few hours in advance of the surgery
Speaker 1: to begin the process, and as I drove to the
Speaker 1: hospital with my husband, I you know, started to experience
Speaker 1: tremendous physical pain as the process slowly was starting, and
Speaker 1: prior to the surgery, as I led in the hospital
Speaker 1: bed waiting to be wheeled off. I was asked countless
Speaker 1: time what I was there for, forcing me to repeat
Speaker 1: over and over that I was there for d n
Speaker 1: me to end my pregnancy. The physical emotional pain of
Speaker 1: this day, these weeks, and the pain that I continue
Speaker 1: to carry from this experience will stay with me forever,
Speaker 1: and they continue to have lasting impacts on so many
Speaker 1: parts of my life. And so I just think that
Speaker 1: until you've gone through something like this, you can't not
Speaker 1: imagine the trauma and sadness of these moments that I'm describing. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, this was such an isolating experience, UM
Speaker 1: more than I ever imagined it would be. Yet the
Speaker 1: more I speak about it, the more I realize how
Speaker 1: I'm not alone. UM. As I've shared my stories are
Speaker 1: looked for support. I have found people that have gone
Speaker 1: through what I've gone through and realized that while we
Speaker 1: are a very small percentage UM, there is a community
Speaker 1: of us out there. I wanted, and I still want
Speaker 1: nothing more than to have a baby, and so terminating
Speaker 1: this pregnancy was the hardest decision of my life, and
Speaker 1: it was not something I could have ever imagined or wanted.
Speaker 1: And I feel thankful that I live in a city
Speaker 1: where I did have access to incredible health care that
Speaker 1: would allow me and only me, to ultimately make this
Speaker 1: decision abortion. The Body Politic is executive produced by me
Speaker 1: Katie Couric and was created by small team led by
Speaker 1: our intrepid supervising producer Lauren Hansen. Editing and sound designed
Speaker 1: by Derrick Clements and Jessica Crime Chick, Production help from
Speaker 1: Julia Weaver, researched by Nina Perlman, and a special thanks
Speaker 1: to Case and producers Courtney Litz and Adriana Fasio