WEBVTT - Abortion: The Body Politic, Part 3 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:05.800 Good evenings and a landmark ruling. The Supreme Court today 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.600 legalized abortions to majority and to raise the dignity of 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.520 woman and give her freedom of choice in this area 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:26.599 is an extraordinary event. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric, and 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:31.319 this is Abortion the Body Politic Part three. Today we 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:36.080 explored that historic nineteen seventy three decision and it's unraveling 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:40.280 in the five decades that followed. But let's begin where 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.559 we left off. When someone doesn't really know who I 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.239 am and have heard that I'm a lawyer, but they 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.040 don't know how much about me? When I'd say, well, 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.000 have you ever heard of the case of roversus Wade? 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.680 And then they're usually stunned, because I mean, it's aten 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.240 still described as the most one of the most well 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:04.399 known cases in favor of shouldn't that there is? My 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:09.760 name is Linda Nelling. Coffee and Iron, my late friend 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.679 Sarah Weddington were the two women did that pursued the 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:19.480 case of Roe versus Wade. It's impossible to talk about 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.959 the abortion rights movement without first talking to Linda. Linda 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.280 is the last living Road prosecutor after Sarah Weddington died 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:35.240 on December Linda knows the case intimately, and at eighty 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.319 she's witnessed the decades long fight to chip away at Row. 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.640 She spoke to us from a studio not far from 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.840 her home, which she shares with her longtime partner Becky Hart. 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:52.680 I had the distinct honor of having a blind day 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:59.680 with Lee Cogan December night three, and over the course 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.560 of a whole evening, she said that she had worked 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.560 with Sarah Winnington on this Ruby Wade case. I said, well, no, 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.280 if that can't be, I'm a Dallas side. It was 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.799 a Dallas attorney named Linda Coffee, and her face fell 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.600 because she's that introverted. So for thirty eight years we've 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:21.679 been together, She's done mostly bankruptcy law, and I've done 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:26.680 different jobs and things. Linda is a lifelong Texan and 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.639 lives in a small town about eighty five miles east 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:34.760 of Dallas. She was born in Houston, graduated from Rice University, 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.560 and went on to law school. I went to University 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.720 of Texas at Austin and there were only about including me, 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.840 there was only about six women into the class that 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.040 that I started with, and we all would talk together 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.639 in the one place we usually could talk and and 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.480 not have to worry about anyone overhearing us was in 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.760 the the women's restroom, which was on the first floor 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.160 of the building. We were coming up at a time 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.880 when things were changing quickly for women. That was really 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:12.560 excited to think about helping women prepared to gain higher 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.680 positions and to seek a way of continuing their education 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.720 and not be compromised or having to worry about being 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:26.320 fired if they became pregnant or had someone decided they 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:30.000 had to meet children and they might not continue to 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:34.280 do a good job. After graduating from law school with 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.400 honors in getting the second highest score on the state 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:43.000 bar exam, Linda earned a coveted clerkship with Judge Sarah Hughes, 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.000 Texas is first female federal judge who was best known 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.280 for swearing and Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force one 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:56.480 after President Kennedy was assassinated in nineteen sixty three that 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:06.080 I was thankfully once again, here's Becky Hart. It's hard 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.640 to get a clerk job for the judges. You have 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:13.240 to be intelligent and do very well in law school. Succinctly, 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.760 Linda's scores were so high that she applied for that job, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.640 and she got it. It's an honor, and that's what 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:27.760 set the whole ball in motion on abortion rights. The 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.320 first case that I was aware of was the case 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.640 out in California in nineteen sixty seven. California Governor Ronald 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:40.080 Reagan was among the first to liberalize abortion laws, extending 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:44.920 exceptions for therapeutic abortions. But the case Linda's talking about 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:49.040 came two years later in nineteen sixty nine, the People 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.800 Versus Bellis. The four to three decision from the state 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:59.920 Supreme Court declared California's eighteen fifty criminal abortion law unconstitutional. 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:04.800 The ruling helped repeal a conviction of Dr Leon P. Bellis, 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:09.040 who helped a woman get an abortion. It was a big, 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.240 big news deal. So I've just read about the case 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.360 just in the Dallas Morning News, and then I knew 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.640 there were some other cases that then followed, like there 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.240 was a case in Wisconsin, and then there was a 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.480 case in New York. So that's why I thought that 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:27.839 there would be a decent chance to win the case 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.599 if we filed in Texas. I still kept in contact 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.760 with some of the with Sarah what Eaton and some 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.359 of the other women that that I knew in my 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.279 class that it graduated. One of the things I did 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.720 when I decided that I had a sufficient basis was 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.680 I wrote to Sarah because I had heard she was 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.280 plady to follow them suit against the Texas abortion Law. 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.400 So I wrote her a letter and said to see 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.000 if she was interested in and enjoining me in that suit. 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:03.080 They teamed up and on March third, nineteen seventy, Linda 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.760 filed a suit in Dallas on behalf of their client, 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:12.120 Norman McCorvey, using the pseudonym Jane Rowe. The hearing before 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.560 the three judge Corey in Dallas went went pretty smoothly. 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:20.800 The lower court unanimously ruled in Jane Roe's favor, finding 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:25.560 the Texas abortion law unconstitutional because it violated the right 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:30.119 to privacy. But when the district Attorney Henry Wade yes 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:34.720 that Wade announced he would continue to pursue abortion cases, 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.800 Linda was able to file a repeal directly to the 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:43.960 Supreme Court. Oral arguments were set for December thirteenth, nineteen 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:53.920 seventy one. We here arguments number eighteen against whenever you're ready, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.400 Mr Chief Justice, and may have pleased the court. The 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.680 instant case is a direct appeal from a decision of 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.679 the United States District Court of the Northern District of Texas, 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:11.600 and then again on October eleventh, nine first eighteen to 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:17.080 roll against Wade Yes Lyndon. Sarah had to reargue the case, 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.480 a rare occurrence because there were only seven justices present 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.600 the first time. Weddington, you may proceed when here you're ready, 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.400 Mr Chief Justice, and may have placed the court. We 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.440 are once again before this Court to ask relief against 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.760 the continued enforcement of the Texas Abortion Statute, and asked 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.720 that you affirm the ruling of the three judge court below, 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:45.360 which held our statute unconstitutional for two reasons, the first 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.000 that it was vague and the second that it interfered 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.120 with the Night Amendment right of a woman to determine 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:56.280 whether or not she would continue or terminate a pregnancy. 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:01.400 As you will recall there are Linda recalls a few 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.920 details that stand out about her Supreme Court experience. The 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:10.440 closest restroom to where the Supreme Court held their arguments 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:16.120 was three three big staircases below. People would probably notice 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:20.800 that if they were women, but not not men. And 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.800 at one of the arguments, some of the justices wives 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.920 were sitting in the courtroom. I wouldn't have recognized the wives, 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.240 but I just told us we were walking in that 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.480 several of the wives of the Supreme Court were there. 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.440 So I just assumed that that probably meant from people 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.680 that had been around more Supreme Court arguments than I had, 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.199 that that was probably a good sign that that wasn't 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:46.440 considered important by the court. While Linda and Sarah split 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.760 the oral arguments and the lower court, it was Sarah 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:56.200 who presented and the Supreme Court. Linda took notes. She spoke, 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.600 and I thought she did very well, and uh, it 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:03.439 was kind of hard to write everything down, so I 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.360 tried to just write down the questions because I figured 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:10.000 i'd remember the the answers. I think I was probably 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.720 more nervous that time. I wasn't that nervous before the 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.199 three judge court in Dallas, but to get it when 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:24.360 you're really going for the highest court in the land. Curiously, 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.880 the original Road decision was leaked to a Supreme Court 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.480 clerk shared the court ruling on background to a Time 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.440 magazine reporter, But when the decision was delayed slightly and 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.200 Time a weekly ran the story anyway, it appeared in 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.959 print the day before the actual decision was handed down. 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.679 I first read the Time magazine that said the Supreme 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:54.680 Court was ready to overrule the Texas abortion law and 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:56.960 it was going to be about a serace of seven 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.240 to vote. So I had read about it, I think 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.720 the day before it came out. And Sarah said she 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.360 found out about it when she heard the decision that 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.200 was rendered the next day, and that's when she started 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.240 getting her phone was calling and and at first she 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.520 wasn't sure what it was, and they were they were 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.160 saying that we had won, and that was just that 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:20.600 was just great because the phones were calling and everything 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:23.520 was mostly mostly on the only the people that called 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.960 were very positive about it. I really thought that was 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.680 gonna be it after the first Supreme Court victory. But 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.080 the afternoon after the decision in Roe versus Way came out, 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.800 L b J died. The senior partner in the firm 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:42.520 that I was with came in and said, well, you've 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.240 been knocked off the front page because L b J died, 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.440 And and that's what was the headline and the Dallas 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:50.640 Morning News and then our story I think it was 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:55.680 below what they called below the fold. Here's abortion legal 0:10:55.720 --> 0:11:00.000 scholar Mary Ziggler to help explain the details of the decision. 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:06.000 Gen the Supreme Court voted seven to two in nineteen 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.559 seventy three that that law was unconstitutional and that it 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:13.199 violated a constitutional right to privacy that the Court had 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:18.000 recognized in earlier rulings on things like marriage and contraception. 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:21.600 The Court held that right to privacy was broad enough 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.280 to encompass the decision about whether to have an abortion, 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:26.480 and the Court laid out what at the time was 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.040 called the trimester frameworks that would be used to determine 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.600 if abortion laws were constitutional. The Court also rejected a 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:38.800 lot of key anti abortion arguments, like the argument that 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.720 the Constitution recognized fetal personhood, which would have made abortion 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:47.120 unconstitutional nationwide. So, coming out of Row, um, you know, 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.480 the majority of state laws that were then on the 0:11:49.520 --> 0:12:15.440 books were rendered unconstitutional. We'll be right back. Well, I 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.680 think it depends on where you stand and who you are, 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:23.920 whether you think that Row was successful or unsuccessful. Historian 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:32.400 Ricky Solinger. When feminists and other women experienced the Roe v. 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:40.080 Wade decision in they expected that a nationalization of the 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:47.080 right to abortion would lead to a number of transformative 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:55.640 experiences for women in the United States. They expected marriages 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:04.160 that were more equal, They were possessors of their own sexuality, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:09.400 that they could have premarital sex without the fear of 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.440 unwed pregnancy and the shames that that had carried for 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:20.760 several decades. They felt much safer embracing their own sexuality 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:24.719 and pursuing it. Then, of course, there were the economic 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:30.760 expectations that if you can control your fertility, you have 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:36.080 a much better chance of being able to pursue the 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:41.719 educational programs that you said before, yourself, making professional choices, 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.920 being able to get a job, that you can time 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:51.520 your maternity according to your professional growth, that you can 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.520 stay or go where you can be an equal to 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:01.760 your husband and also be economically independent, changes the landscape 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:07.280 so profoundly that you're hardly the same person anymore that 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:13.080 that has enormous repercussions for what woman means. Other women 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.360 have been very clear eyed about the limits of the 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:24.440 impact of legalization. As Black women, we knew that role 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.160 was going to be inadequate to protect us from the 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:31.960 intersectional oppression. Activists. Academic and one of the founders of 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:37.160 the reproductive justice movement, Loretta Ross, the National Council of 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.560 Negro Women wrote a statement about that in nine three 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.920 in response to ROW, when they talked about how role 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:49.320 will become just another way to deny Black women are 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.800 full human rights, are full right to self determination. And 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.160 the reason we know that, or knew that well because 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.560 there were so many way other ways that we had 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:05.080 already experienced where Black women's parenting and reproductive options were 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:11.240 being threatened, like with sterilization abuse, but more gregious and 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.520 more obvious. Was at any time Black women became civically 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:20.680 active around voting rights or housing rights or trying to 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.880 fight violence that was technical any of that time, the 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.120 first thing the government would do would be to threaten 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:32.040 to take our children away, you know, and fighting well 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:39.920 abortion rights didn't address that. We always knew that even 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:44.320 if we had fully funded abortion services that were totally 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:49.920 safe and totally accessible, we still suffer from a racialized 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:56.120 gender oppression that we had to fight. The leaders of 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:02.240 Reproductive Justice point out regularly that abortion has been legal 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:07.479 for fifty years, but how accessible has it been two 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:15.320 women without resources to be adequate consumers. So we know 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:21.000 that Within two years of ROW, the Congress worked very 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.360 hard to pass the High Amendment, which by the by 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:33.040 the was complete, which said no federal funding for abortion 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:39.720 the one medical prostidure that was singled out to be 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:46.880 excluded from federal funding um under the Medicaid Act, and 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:53.640 that meant that poor women were poor choicemakers. The pro 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:59.360 choice framework assumed that you have choices, it's a marketplace idea, 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.360 when actually the marketplace doesn't work well for people who 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.480 don't have you know, the currency or the privileged as 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:12.880 a marketplace doesn't the same way the SBA. The Texas 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.679 abortion ban is not gonna fall most heavily on women 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:21.440 with the means to go to another state. It's gonna 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:23.720 fall it was heavily on the people who are trapped, 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:28.719 who can't go anywhere. The Norman G. Mccorby's of the world, 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:37.320 the original Rose who idonically was from Texas. Loretta understands 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.520 this all too well. She's the survivor of sexual violence 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:46.360 and sterilization. You might recall some of Loretta's story from 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:50.480 episode two, but how a university while I was a 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.960 student there, I accepted implantation of the i U D 0:17:55.119 --> 0:18:00.600 called the Dalkon shield in despite her i U causing 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:05.440 acute pelvic inflammatory disease. A doctor refused to take out 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:11.000 the device and her fallopian tubes burst. I didn't enter 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.919 this movement fighting for abortion rights. I was into the 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.240 movement fighting for the right to have children. And it 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.840 wasn't until I got into the work that I saw 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.760 that they were two sides of the same coin, and 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.439 it's all about denying women the right to con to 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.520 make our own reproductive decisions, whether to have a child 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.000 or not to have a child. And then when you 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:39.000 intersect the sexual violence I had been through, then I 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:43.800 knew that we needed a larger framework than what the 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:50.080 current discussions were paralyzed by that pro life pro choice dichotomy, 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:57.639 which was so inadequate for describing my lived experiences. And 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:06.240 so how reproductive justice developed was at a conference organized 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:11.600 by the Illinois Pro Choice Alliance in June in Chicago. 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:14.800 On the first day of the conference, we heard a 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:20.720 presentation by representative of the Clinton administration. Hillary Clinton had 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.800 been put in charge of the Clinton administration effort to 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:29.919 do health care reform, but this representative said that they 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.400 knew was going to be a fight to get healthcare 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:37.800 reform past the Republicans, and so they conceptualized that if 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:44.480 they omitted or at least reduced all references to reproductive healthcare, 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:49.200 that that would increase his chances of passage. There were 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.280 twelvels black women who were at this conference. The prefer 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.520 might have been even more but able. Mabel Thomas, who 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.560 was a Georgia state representative at the time, called us 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.359 together in her hotel room that night after we heard 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.520 this presentation, and she's like, this doesn't make any sense. 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.199 Why would they come to a feminist conference, a pro 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:14.000 choice conference asked us to endorse a healthcare plan that 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:19.200 omitsreproductive healthcare. That's like the most male centric health care 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:23.280 plan you could think of, because reproductive healthcare is what 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:27.960 drives women to the doctor. That was the night in 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:34.080 which we conceptualize to reproductive justice because the other thing 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:39.000 that we realized was that we were dissatisfied with how 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:44.520 abortion was always isolated from social justice issues, and that 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:48.200 isolation wasn't doing us any good. Are representing what black 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:52.840 women went through because any time a woman is pregnant, 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:55.240 oh well, let's put it this way, she doesn't even 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.520 have to be pregnant. Any time her period is just late, 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.040 she has what we call all these oh my God conversations, 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.320 Oh my God, am I pregnant? Oh my God? What 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:07.040 am I gonna tell my mom? Or what am I 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:09.480 gonna tell my partner? Am I gonna keep my job? 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.280 Or can I stay in school? Or do even I'm 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.720 in bedroom to put this child in. So she's got 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.359 good answers to the oh my God questions, This is 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:24.040 gonna turn an unplanned pregnancy into a wanted child. But 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.120 if she has bad answers to the oh my God question, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.080 she may even turn a planned pregnancy into an abortion. 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.199 And so for the pro life movement and the pro 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.199 choice we with the both start with the pregnancy is 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:41.639 starting too far downstream in our opinion. If you really 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:48.120 want to quote reduce the need for abortion, really talk 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:54.840 about how actual human beings make decisions and address those 0:21:54.880 --> 0:22:00.159 things that discourage people from becoming parents. And so we 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:05.719 spliced together social justice and reproductive rights to create the 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:12.200 term reproductive justice. We define reproductive justice as the right 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:14.480 to have a child, the right not to have a child, 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.040 and the right to raise your children in safe and 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:21.280 healthy environments. And then that was how we articulated in 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:27.480 a but by two thousand and four, a new generation 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:32.120 of activists were coming up Black women in particular, who 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:37.399 are arguing that the original three tenants didn't include gender 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.119 not conforming in LGBT people, and so they added a 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:46.919 fourth tenant to talk about the right to gender identity, 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:53.320 sexual pleasure, and self determination in terms of one's reproductive 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:58.160 options and choices. I'm pleased to say that even though 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:02.679 we didn't intend it to move so successfully from the 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:06.119 margins to the center, it has done that, and it 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:12.080 is supplanted how people talk about reproductive politics moving up 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:17.520 beyond that pro choice, pro life. Binary people have realized 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.680 that that framework, that limited framework, has outlived it's useful this. 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:31.719 My name is Laurada Lee Wallace, and I am a 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.800 organizer based in othern California, and I am work with 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:39.719 our statewid abortion front here in California called Access Reproductive Justice. 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.320 So my first abortion, the pregnancy test came back positive, 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:47.240 and before I could even get off the toilet with 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:49.399 the pregnancy test in my hand, I had messaged one 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:51.800 of my friends who I knew was very active in 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:53.679 the reprosidais and was also on the board of our 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.280 abortion from back home, who was also like my supervisor 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:58.240 at the time at the Reproductive dresses order that I 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:00.760 was working with. Um, it was like, Hey, I'm pregnant, 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:03.720 don't want to be what do I do? Like verbatim, 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:05.600 And she was like, perfect, you came to the right place. 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:07.120 We'll get you squared away. Like what do you need? 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:09.440 And I'm like, I can't afford an abortion. First and foremost, 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:12.679 I was a Medicaid recipient, and we know because of 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:16.840 the High Ammendment that you can't medicate recipients, can't you know, 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:20.199 use their Medicaid to provide to cover abortion costs. It 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:22.280 was also a full time student at the time a 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:24.439 couple of years emancipated from the foster care system. So 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:27.359 I was essentially like on my own, um, and I 0:24:27.400 --> 0:24:29.600 have messaged her and asked her like, I don't know, 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:31.920 I don't really know what I need right now, um, 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:34.440 but I just need the money. UM. So I was 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:36.359 able to pledge maybe like a hundred dollars to my 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:37.920 abortion at the time, but that was all I could 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:41.160 do and the Abortion Fund covered the rest. But as 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:43.919 I was in the clinic, I was like watching a 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:47.159 bunch of news coverage around the murders of Brianna Taylor 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:49.880 in the mad Aubrey as I'm sitting in this abortion 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:53.160 clinic as I'm also thinking, like I hope I don't 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:55.640 get COVID, and also as my support people can't come 0:24:55.640 --> 0:24:58.199 in with me to the clinic because of COVID. So 0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:00.600 I'm like sitting here in this clinic for like I 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:03.520 have like three appointments, like two and a half three 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:08.920 hours at a time, um if like peak covid. Um So, 0:25:09.119 --> 0:25:11.879 I was able to get my abortion medication. But I 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:14.639 had my appointment on a Friday, and because the clinic 0:25:14.720 --> 0:25:17.440 wasn't open on Saturday or Sunday, and there's that twenty 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:20.440 four hour waiting period. Even though I had had them 0:25:21.320 --> 0:25:23.600 my ultrasound and like everything was good to go, I 0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:26.200 had to wait until that following Monday to then get 0:25:26.200 --> 0:25:28.360 my medication. But then I had to wait another two 0:25:28.359 --> 0:25:31.000 and a half hours after the doctor got done seeing 0:25:31.040 --> 0:25:33.760 everybody to just to get my medication. UM So I 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:36.679 was able to get you know, my medication and go 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:40.800 home and you know, finish my abortion and went back 0:25:40.800 --> 0:25:42.840 a few weeks later to make sure that um I 0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:46.040 didn't have like any retain products um of the pregnancy, 0:25:46.200 --> 0:25:49.280 and I didn't, so I was fine. Um but I 0:25:49.320 --> 0:25:51.760 did like the cart was outside of the abortion clinic. 0:25:52.160 --> 0:25:55.240 Was so happy that it was finally over because I 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:57.560 knew immediately when I was pregnant that I wanted to 0:25:57.560 --> 0:25:59.439 have an abortion. There was also no shame in it. 0:25:59.640 --> 0:26:02.400 I was actually also very empowered that for the first 0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:05.199 time in my life and realizing, you know that this 0:26:05.280 --> 0:26:07.960 is a decision that I'm making for me and historically, 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:10.240 you know, black women and them have not been able 0:26:10.280 --> 0:26:14.520 to make their own reproductive decisions. And also as someone 0:26:14.520 --> 0:26:16.640 who has essentially been a word of the state, you know, 0:26:16.960 --> 0:26:20.800 being owned, you know, by the state as a foster, 0:26:21.160 --> 0:26:23.840 as the foster care youth, it made all the difference 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:25.320 for me because I'm like, Wow, this is like one 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:28.200 of the biggest decisions for me, um in my life 0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:29.919 that I'm going to going to make or to not 0:26:30.000 --> 0:26:32.560 make right regardless of what happens, is going to impact 0:26:32.560 --> 0:26:35.320 the trajectory of my life forever. So being able to 0:26:35.720 --> 0:26:38.680 make that decision as a black person first and foremost 0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:41.800 um and also for myself made all the difference for me. 0:26:42.560 --> 0:26:58.359 When we come back how abortion got politicized before Roe v. Wade, 0:26:58.720 --> 0:27:03.159 the pro life movement was not partisan. Daniel Williams is 0:27:03.200 --> 0:27:07.080 a historian and author of Defenders of the Unborn. The 0:27:07.160 --> 0:27:12.119 pro life movement before Roe v. Wade, if one had 0:27:11.760 --> 0:27:17.120 to describe it as associated with a particular ideology rather 0:27:17.160 --> 0:27:20.160 than the other, it would be more accurate to describe 0:27:20.160 --> 0:27:23.080 it as a liberal political movement than a conservative one, 0:27:23.560 --> 0:27:27.399 because the majority of pro life activists before Row were 0:27:27.800 --> 0:27:30.760 for the most part Democrats who believed in the principles 0:27:30.800 --> 0:27:34.600 of an expanded social welfare state. The pro life movement 0:27:34.640 --> 0:27:40.680 was overwhelmingly Catholic before Roe v. Wade, and most Northeastern 0:27:40.680 --> 0:27:44.520 and Midwestern Catholics had in the nineteen sixties and early 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:47.479 nineteen seventies been shaped to at least a certain extent 0:27:47.960 --> 0:27:51.800 by the assumptions of of New Deal liberalism, the assumptions 0:27:51.800 --> 0:27:54.080 that the state had an obligation to care for the 0:27:54.200 --> 0:27:57.399 less fortunate. A number of pro life activists in the 0:27:57.480 --> 0:28:00.240 late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies were also hosted 0:28:00.359 --> 0:28:03.879 Vietnam War. The number were very liberal Democrats. UH number 0:28:03.920 --> 0:28:07.639 head concerns about capital punishment. UH and some of the 0:28:07.640 --> 0:28:12.120 pro life organizations at the time advocated expanded a maternal 0:28:12.119 --> 0:28:18.719