How We’ll Save Abortion: A Must-Listen with Jessica Valenti

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Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Please come closer and closer and closer and listen to today because we have a very

important episode for you to feel inside your bones and your body, and to talk to your people about.

Today, we are talking to Jessica Valenti.

And when many years go by, and we are talking to our children and our grandchildren about that time that we were almost denied equal citizenship in our own country,

I believe that Jessica Valenti will be one of the people that we look back upon as heroic,

heroic in that time to keep us in full citizenship in this precarious moment.

And we are so lucky that she lives in this time and we are so lucky that she is here today.

Award-winning writer and activist Jessica Valenti is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestseller Sex Object, a memoir.

Her groundbreaking anthology, Yes Means Yes, Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, paved the way for legislation of the same name, setting what's now considered the gold standard for sexual consent.

After the demise of Roe, Jessica founded Abortion Every Day, an urgent synthesis of anything and everything happening with abortion rights in the United States.

We will talk about that more because it's a goddamn treasure.

Her latest book, Abortion, Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win, is available now and is a must-read for everyone.

Thank you, Jessica Malenti.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

I can't like start to cry immediately.

That was such a nice intro.

Well, that makes one of us who hasn't started to cry immediately.

I've never lost my shit during an introduction before, but here we are.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm not going to try to explain it.

I wonder.

I bet when women get introduced to you, they start to cry.

I'm just going to tell myself that.

No, it happens.

Yeah, definitely.

Okay, thanks, Jessica.

It's a really personal, hard, difficult, challenging topic.

Yeah,

it's not just the topic.

It is the topic, but it's like watching you every day out there just like fighting this fucking fight while so many of us are feeling what you're feeling and not able to stay as steady and ferocious and

informed.

And it really is a stunning thing to watch.

This is what for people who don't know what Glennon's talking about.

So Jessica Wen, she's always been a feminist scholar, writer,

contributor to all of progress.

And when Roe fell,

she started every single day, almost hourly, updating on local, state,

national,

media reporting, legislation, talking points, everything to diagnose exactly the strategy, the desensitization that they're trying to do, every single step.

So, when you look and say, why is the anti-choice movement so organized and relentless?

Jessica to me looks like the equal and opposite of that.

She is relentless, she is steadfast, she is chronicling, which is the kind of intensity and attention we need to have.

Yeah.

Now,

so,

Jessica.

Yes.

We have have been told relentlessly that abortion is one of the most controversial issues in America.

Is this true, Jessica?

Not even in the slightest.

Not even in the slightest.

It is incredibly, incredibly popular.

Abortion has been incredibly popular for decades.

But since Roe was overturned, that support has become

overwhelming and completely unprecedented.

The stat I really enjoy that I like to talk about a lot is 81%.

81% of Americans don't want government involvement in pregnancy or abortion at all.

81% of Americans don't want abortion regulated by the law.

That is a stunning, incredible number.

And yet we're still sort of sold this lie that this is something that the country is polarized over.

And it's nothing could be further from the truth.

So tell us why then, before we get into the weeds of this,

why is abortion sort of a litmus test for whether or not we actually have a democracy?

Good question.

That is a great, great question.

It's so fundamental.

Your right to bodily integrity, your right to be able to choose your own life path in future.

That's everything, right?

Like that is completely everything.

And then on a more sort of political granular level, if you're talking about an issue that 81% of Americans don't want regulated by the law, and it's regulated by the law, we're talking about this very, very small group of extremist legislators imposing their will on the vast majority of voters, right?

And they know it.

They know that people want abortion to be legal.

And that's why we're seeing in every state where abortion is on the ballot this November, they are doing every single thing that they can to stop voters from having a say.

They do not want voters to be able to check off that box because they know what's going to happen.

And so it's been incredible watching this sort of consistent undermining of democracy in these states and across the country.

when it comes to abortion.

And if that's at risk, everything else is too, right?

Can we break down so much minutiae here that like, you know, the devil is in all of the details?

Sure.

Can you just break down some of the strategies that are happening now, especially like McConnell getting rid of the phrase pro-life, the ways that they are redefining abortion and trying to obfuscate what it is and what it isn't?

And maybe you can just start with what is abortion and how are they trying to change that reality of what it is.

Yeah.

This is really important.

And I'm glad you asked because not enough people talk about this.

Abortion is a medical intervention to end a pregnancy for whatever reason, because you don't want to be pregnant, because the pregnancy is putting your life in danger, for whatever reason, that's an abortion.

They want to redefine abortion as an intention,

right?

Only the cases where you didn't want to be pregnant.

And so if someone's life is at risk, if someone is the victim of a sexual assault, if they have an ectopic pregnancy, they want to say that's not an abortion.

If someone needs miscarriage treatment, we know that's abortion.

They're saying, nope, that's not an abortion.

It's only the intent, which they're doing for a specific reason, right?

They know that abortion is already popular, but abortion is especially, especially popular when you're talking about someone's life being at risk or someone being a victim.

And so they're working really hard.

And we'll just put a pin real quick in.

That's not to say that those people are safe to access abortions if you have a miscarriage or if you're raped.

Like we'll come back to that.

They're saying that's not an abortion, but they're still not allowing you to have it.

Okay.

But what is abortion?

Exactly.

They're still not allowing you to have it, but they are working overtime to try to

just glean any sort of popularity that they can out of this issue because they know that they're losing so, so badly, right?

And you mentioned how they're getting rid of the term pro-life or they're not using it as much anymore.

That is one of their main strategies is attacks on language, right?

Pro-life was one of the most popular sort of like political terms for decades.

Everyone Everyone sort of assumed that Republicans won the language war when it came to abortion.

But because people can see the reality of the consequences of abortion bans, it's become a poisonous term for them.

And so they're completely, you know, shifting around their language to sound more pro-choice, actually.

My sort of like favorite.

thing that they're doing is when they're talking about like 12 or 15 week bans, for example, that restrict abortion, they'll say, this is a plan to keep abortion legal for 12 to 15 weeks, right?

Anything to sort of switch it and make it sound more pro-choice because they know that Americans are overwhelmingly pro-choice.

It's very, very sneaky.

Jessica, what are they talking about?

I want to really dig down into when we listen to Donald on the presidential debate and he says.

They want to have abortions up until birth.

They want to have abortion post-birth.

All of this sounds insane and it is, but he's talking about something specific actually.

And I want you to explain to us what is he pointing at that is a real need for women.

What does he mean?

Yeah, it's really distressing.

It's already such a horrific talking point, but when you actually know what he's referring to, it makes it like a million times worse.

He's talking about palliative care for newborns, for fatally ill newborns.

So

sometimes, unfortunately, a baby is born way too early to survive or they have a condition that's incompatible with life.

And instead of giving that baby, you know, painful medical interventions, putting them on breathing machines, Parents, because they know that this baby is going to die, will say, you know what, we want to have a few last moments with our child peacefully, without medical interventions, without wires and tubes.

NICU nurses will set up a private room for them.

They'll get to hold their baby while it passes.

It is an extraordinarily important option for parents, right?

And that's what he's calling post-birth abort.

Like that is exactly what he's referring to when he says that, you know, these people are executioners.

That's who he's calling executioners are parents who have to make this absolutely tragic,

horrific decision, a decision that they're making in the best interest of their child and family, right?

And it's just so,

it's so upsetting to see him use this language.

And it's also really distressing to see,

one, that people believe it, and that two, not enough people are pushing back and pointing out what he's really talking about.

Because if people knew what he was really talking about, I think that the backlash, the outrage would just be unbelievable.

Can you tell us before when you were talking about the intention, dig more into that with respect to like what that means to folks who

have miscarriages or who are

exercising or what have you, if they didn't really want the baby or if they did or how they prove that.

What does that mean?

So it really could impact criminalization, which we're already seeing.

Right.

So let's say, and we've seen this happen.

Let's say you have a stillbirth.

And for whatever reason, the police get involved and they look at your Google history.

And when you first found out you were pregnant, you weren't maybe sure that you wanted to keep the pregnancy.

And so you Googled abortion clinics.

That can be used as proof of intention that maybe you didn't want that pregnancy and maybe you caused that stillbirth, right?

It's just so horrific.

And again, we're already seeing that kind of criminalization happen.

We, you know, I'm sure lots of people have heard about Brittany Watts, the woman in Ohio who was arrested for abuse of a corpse because she flushed her miscarriage in her own home.

There was a woman in South Carolina who was arrested after losing her pregnancy.

I mean, this is already happening.

I think, you know, too often we talk about this as some future danger.

This is already happening.

There was a report out from a really terrific organization called Pregnancy Justice just last week, I think it was.

And they found that since Roe was overturned, there have been 210 pregnancy-related arrests and charges brought.

in this country.

So this is already here.

They are very much looking for ways to prosecute people for their pregnancy outcomes, right?

Whether it's abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, it's all on the table.

It's all in danger.

And wait till it's not an election year, how many arrests there are.

In the case of Brittany, so this is a woman.

She goes to the hospital.

She's bleeding.

She wants them to help her.

She's not quote unquote in danger enough for them to help her, which is why she then has her miscarriage at home when she goes home.

and then when she goes back because after her miscarriage in her toilet she's so scared of her bleeding she goes back she's in there in the hospital with the nurse who calls 911 and the cops go to her house to go to check the toilet so talk to us about what's happening when she first goes to the hospital and and she says i need help

yeah talk to us about the exception for we always hear for the life or the health of the mother talk about why that's utter bullshit and is killing people.

So she, you know, she went to her OBGYN first who said, this is not a viable pregnancy.

You're going to lose this pregnancy.

The longer you are pregnant, the more your health and life is in danger.

And so like most people would do, she went to the hospital for help.

But because they were unsure about what the law meant for them, I think it was something like 12 hours.

They were convening ethics boards.

They were not giving her care.

And so she was, I'm going home.

I'm not going to sit here and not get help.

And so that's why she ended up miscarrying at home.

But yeah, it's just complete and utter nonsense, this idea that there is an exception for women's lives, because these laws essentially require people, doctors, to wait until you are on the brink of death.

And maybe then they can save your life.

And what is so upsetting to me about this is not just women are dying.

We know that women are dying, but that our suffering is seen as acceptable right think about all of that suffering in the lead up to that point people are losing reproductive organs people are you know just the fact that pain and suffering for women for pregnant people is considered a completely acceptable outcome yeah for these laws.

And that is one of the things that scares me the most is that normalization of that suffering, right?

Like one of the things that they are doing in these laws with the with the so-called life exceptions and with redefining abortion is that they're forcing doctors to give women with life-threatening pregnancies c-sections yes instead of a standard abortion procedure even when it is too early for a fetus to survive you're talking about 14 15 weeks because they don't want anyone to ever be able to say abortion is necessary to save someone's life.

They want to say abortion is never necessary.

You can just give her a c-section.

Never mind that it's a major abdominal surgery, that it's more dangerous, that it's more traumatic, that it's unnecessary.

They will do anything in service of this political talking point.

And if we have to suffer incredibly mentally, physically.

they're willing to let that happen.

Jessica, are they also giving the C-section because they're so afraid to perform a simple abortion?

Because they,

so then they can say it was a C-section.

Because the doctors are terrified of prosecution.

They are absolutely terrified.

It is both that they are so afraid and they feel like, okay, this is one way we can make sure that if a prosecutor ever came to us, we can sort of prove that we did everything that we could.

But it's also spelled out in the law, right?

They in Idaho, for example, they use language around maternal-fetal separation.

Yes.

Right.

And to end a life-threatening pregnancy, it's not an abortion that you need.

It's a maternal-fetal separation.

And the Idaho Supreme Court actually said explicitly C-section or vaginal labor.

And so in some cases, that is being spelled out explicitly for doctors.

And doctors feel like that is what they need to do in order to follow the law.

We have the crisis among patients, and we do have a crisis among doctors.

There's a mental health crisis for doctors who, OBGYNs and maternal fetal medicine specialists, especially, because of this moral damage that's being done to them.

They know how to save someone's life.

They know what the best course of action is to do, but the law is preventing them from doing it.

And if, you know, a lot of OBGYNs, a lot of people in this field are women of reproductive age.

They have their own children, right?

And I've heard from so many doctors who are like, I would love to just say F it and break the law, but what happens to my other patients if I go to prison?

What happens to my child if I go to prison?

And The anti-abortion movement knows that.

All of these laws were set up very, very explicitly.

This was by design.

You know, we've heard so much from politicians, Republican politicians, saying they're not reading the law correctly.

The law is, they're misunderstanding.

They're misunderstanding the law.

Absolutely not.

They had 50 years to plan for this and to create these laws.

They knew exactly what they were doing.

And all of this pain and suffering that we're seeing is 100% by design.

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You mentioned Idaho with the doctors there.

Can you talk through that example as to how

I'd never thought of this before until I read your book about how

this uncertainty, which is scaring the shit out of doctors, is actually leading to disastrous health care for women who will never even entertain an abortion.

Talk about the cyclical effect on the whole system and why that's actually leading to more abortions, ironically.

Yeah, it's really, really bad.

You know, doctors understandably do not want to practice in anti-abortion states states because they don't want to fear going to prison for providing the standard of care.

They don't want to not be able to provide the standard of care.

And so you're seeing this tremendous exodus of OBGYNs of reproductive health care specialists from anti-abortion states.

And Idaho is a good example because they lost 25%

of their OBGYNs and 50%, I think at last count, of their maternal fetal medicine specialists.

As a result of that, maternity wards and hospitals are shutting down.

As a result of that, people who want to go give birth all of a sudden have to drive an hour, two hours to be able to get to the hospital.

So if you have an emergency with your pregnancy, it has nothing to do with abortion, right?

Supposedly, this doesn't,

you just want to go give birth.

All of a sudden, you're in incredible, incredible danger and the maternal mortality rate increases.

In Texas, we've already seen, there was a new report that showed maternal mortality went up by 56%

since they implemented their abortion ban.

And those will never be calculated as related to abortion.

No, of course not.

No, they will never be considered.

Those will just be, oh, those women happened to die in pregnancy, not those women died in pregnancy because there were no health care places, because all the doctors left because of your ban.

Exactly.

And they don't want, I mean, I think what's also so difficult and horrific about this is that because these deaths will overwhelmingly be women of color, black women, poor women, their hope is that people won't notice or won't care, right?

They are counting on American racism and bigotry.

They're counting on it.

They're using it in this really cynical, awful way.

But yeah, it's a whole system, right?

Abortion touches everything.

Abortion rights touches every single part of our life.

It touches our healthcare.

It touches our democracy.

And they know it.

And they are always, always counting on America's racism and bigotry.

Always.

That is their main source of fueling power for every single regulation and fucking always works.

Yeah, it's the same thing with criminalization, right?

When you look at the people who are being criminalized and arrested for their pregnancy outcomes, the people who are most in danger are women of color and black women specifically, right?

Like when that nurse called 911 on Brittany Watts, it was because of her racism.

It was because she saw Brittany Watts in a particular way

and her pregnancy outcome became criminal.

Which goes back to intent.

If you're trying to define abortion based on intent of you didn't want your baby, and America is programmed to see people of color and receive them with malintent.

Suspicion.

And also imagine with Brittany Watts.

They wrote in her medical records because she said something like, this baby is dying.

I am getting sicker.

Like, can you help me?

They wrote that in her records as we're really concerned because she mentioned the word abortion.

She wants an abortion.

Oh my God.

That's really, really scary.

What else would you ask for in that situation?

Would you not ask for help?

All of a sudden, is asking for help at the hospital considered evidence of a criminal act?

It's really scary.

Can I just, I want to, we're going to get back to the weeds.

And I promised my sister, I wouldn't get too much into the roots of things, but I do just have one question.

Okay.

I'm a white lady who has been in the evangelical church.

So I have personal experience with

white male leaders trying to keep abortion from poor people in this country while privately supporting the abortions of their rich white wives.

That is something I have personally experienced again and again.

Okay, it's not theory.

I've seen it.

What is the fucking point?

I understand it's hatred of women.

It's all of this, like even analyzing what women want or don't want and the vision of what palliative care is, a woman crying with her baby compared to the image they're trying to put in our minds which is a witchy woman trying to kill people whatever

it's not just hatred of women or misogyny though is it class warfare is the real plan we keep

people who are marginalized down and keep them poor and keep them strapped for resources with all these babies while we control our reproductive selves i mean the short answer is yes absolutely.

The anti-abortion movement is very much about reinforcing traditional gender roles, traditional gender binary.

That's why you see so many anti-trans attacks attached to attacks on abortion and reaffirming sort of this white evangelical white supremacist patriarchy.

And I hate to get into all like the theory words, but that really is.

what this is about.

It is about trapping women in the private sphere.

What better way to ensure that women and people who can get pregnant cannot participate in the public sphere if they are forever pregnant, right?

Or if their health is constantly at risk?

What better way to keep them financially vulnerable?

Yes.

It's very, very, very clear.

Thank you.

What they're doing.

And so it's, yes, it's about a hatred of women, but it is about this desperation.

to get to a place where they once again have control over everything.

And banning abortion is key to that.

It unlocks everything else for them.

Yes.

It unlocks everything else because if you have

no unqualified right to your life,

if your life is by law subservient to another right, which is, let's be clear, exactly what's happening.

Then you are uniquely situated in that.

Men have no

world in which their unqualified right to life is compromised in any way.

But if you have a whole set of people who know that psychologically, legally, whatever, then there's two different strata of citizenship in the world.

And that freaked me the hell out.

Like, tell me if this is true.

But

in the SCOTUS, the Supreme Court case, where

there was a federal law where it said that these states had to follow a federal law that said, that had the wild idea that emergency rooms have to save women's lives, even if it means giving them an abortion.

Okay, this is the radical, wild idea.

If a woman comes in and to save her life, you have to give her an abortion, you have to.

And Texas and Idaho sued to say, we don't have to follow that law because they said that a woman doesn't have an unqualified right to abortion, which is another way of saying a woman doesn't have an unqualified right to her life.

Yeah.

And I mean, it is really unbelievable.

And in one of those, there was the Supreme Court case and there was a Fifth Circuit decision.

And in that Fifth Circuit decision, you can sort of sense the disdain for women who would dare to want to live in those moments, right?

And that.

You sort of see it again and again in the anti-abortion movement, this valorization of women who are willing to die for their pregnancies and the demonization of those who say, I don't want to die for my pregnancy.

I want to get radiation treatment for my cancer.

I want to live for the existing children that I have.

And to paint those women as bad mothers, bad people, not fulfilling their duty to die for their pregnancies, right?

Like there is this real sense that that is your job.

It is your job to be a good woman and die for your pregnancy.

And how dare you

expect to live?

How dare you expect to have control over your own life?

When you really dig into it, when you're following this every day, it becomes just clearer and clearer.

And I have to say,

It's really, it's so many fundamental rights that are on the line.

You know, the thing I write about in the book that I'm really worried about next is the right to travel, birth control and the right to travel.

Those are the two things that are incredibly, incredibly on the line for us.

And I'm so worried because, you know, for years feminists were warning that the end of Roe would happen and they didn't listen to us.

So I'm trying to say again and again now, it's birth control and the right to travel next.

And I'm really hoping people will listen this time around.

Can you talk to us about the trafficking?

They're calling it anti-trafficking, right?

What do they mean?

They're calling it anti-trafficking.

And the way that they're doing this is what they do a lot of the time, which is they're starting with minors.

they're starting with teenagers and what it actually is is a travel ban right it's a travel ban for teenagers but they're calling it anti-trafficking because who likes trafficking who isn't anti-trafficking you know that sounds great um and what they say the law is is you know we're just making it illegal for someone who is not a parent to take a minor out of the state for an abortion which sounds okay.

I mean, it does mean that, you know, a grandmother, an aunt who wants to help a teen, a teen who's maybe being abused at home, could be guilty of abortion trafficking.

But what they don't talk about is that they've written the law in such a way that anyone who helps a teenager get an abortion in any way, you text them the URL to a clinic, you lend them gas money so they can drive themselves out of state, that is considered abortion trafficking.

And in Texas, I think at last count it was five counties, they are passing these local ordinances that have the same thing for women of all ages.

So that if you use their roads, their highways to drive a woman out of state for an abortion, that's considered trafficking.

What I thought was the most interesting quote from one of the anti-abortion activists who is

behind this effort, someone said to him, well, if you're talking about adult women, who want to leave the state of their own volition, how is this trafficking?

And he said, the fetus is always being trafficked.

Oh my God.

The fetus has no choice.

And that is the end game.

That is the end game is if you are pregnant and you leave the state, you are trafficking your own pregnancy, right?

And we've already in Alabama, the attorney general there wrote a whole legal brief where he said the state absolutely has a right to restrict pregnant people's travel in the same way that we restrict sex offenders travel rights.

Like literally compared the two things because he said, in the same way that the state has an interest in protecting victims from sexual offenders, the state has an interest in protecting fetuses from women who might want to leave the state to have an abortion.

And so, this is very much here.

Like, they are already trying this out, and they think because they try it out on the most marginalized folks, like young people,

that we won't get outraged immediately and that we won't notice.

They also think one of the things that's so important about your book is: if you have an issue that 81% of people are pro,

you can't use actual language that would tip people off to what you're trying to do.

So what is pod squad?

If you could hear anything we're saying, I'm going to ask Jessica now to explain to you what you are going to hear from Republican lawmakers and Donald Trump and the other side.

But what they actually mean is something different.

So when they say to you, we don't want trafficking, you're going to think, yay, no trafficking.

What they mean is they don't want women who have fetuses in them, or that's just a slippery slope too.

Wait till women are just half a fetus because they've got eggs in them.

Can you please talk to us about contraception?

And I want you to talk to us about what they will say.

They will say they're pro-contraception.

But you say, do not ask a Republican lawmaker whether they are pro-contraception or or anti-contraception.

No, you ask them, what kind of contraception do you support?

Tell us why that is the question.

Yeah, for years,

the conservative movement, the anti-abortion movement has been laying the legal groundwork to argue that certain kinds of contraception are actually abortions, specifically emergency contraception and IUDs.

But depending on what group you talk to, some of them will argue the same thing about any hormonal birth control for women at all, that those are actually abortions.

And their sort of unscientific take on this is that an IUD prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg, or that's what emergency contraception does.

And therefore, it's an abortion.

And so they'll say, of course, I'm pro contraception.

Of course, I'm pro-birth control.

Well, what are you talking about?

Are you talking about IUDs?

I'm pro-condoms.

Right.

That is exactly what they mean.

They mean they're pro-condoms.

And none of them are pro-condoms.

None of them fucking wear condoms.

Okay.

That's another thing that is true, but go ahead.

That's a whole, yeah, that's a whole other thing.

I mean, really, truly.

So that when they make moves to ban birth control, they can say, but we're not banning birth control.

We're banning abortions because IUDs are abortions and because emergency contraception is abortions.

That is already happening in some states where states are trying to, you know, expand services for contraception and Republicans will refuse to vote for it because they say, no, we don't want to expand services to IUDs because that's abortion.

And so it really is

already here and already happening.

But as you said, it's all in the language.

And that's one of the things I tried to do with the book is sort of provide: here are the words that you need to watch out for.

Please watch out for these terms in your local legislation.

You know, if your state senators start saying these terms, please know what this is actually about and what they're actually saying, because it's very, very different than what most Americans understand those words to mean.

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So the birth control thing is so interesting because it seems like right on the cusp cusp of the abortion pill issue, which is that 63% of all abortions are done basically in the comfort of your own home with the abortion pills, which is driving the right absolutely fucking bonkers because they can't protest it because you're just in there doing it yourself and it's making them crazy.

There's a terrifying reality that we could have a nationwide abortion ban without a nationwide abortion ban.

So tell us what could happen day one of a Trump administration to us.

Yeah.

And it's not just what could happen.

It's what they have laid out and plans.

That's what will happen, right?

Yes.

Like what will absolutely, like what they have made very, very clear is they'll replace the head of the FDA so that they can revoke approval of abortion medication, which, as you said, majority of abortions.

So right there, you're good.

They will enforce the Comstock Act, which is this, you know.

ridiculous 150 year old law that says you can't mail obscene materials.

And obscene materials in this case means abortion medication, tools to provide abortions, birth control.

And so you don't need that national ban, right?

If you can pass this sort of informal ban across the country, again, in all states, not just anti-choice states, but in pro-choice states, so that something will remain legal in name only.

But if no one can access it, then what does it matter, right?

And it's the same thing with birth control.

And they're doing that in the states.

Sure, they can say birth control is legal, but if you've ensured that no one can get insurance coverage for it, if you've ensured that you've kicked out all of the OBGYNs and reproductive health clinics in a town, then how is that really accessible?

And it does get back to this idea of they know that this issue is extraordinarily popular.

They don't want to have to say explicitly what they're doing.

And so they're going to try all of these sort of backdoor ways to get it through.

Jessica, what else should we listen for?

Because no Republican lawmaker, none of them now, especially seeing how the tide is turning or has already always been turned, is going to say, yes, I support a ban.

Yeah, that's the big one.

What are they going to say instead?

Yeah, they're going to say reasonable restriction.

Consensus legislation is a big one because they want to make it sound like people support it, right?

It's really those two, but the word ban has become so.

interesting.

They will not say that they support an abortion ban because they know how unpopular it is.

And what is so tricky about this is on their side, they have redefined abortion ban to mean a total ban on abortion, even in cases where someone's life is in danger.

So when you hear Donald Trump say or J.D.

Vance say, Of course we're not going to sign a national abortion ban.

It's the rhetorical equivalent of them crossing their fingers behind their back because what they really mean is we're not going to pass a law that bans abortion even in cases when someone's life is at risk.

But when they say, but I do support reasonable restrictions at the federal level that's just another way of seeing abortion ban right or they'll say i only support restrictions on late-term abortion well what do they mean by late term they mean anything after the first trimester yeah so they'll never say that

why do they keep saying oh well what we did what the people want we gave it back to the states the will of the people what does that mean

I mean, really, it means nothing because they know that the will of the people is not with them.

You know, this is something that Donald Trump has been pushing really, really hard, saying, I gave it back to the states.

The states can decide and do whatever they want.

And now it's up to the will of the people.

But guess what?

If you live in one of these states that's gerrymandered, that there's voter suppression, or as we're seeing in every state where abortion is on the ballot, where they're trying to keep abortion off the ballot, then it's not.

the will of the people.

It's not the will of the people at all.

And they know that.

And so this is a way for them to pretend to care about what voters want while again passing these laws that the vast majority of voters oppose.

They know that if Americans knew the truth about the future that they really wanted for all of us,

that people would be out in the street every single day.

It's already so bad.

We can see how bad it is every day with all these horror stories.

It is what they want for us is so much worse.

And it's so important to see the connections to those things.

I mean, the whole idea that we were talking about about your role as a woman is to, for your life to be subservient to a greater thing, and you're supposed to embrace that.

And if it requires you dying, so be it, which is why abortion is on this same exact spectrum with Trump and Vance's ending no-fault divorce.

You are woman to die to

and make your life subservient to this thing, which is maintaining your marriage.

Never mind the fact that when you get rid of no-fault divorce, the women's suicide rate increases by 20%.

It's the exact same thing.

It's you're supposed to die for it.

Yeah, you're supposed to fulfill that role as a quote-unquote good woman.

And I think that really is such a big reason that conservatives find abortion so terrifying.

It's not really about saving life or saving fetal life, right?

Or because they know that infant mortality is going up in these states with abortion bans.

It's not about that.

It is about control and it is about knowing that abortion allows people to choose their own life path, to make their own futures and lives for themselves.

And this is why in the book, I try really hard to talk about abortion as a proactive moral good.

This is something that allows you to choose your own life, right?

I write a little about the life that abortion gave me.

The life that I have now, my family that I have now, is thanks to abortion.

The abortion I had in my 20s, I met met my husband three months later.

We had our daughter three years later.

Without that abortion, my family would not exist.

And so it's so important that we are talking about abortion, not just as a healthcare issue or as a democracy issue, but as something that allows us to literally choose our own lives.

There is nothing more powerful than that.

Me too.

Your line in your book where you say, when they're always, all the anti-choice is always saying like, oh, what if that woman's baby could have cured cancer, could have done whatever?

And it's like, no, they never say, what if that woman could have?

What if her life meant something and she could have done something that would contributed to the world?

It's, you know, every abortion is a beginning.

And the stories that we hear, like the propaganda of like.

the woman who has an abortion who is torn up about it her entire life.

That is not my experience.

I am a person who I truly believe I've never gotten over a single thing that's ever happened to me since I was born.

And Abby knows that.

I am a ruminator.

I

do not for one day regret my abortion.

My abortion, and actually I've had more than one.

But I mean, when I think about what my life would have been had I

gone through with a pregnancy, I was still sick.

I wouldn't have gotten sober.

I wouldn't have had the life that I have right now.

I wouldn't have had my three children.

I I wouldn't have Abby.

I wouldn't have this career.

I wouldn't be speaking to you.

I know where I was and what would have happened.

And God, that would have been so much nicer for patriarchy if that's what would have happened to you.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And I feel like when we talk about abortion and we talk about it in a medical way and in a way that a woman gets to choose her own life.

it destigmatizes the things that women carry with them, those women who've actually had abortions, like some of the shame or guilt that they that shame and guilt has been taught to them has been conditioned to them for them to then carry throughout their whole lives and it's like totally it's so it doesn't need to be this way the only shame that i ever had jessica was

am i supposed to be having shame exactly like i felt shame because i still think that sometimes i'm like when i hear the propaganda or see the propaganda the only shame i have is am i missing like a gene that i'm supposed to but no it's because that's made up.

It is.

And there's all of these studies that show, you know, something like 99% of women who have abortions do not regret that decision.

But it doesn't mean that the shame isn't there or doesn't impact people.

One of the women I spoke to for the newsletter and for the book was this very young woman in Texas, 21 years old, had a wanted pregnancy, found out 15 weeks in that it had not developed at all above the neck, like can't imagine anything worse, Obviously was not going to survive.

And she had to leave the state for an abortion.

She had to go to New Mexico.

And when I was talking to this young woman, even though she knew who I was, that I was very pro-choice, that this is what I do, she was almost apologetic.

I'm so sorry.

You know, I just, I really did.

want the baby and i but i just didn't think that i could give birth you know to a to a baby and not and see a baby without a head like of course you couldn't who would expect that of you but it was so clear clear that because she lived in this state and in this culture and in this religious community that had told her that she was a horrible person

for wanting to do this, that even talking to the most like feminist pro-choice person, she felt the need to apologize.

And that really broke my heart.

And it breaks my heart for all of these young women who are growing up in these states and in these communities where that is the propaganda that's being fed to them.

Jessica, after I had one of my abortions, my, and I want to say I do feel, and I've talked to many women who have feelings.

So I'm not, that's

however it feels is 100%

okay.

But I got sent to a priest.

My parents were like, we don't know what to do with this girl anymore.

Just can someone help?

Like, we'll try God.

Okay.

So I got sent to a priest.

The priest sat me down and said,

it's one day you might be forgiven, but what will happen is you'll die.

This is literally what he said to me in the ops.

You will die and then your baby will be waiting for you

after you die.

And then you'll be able to look your baby in the face and apologize.

That is what was told to me when I was 20.

Whatever.

Based on all the stuff that he's read in the Bible.

Anyway, just thought I'd share in case anyone else had some crazy shit like that happened.

A nightmare.

And it's just like, it makes me so upset when people who have no ability to get pregnant, have no ability to understand what any of this is like, think that they hold any

sort of decision-making, any sort of moral authority over that.

It is absurd.

One thing that I think is so powerful about your work is that you're showing how,

you know, we know the power of women individually and collectively.

We know how awesome that is.

And one thing that they're trying to do through these bounty hunter laws and rewarding people with money who turn other people in is criminalize community, as you said, where criminalize is support, connection, community.

And that is effective and devastating.

And yet you are finding these stories of us taking care of us in the way, you know, like the pilots who organized to volunteer to fly their own planes in and fly women out to get what they needed.

Can you end with a couple stories that show us how, you know, like black movements have always said, we protect us, like we take care of us.

How are we doing that?

How do we do that for each other?

I mean, it is really happening.

That's been the one thing that as hard as this work is and writing about this work every day, to see that in action, to see that community in action has been incredible.

I tell this story a lot because it means a lot to me.

A few months ago, I went to Florida right after the six-week abortion ban had been passed.

And I was going around to abortion clinics and meeting with activists.

And this clinic manager was taking the group I was with throughout the building.

And because the ban had just passed it was very very empty and so we're in the waiting room the waiting room is empty she takes us into the exam room the exam room is empty then she takes us all the way into the back of the building into this very small cramped room and in this small cramped room were a dozen or more young women all wearing headsets all on the phone booking hotel rooms buying bus tickets for patients.

One of them was texting emotional support to a patient who had never been on an airplane before.

And it was so incredible to think about there are rooms like this across the country every single day of people working their asses off, ensuring that people will be able to get the care that they need no matter what that law says.

And there are in every single state, in every single town, there is someone there who will help you.

And I think they are trying to break apart community.

They are trying to divide us in that way.

And it's so important that we remember we are here to help each other.

We always have been.

We always will be.

And in that way, no matter what kind of law they pass, they're not going to stop us from getting the care that we need and from helping each other to do that.

Does Abortion Every Day, your site, does it have places where people can plug in?

If people are hearing this and saying, I want to be that community for folks.

Yes.

We can go to your site, Abortion Every Day, and find ways to do that.

Yes.

We have a resource section where there's all sorts of organizations that you can be in contact with and a way to find your local abortion fund, which is a fantastic way to find out what's happening in your community, find out what they need, find out what the best way to help is, because that is the thing I hear most often from people is, okay, what do I do?

How?

do I help?

Everyone wants to do something, which makes me really, really hopeful.

And I always tell tell people, start small.

Figure out what your school needs, what your town needs, what your community needs.

Figure out who's already doing that work and how you can support them.

There are so many people involved in helping one single person get an abortion now, right?

From the person who's donating money to the person who's making that phone call to the person who drives them out of state.

There are all of these different ways that we can be there for each other.

And that should give us a bit of hope.

And stock up on your abortion pills.

They last for five years.

And please, yes, you can, you can get advanced provision abortion medication.

I have three doses in my bathroom cabinet and my 14-year-old knows it.

And I want to make sure that no matter what happens, I have that ready to go.

Jessica, when you're like going to sleep at night and you're thinking about your daughter and this country and the upcoming election,

what does what ever is going to happen on election day, what do you think about that?

And what do you want to say to anyone who

may be not yet be finding the motivation to get their ass to the polls?

Yeah,

this is, it's everything.

What happens in November is

everything.

It is already really bad now, it's true, but we have the chance to make it a little bit better or the chance to make it a whole, whole lot worse.

And if you are horrified as i imagine a lot of people are by all of the suffering that you've seen over the last two years, if you've read these stories and they've touched you,

then you know what you have to do on election day.

It is absolutely vital.

Yeah, we are so deeply grateful for you and your work and your commitment.

And I will say that I thought I, I really did think I understood a lot about this, but I actually sat down and read abortion from the first page until the last page and didn't get off the couch until it was done.

And I realized that there was a hell of a lot that I didn't understand.

And I'm just so freaking grateful for people who can write stuff and tell me the words that I need to understand and say.

It's very clear.

So go get the book.

Buy the book for your friends.

It's a short read.

It's not overwhelming and it will help you in your conversations,

which is what we needed.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That was really the hope because I hear from so many women, young women especially, who say they care about this issue so much, but they feel so consistently diminished, talked over, dismissed.

Yes.

I really wanted to write something that could act as a tool and make them feel like they were armed with everything that they needed to go out and have those conversations, do that work, no matter what kind of work it is.

You did it.

It is that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jessica.

I'm just like, want you to go and do whatever the hell else you're doing today.

Just keep going.

Just more writing.

Just more writing.

Awesome.

Thank you, Jessica.

Thank you, Pod Squad.

Go get the book.

Go get your ass to the polls.

Talk to your friends.

And also, like, just let's embrace the idea of the slippery slope of selflessness for women.

Do not buy it in the beginning.

Do not buy it when they tell you you can't want money.

You can't want success.

You can't want love.

You can't want

because it ends with you not even being able to want your own life.

So, resist it today.

Exist.

Demand to exist.

We love you, Pod Squad.

Goodbye.

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