Abortion: The Body Politic, Part 1

standing abortion clinic in the entire state of Missouri. It's a great, pretty nondescript building with a very large royal blue Planned Parenthood sign in the front. What has been like for the people working here? What has been like for the people coming here? That's what we're here to find out. Hi, ladies, good morning, How are you good. Nice to see you. My name is Nicky and I'm a registered nurse at the Planned Parenthood location in St.

Louis also though in Fair Behinds, Illinois. There's twelve recovery chairs in this area, and there was a time where it was packed and we were super busy and um, we would see fifty patients in a day. But because of the restrictions, it just is not worth it for patients to jump through this many hoops. I have all these activist friends in St. Louis that are are in Missouri that are panicking about you know, the ROVERSUS wade news in Texas and Oklahoma and whatever, and I'm like, guys,

we're ahead of them. It's like this is already happened here, Like they just don't know that. They don't understand. But this has been going on since late so we, I mean, we effectively are I almost feel like it's symbolic U to do abortions here just to be able to say we can still provide that service. But it doesn't make sense staffing wise, it doesn't make sense for the patients.

It's just too many restrictions. The dominoes keep falling in the push to overturn Roe V. Waing the abortion flashboard all across the country, the Ohio governor signing today the most restrictive abortion law in the country, Alabama passing the nation's most restrictive abord Today, Missouri became the latest state to pass what Oklahoma passing a near total Texas law that would face up to fifteen years in prison nine

years in prison for performing an abortion immediately. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric and this is Abortion The Body Politic, a six part series from Katie CURRK Media and I Heart Media. Good fifty years ago this January, the landmark ro VERSUS Way decision guaranteed the right to a safe and legal abortion. In just a few weeks, the Supreme Court is expected to reverse that decision. This could be

the most consequential opinion in decades. Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the Supreme Court Monday evening afternoons of the Court's draft opinion broke. While the US is taking away that right, the rest of the world is riding a wave of abortion law liberation. Mexico's Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional action. This is my friends, This is a time to act that This is not the time to be silent. How did we get here?

And what will abortion access look like in a post row world. Over the course of the next six episodes, we're going to try to answer those questions by digging into our country's complicated reproductive history, by tracing abortion storylines in pop culture, and by looking abroad for potential role models. But first we need to start here in the present because for so many we're already living in a post

row world. A lot of the conversations around access right now have been concentrated on the legality of rome and so one of the things that I keep like saying over and over is yes, Rob Wade made abortion legal, but not necessarily pessible. My name is Oriaku and Jaku Yi and they pronounced and I'm co founder and executive

director of Access Reproductive Care Southeast. We've been funding abortion since July of and every single year there has been some sort of abortion banner restriction in every one of the states that we work in. About of folks in our region live in a county without an abortion provider. Um. When we're thinking about the Southeast, the state of Georgia has more abortion clinics than Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina combined. The reality is that people are traveling hours,

crossing state lines just to get simple healthcare. Oriaki Najaku's organization AR Southeast is an abortion fund. Abortion funds have become a key part of accessing abortions in today's increasingly restrictive climate. In fact, there are more than ninety grassroots organizations across the country working to help people get the abortions they need. Abortion funds are like mutual aid funds, and so essentially we're making sure the material conditions of

folks who are seeking abortions are being met. And so what that looks like is providing rides, lodging, childcare, translation and interpretation services. Um. You know, there's like a whole range of things as far as things that might be barriers for people to get to the appointment, where abortion funds step in to support people in their community. According to the Goopmaker Institute, one was the worst year for

abortion rights in almost half a century. Conservative led state legislators, emboldened by the Supreme court six to three anti abortion majority, enacted one d eight abortion restrictions in nineteen states. That's the most of any year since Roe was established. The thing is, restrictions don't stop people from seeking out and getting abortions. Just look at Texas. After it's six week abortion BAM went into effect in September, abortions in that

state dropped by only much less than expected. Instead, more Texans traveled out of state or ordered abortion pills online. Once again, here's Oreaku. You know, I think that we're prepared for this moment that we're in. Um, We've gotten a lot of practice, getting people across state lines, getting people out of the region to get care. And for me, you know, I'm not taking a doomsday approach and doing

this work. And it's not to not honor the realness you know, of the situation that we're in, but it's like, what are we what are we doing? Like, what are we building power for? That? Future? To me is like so dreamy and so amazing that I'm like, I will do whatever it takes to try to get people to be like, come on, this is for our collective liberation. So how far are you willing to go? What risks

are you willing to take? Because personally, I don't want to be here fifty years from now, still talking about the legality of Rome, still trying to figure out how to overcome all of these barriers, and I want to experience reproductive justice in my lifetime, you know, not only for me, but for future generations too. Would you be open to sharing your abortion story? Wow? Like, I love

telling my story. Actually, one of the things that was important to us and making this series was sharing first person abortion stories because these restrictions, this Supreme Court reversal affects real people, real lives, and real families. The stories will share over the course of this series span generations,

socioeconomic status, is gender identities, and the country itself. When I had told him that I was pregnant, he was kind of like, Okay, we'll go get an abortion, like it was going to be so easy, like one too right. I found out I was pregnant a week before sp E went into effect. All I could think when I called planned parenthood was I will not die because of this pregnancy and because no one will listen to me

and no one will help me. We went home that day knowing that our pregnancy likely would need to be terminated, but with no real clear answer on when we would know exactly what was causing the issue. But there's a lot of like big abortion clinics um around me where they disguised themselves as oh, come here to seek you know, you're pregnancy crisis, like abortion care, and they're not really there to help you get an abortion. I just remember

walking in and seeing so many people boll there. So we're still in the pandemic and there's at least fifty people in that waiting room. And so that alone gave me anxiety. And I called my insurance and I was confused, and they explained that, oh, actually, only medically necessary abortions are covered. I can't afford an abortion. I was a Medicaid recipient and because of the Height Amendment that you can't medicate recipients, can't you know, use their Medicaid to

cover abortion costs. It was also a full time student at the time a couple of years emancipated from the foster care system, so I was essentially like on my own. I didn't have any money at the time. I was working at like Planet Fitness, so a gym for like ten dollars an hour. Despite this being the largest public university in the state, the nearest clinic was over an hour and a half away. I didn't have a car.

Public transit in Georgia is questionable at best. I almost missed the twelve week mark down her because of how it back up. But there is there's only one clinic in my area that, um, you know, manages abortion here. She refused to give me the medication because she was afraid that I would change my mind. I didn't know if it was actually gonna work. I didn't know if I was going to bleed out. I didn't know what to expect, even though I knew an abortion was what

I wanted. I had spent so many years having shame about abortion like instilled an ingrained into me that I was too scared to ask any of my friends for help. I think that was just like the hardest part of it was the feeling that like internalized shame when I knew there was nothing to be ashamed about. More than thirty people and county have shared their experiences for this project. It's my producer, Lauren Hansen, who's been on the listening

end of most of these stories. Each person's story is unique. Sometimes they're totally uneventful, and sometimes they're wrapped up in so much trauma and like this raw emotion. But then a lot of them have these threads. Like every single person I have spoken to, no matter if they had a support system around them, no matter if they were completely alone and scared, they all felt in some way alone and they felt a lot of shame. And it's remarkable to me that across decades, across race and class,

that is true with abortion stories, and it's crazy. And that's what all those shout your abortion and we testify groups are trying to do, is like this does not need to be the case. You yourself had an abortion and it's something that you're willing to talk about now, perhaps something that you didn't feel comfortable talking about before you really explored this whole subject. What has made you more willing to tell your story? I mean, it's so funny,

it's so true. I really hadn't told many people, and then I started reporting this and I literally just started saying the word abortion. It was like the word abortion made me like talk smaller, you know, And by just having these conversations, I would want more comfortable and someone would share their story and I'd be like, well, actually, I had an abortion too, and I felt like it helped make us be more on the same page and make it like a safe space and to some degree

I understood what they went through. So I actually, through reporting, shared my story just one on one with a few people. And I certainly felt that if I was asking others to come to the table and share their story, that I should absolutely do the same. So yeah, I was like, well, I might as well share my abortion story and tell me, can you share it with me? Now? Yeah, it's well,

it's funny. It's definitely one of those that's not it's not much of a story because I was so privileged to live in New York at the time, have insurance, and I had a support system my boyfriend who became my husband. We got pregnant. How old were you at the time. I was twenty four and I've been out of school for a few years. I had just gotten

what I considered like a real job. Um. I was a publicist at an art book company and I was being asked to like fly to London for this publicity conference and I go to have what I thought was my abortion. So I'm already like calling it my boss and saying, I have a root canal. I can't come in because I know nothing, you know nothing about the process. And so I go in and I was really early. I was so early that you couldn't see it in

the the sonogram that goes inside. And at that time, which would have been two thousand and four, UM, I guess you did have to see it, even in New York. And so they were like, you have to come back. So I made an appointment, but in between my I had a week three weeks, so I was pregnant for

like three more weeks, which felt crazy to me. I flew to London on that trip that I was so excited about my first time abroad, and then I was out at dinner with like the more senior women and they were also cool, like they're editors of these art books and I just loved everything about them. And one of them was like, Lauren, how was that flight for you?

And I was like it was fine. They're like, you know, because of the the root canal and I was like, yes, yes, it actually now that you say it, and stopping to eat and you know, just like falling over my lives and we get I get back to New York and my my appointment is coming up, and I went to the Brooklyn based Planned Parenthood and I had my abortion.

It was unbelievably easy, I think it. I was there for maybe like an hour, like remember like being given cookies afterward and sitting in this room and there were other women in this room and it felt like easy and safe, and my boyfriend came and picked me up and we walked. I remember walking back to his apartment and we watched the OC the rest of the afternoon and it was so easy. But I what's crazy to me looking back on how easy that was. And I

felt supported by my boyfriend. There was no question that this was my decision, and we were both like a duh, Like I just got this job, I had this whole life ahead of me. But I never told anyone. I lived with like four roommates at the time, and I had the light of them or keep it quiet, and and it was not for judgment. I mean maybe I just didn't know. I didn't know how to share it. It felt weird to share, so we just kept it

between us. And I never told my parents, and then, you know, in preparation for this podcast, I was like, I couldn't tell my parents. Like my parents are very supportive people. So I was on vacation with them just the other month and talking about doing this series, and it was after dinner and I was like, well, actually been meeting to tell you guys that twenty years ago

I had an abortion. And my mom goes, oh, I actually had an abortion too, And I was like what And if we just talk about these things, you realize like how common it is that thing of you know me? Like everybody does know someone who has an abortion and it doesn't have to be a story, or it can be traumatic, but it exists and it's necessary for that person, whatever their reason is. We'll be right back. It's an

extremely hot day here in Illinois. I am walking into the Fairview Heights Planned Parenthood Facility and Regional Logistics Center to talk to staff members, hopefully a uple of patients, to really get a look at what life is like in a clinic that provides abortion care. Let's go. This is a new facility and it's really beautiful, supermodern, clean and very cool. I might add, this Planned Parenthood clinic is buzzing with activity compared to the Missouri clinic we

visited just across the state line. And on the day we're here, a patient is willing to share her story. Hi. How are you? Hi? I'm Katie. I'm Hannah. It's nice to Hannah, very nice to meet you too. Who's this? That's Azrael Hi? He is sixteen months. Anna and I meet in the clinics family room, a bright, sunlit space with toys being bag strewn about and a giant blackboard with chalk and some leftover scribbles from other families who have also used the space. Hannah and I sit on

one of the great couches. Her son plays next to her. Tell me about yourself, Hannah. How old you are? And you're thirty years old? Yes, God, it took thirty years to get here, but I guess we're here now. And you have a little boy obviously sixteen months, Yes, I do. And I also have twin girls that are eight there will be nine in June. Yes, so we have. We got a full house at home, like, it's very full.

Our family is. So it's not that I don't want kids, I really do, but uh, this this time around was just a bit different. We had some big plans and so that those big plans really didn't include a little bity one. Do you have a partner? I do? Yes, I have a boyfriend. We've been together for now almost two years. And how do How does he feel about your decision to terminate the pregnancy. He doesn't know, He

doesn't know the plot thickens. He doesn't know what kind of hardship would it be for you to have another baby? At this point? The more the merrier is what I've always said, but I don't know with all the time that I lost, I felt like I didn't lose the time because I got to raise him, you know, for the first year of his life. But I want my job back. I want a career, and I want my children to know, like mommy went to school and mommy does this now, and mommy makes money. You're here, You're

here to pick up a till to have a medication abortion? Yes, why did you choose that? It was less invasive? And it was also less time. I you that if we had we had to take care of this, so to speak, in a god this sounds horrible, but in a in a more secretive way, this was the best option. And we were early enough. You know, I caught it at like five weeks, so it was extremely early, and I was like, I took probably about two two and a half weeks to think about it, and then the rest

of the time was scheduling it. You couldn't get this in the state of Missouri, and so you had to How far did you come? It's a three and a half hour drive, but we took our time. We stopped off with a candy story, you know, and stuff like that. So yeah, I know. So it took took about five hours. Took about five hours about that, Yeah, because we took our time. Did the people in front of the clinic try to pressure you or approach you? Yes? So that was as scary I thought they worked here. What did

they say? They were talking about? How? She said, did you have an ultrasound yet? Have you gone and seen the doctor? Every question under the sun. Hey, I'll adopt your baby. She wanted to adopt my baby, and I was like, you have no idea who I am. Would it be easier if you could do this near your home in Missouri? Yes? Oh gosh, yes, so much easier

if I didn't have to travel. I mean, do you know that I have had eleven dollars okay, eleven, and it was gonna get me lodging, It's gonna get the five dollars for the pill, and then it's gonna get me my gas. I drive a Yukon. It's the nineties. It's a gas guzzler. So it's it's extremely extremely costly to have to not be in my own stamped and to have to not be near anybody that I know. It like, I don't know anybody here you know, so last night, and I didn't get to bring anybody either.

So last night, you know, I had like a probably about an hour and a half off of just bawling, you know, so not being near my home. That also stuff that I didn't have my best friend, my god, you know, so it sucked perfect finding your medicine here for you are writing my drugs man. Okay, so the doctor has to be the one to give you the first dose of medicine. Okay, this is the medicine that

you're going to take home. Put all four tablets in between your teeth and your cheek, okay, and they need to be in there for at least thirty minutes, and it's the exact twenty four or forty eight hours between twenty four I'm just making sure I get this, okay, Okay, awesome. There's two types of abortion. There's medication abortion, and then

there's what we call procedural abortion. I know it's commonly referred to as surgical, but I think that can be really scary for patients to hear because it's, you know, a surgery. Sounds gets really intense, and we're not actually doing any cutting. We're not using a scalpel. We're actually using an opening that already exists in the body to remove the pregnancy from the uterus. My name is Dr

Mira Shaw and I am a family medicine physician. I am the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Heads of Mechanic in New York. I'm also the medical director of Whole Women's Health Alliance in South Bend, Indiana. So the other method of abortion is medication abortion. It's a process where patients take first one pill called Mifie prestone. And what Miffi pristone does is it stops the pregnancy from growing and from thriving in the uterus. It is safe

up to eleven weeks gestational age. And what patients do is they first take the Miffie prestone and then they follow up with four pills of a medication called missa Prostel. What missa Prostel does is that it induces cramping and bleeding and expulsion of the pregnancy from the uterus. We have patients typically take one set of four pills if they're below nine weeks, if they're between nine and eleven weeks, and we'll have them take two sets of those four

pills four hours apart from one another. We provide them with anti nausea medication because they may already be nauseous from being pregnant, but sometimes the mesa prostyl can induce nausea if they weren't already nauseous before um. And we also give them high dose ibprofen to help ease the cramping that they that they will feel um while they're

expelling the pregnancy. The way that the f d A has regulated NiFi pristone is it's kept it on the REMS list, which means that it is highly regulated and restricted from being freely accessible to patients, and it makes it harder for physicians to prescribe the medication. That said, there's been a few changes in the in the past few years. So when I first started out, it used to be that the patient had to take the medication in the office and we had to watch them swallow

the pill. There's no reason for this medically speaking, but that was the case, and that you know, we follow all the rules and so we were doing that. The FDA changed the labeling around Miffi pristone several years ago, and New York State interpreted it in a way. That made it so that the physician could just administer the Miffi pristone, but the patient could take it home and

start the process when they felt most comfortable. Another more recent change is that abortion medication can now be mailed to patients instead of them having to come into their local health center. This was a temporary pandemic allowance that became permanent. The patient receives an appointment through a teleconferencing

platform through our protected electronic medical record. We date the pregnancy based on their last menstrual period, and if we feel confident in their dates and that they meet criteria um of less than eleven weeks and they have no medical contra indications, which you know most people don't, then we can mail the Miffi perstone and the MISO to their home. That said, this is the case in New York,

this is not the case everywhere. So in Indiana, for example, um where I'm a medical director of a clinic, there there is an outright ban on telemedication abortion, not telemedicine, but telemedication abortion. In Indiana, the individual still has to go to a health center in order to get the medication. So whenever they come in for the appointment is when the process is initiated. The government has essentially taken that autonomy out of the patient's hands. It's really hard for

me to see restrictions just get worse over time. But last time I was in Indiana, I was told that we now have to give a copy of the ultrasound image to the patient, whether they ask for it or not. In some states they have to actually look at it or hear the sounds of the cardiac activity, but in Indiana, we have to actually give them a copy of the ultrasound.

I just tell them that this is a law, and I put the image in a Manila envelope and then give it to them and say, you can do what you want with this, but it is required by law that I give it to you. And I apologize for that because I don't think that it's medically necessary. Every time I go to Indiana, I'm shocked it hasn't become normalized for me because I am able to provide a very different type of care to my patients in New York.

And you know, the zip code in which you live should not determine the type of healthcare that you receive, but unfortunately that is the case, we'll be right back. Alright, So we're gonna walk to the back um, which is in our recovery area, so you can meet Dr Bomb, which is one of our A B providers and he's also our medical director. All right, follow me this way. Back at the Missouri Clinic, I met with Dr Margaret Bomb.

Dr Bomb, how are you very nice to meet? Since there weren't any patients there, we sat in two chairs in the recovery room. How difficult or challenging has it been for you to work in the state of Missouri. Oh, that's a good question. You are in the only freestanding abortion providing facility in Missouri, and we are, as you know, right at the Illinois border. And that is an advantage

for us, but not an advantage for everyone else. Right, the vast majority of oriens don't live right here in St. Louis. Missouri has some of the strictest restrictions on abortion in the country. So we have a seventy two hour waiting period, means patients have to come twice correct, And in fact what that means is right now, there are only two of us that provide abortions here at this facility in the entire state, myself and my partner, and so we do other things too, which I'm not available to be

here to do abortions every seventy two hours. So if you want an abortion in Missouri, you either have to see myself or my partner. So part of the law is that actually for your first visit, the consent visit has to be done by a physician, which is certainly not the case in most places, and it has to be done by the physician who will then perform the abortion. So today I have four patients who are scheduled to see me to just do a consent process. I don't

know where they're coming from. They could be coming from, you know, five hours away in Missouri, they could be coming from St. Louis, I don't know. And then they will be scheduled for their procedure in a week. So that means number one, they have to wait a week to have their procedure and have their pregnancy progress another week, well, because that's the next time I am here providing services.

And if something happens, so if they get sick, or they don't have childcare, or their work says you can't be off next Wednesday, or I get sick and I can't come in. They can't have their procedure with my partner. They would have to recome back and consent with her or consent with me, wait another week and have their procedure. What other obstacles have they put up in this um? So? Missouri has mandated pelvic exams with abortions, and so for a surgical abortion, we do pelvic exams. That's part of

the procedure. I'm going to be instrumenting your pelvis and your uterus. I'm going to do an exam before I do it. Completely normal. They also mandated pelvic exams with medication abortions, so that is completely unindicated. So if I see someone in Illinois for a medication an abortion, uh, typically they get an ultrasound. I review the ultrasound. I talked to them. Nobody takes any clothes off. I give them the pill, they take the second pill at home.

They have their medication abortion at home. There's no need to do a pelvic exam. And in fact, we really have equated this to your dermatologists saying I'm going to take that mole off your arm, let me do a pelvic exam first. It's completely inappropriate right to insist that someone takes off their pants that I touched their genitals when it is not indicated. So we as a practice decided that medication abortions will not be offered in Missouri. You can't get a pill abortion in Missouri. So what

is the rationale by lawmakers to mandate that. Well, that's a good question. I mean, this is where where you really see that they do not understand the process that we're doing. Right, there is there is. I can't imagine why I would need to do a pelvic exam before a medication abortion. It would not give me any information that would make me say, yes, the patient should have a medication abortion. No, they shouldn't. I should recommend some

alternative alternative procedure. I can't imagine this in a medical correct scenario in which that would happen. It is a barrier to care. They are putting up additional barriers to make it harder and harder for patients in Missouri to access abortion services. So, speaking of things that make things difficult in Missouri, this is Missouri's in form consent booklet. We have to give this to every patient presenting for an abortion of Missouri. Now what I say is I

have to give this to you. You don't have to read it, and you can leave it, you know, on the table, but we have to give this to you. This is how it starts the life of each human being begins a conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being. I mean, that's that's not medical information, correct. Um. So this is full of all kinds of misleading facts that we are required to

give to patients. This is the informed consent form that um, we have to fill out again that the physician has to fill out most of with a patient seven two hours at least before their procedure. So some of this, you know, you have to know the name of the physician, Ask questions, okay, and then the nurse does most of this.

And then I am required to read this paragraph to every patient that says the immediate and long term medical risks to me associated with the proposed abortion, including but not limited to, infection, hemorrhage, cervical tear, or uterine perforation, harm to subsequent pregnancies or the ability to carry a subsequent child to term, and possible adverse psychological effects. That sounds really scary, doesn't it? And it's not true. No, I mean there are with any procedure, there are risks.

The risks are very minimal with abortion. But this maximizes the risks and minimizes how actually safe that abortion is and doesn't minimize your your chances of getting pregnant. So some of the some of these are just blatant correct, And I I always say, I didn't you know, doctors

did not write this. This was written by legislators. But I am required to read this and give this information to a patient when this clinic closes, because Missouri has a trigger law right if ROW is overturned, like I believe twenty six other states, they will make abortion illegal in those states. So this clinic will, I guess the abortion care part of this clinic will have to shut down. That is correct, abortion services we will only provide at

our Illinois location. What will that mean for the women of Missouri? So it's it's a little bit additional travel. And so you know, if you're already coming three or four hours from Springfield, Missouri, you know is another twenty minutes into Illinois, you know, so much bigger? Um? Maybe not?

But also I do feel like there is there that's a barrier, right to say you have to leave your state, the state in which you live and pay taxes and send your children to school, to go to another state to have again a legal, normal medical procedure, that that is a barrier. It feels like that we are not taking care of the patients that I live in Missouri.

I grew up here in Missouri, I have a family here, and I wanted to work here and provide care, and certainly this has become a Missouri has made it extremely difficult to do so. Meanwhile, other states like New York, California, and Illinois are expanding their services and preparing for the upcoming influx of out of state abortion patients. Attached to the clinic that I visited in Illinois is the brand new Regional Logistics Center. It's kind of like an abortion

fund meets travel agent meets doctor's office. It's abortion Care of the future. The center's president, joem Elci Rodriguez, shows me around. This is the our facility that we just open in January. So this is the hard where we're doing all of the navigation work, on the scheduling, providing financial assistance, traveling um and other logistics accommodations. So this is like air traffic control for people who want to get abortions but don't have the money or don't know

where to go, maybe need transportation, hotel rooms. Before it was very piecemeal. You just had to kind of try to put put the pieces of the puzzle together to allow you to be able to do this correct and

and that that was a whole vision behind this. Right, what if we can have just one the patient will just have to make one phone call to one place, and we could connect them to all of the resources, not just the abortional appointment, but all of the wraparound really support that they were going to need to make it to an appointment. And we build it thinking, you know, we know that there's going to be a lot of

women from Missouri that are going to come here. But what we've seen in the patient that the support person I was talking to just came from Texas, you all are going to be very busy. We have been very busy. Certainly after the Texas abortion man. There has been this ripple effect or patients are been displaced right from their home state and everybody has been forced to travel x amount of time because there's just not enough providers out there.

This facility. It's expecting fourteen thousand additional patients a year if Row falls. What is the impact of this decision. It's hard to overstand. This is Mary Ziggler, she's one of the country's pre eminent abortion legal scholars. We spoke after the Supreme Court draft was leaked, a draft Politico called a full throaded, unflinching repudiation of the ninety three

just viition. Oh yeah, there's no question. I mean it's I don't know how much more full throated or repudiation you could have, so that that characterization of the draft is absolutely right. I mean, they're going to be impacts on on lots of people's lives, people who can be pregnant, um, just as was the case with the War on drugs. We would expect those impacts to be felt the most acutely by people who are in the most heavily policed communities, who are the people are most likely to be found

out if they're having abortions. There will be people impacts on people who never seek abortions, because doctors will be reluctant to treat ectopic pregnancies or incomplete miscarriages or other things that may be perceived as abortion because they're unwilling to lose their licenses or go to prison. Um. It's going to affect people in blue states who are going

to see people traveling from out of state to seek abortions. Um. It's going to affect doctors in blue states who may be potentially sued or charged with a crime in red states. It's going to shake up the two mid terms, it's going to shake up the presidential elections, and you know as a historian, and it also is going to have unpredictable effects. Right. I think the Supreme Court felt very confident in nine three that it knew what would happen after Robie Wade was reversed. And of course we know

fifty years later that they were absolutely wrong. Um. And there's no reason to think that we can absolutely predict what's going to happen after this decision in much the same way. How were they wrong? Can you give us some insight into that? Yeah, I mean Justice Blackman had a clipping in his files that said, essentially, you know, seventy something percent of Americans think of Worshi should be

a decision between a woman and her doctor. The numbers were very similar then as now, and so he thought, okay, well, if if the Court says it worshions a decision between a woman and her doctor, and there's a sound constitutional foundation for that, people are going to just accept that

and move on. And we know that didn't happen. This Supreme Court somehow seems to think that if it sends this back to the States with lots of winks and nudges, that maybe other precedents can be overturned and maybe if petal personhood is going to be recognized, this is going to go away when that opinion will be running against

popular opinion that it's insane. Right, So people are sort of like this is all over, just really whether their appro choice or per life or not paying attention, like this is going to just be the opening salvo in a much much longer battle. Um, and people I would imagine who support abortion rates are going to be in this for the long haul. Two And we may be looking at, you know, decades down the road, a Supreme

Court decision reinstituting abortion rates. So if the Court thinks it can put an end to this one way or another, or it can remove itself from the conversation. It has another thing coming. This is called why We Hold Our Tongues Finally, a poem by Sonya Renee Taylor. To say I had an abortion is to join the blood covered to be sister with the worst of our ilk, sister with the one who strapped hers and seatbelts, sit the

car skipping like rocks, to drop in a lake. Sister with the hand that pressed her five children to the liquid casket of a bathtub. This is to say, I know how people will clutch their grace until I bring them an amulet of sorrow. How this hive expects my sales turn regret. If not a baby, at least bring us the seregacy of your shame. To say the word abortion is to say I am ashamed thing a womb turned earned. It is to say I killed, died, and dead.

As I speak to you now, it is to say, even my teeth wish to flee my mouth, the leper of my gums. I must be liar, Please be liar. If I say I'm not sad, to say I'm not sad is to say I am monster. I am heartless as tile a physician's claw is to say I am receptacle food made rancid by my own hands. Can you smell my stink? The rotting of me? To say I called the clinic on a Tuesday night, made an appointment for Wednesday morning, It's never to say I was nineteen,

he was nineteen. Our teenage mothers began dissolving our futures and crack pipes when we were five. Never that he washed the dishes of American dreamers till his hands callous. Never my wins at their touch. Never that a black girls to wish him for a better life is fourteen hour work days plus classes. Less the glass slipper fairy tale of a stripper's pole, an old man Semen find her?

Never that I almost chose an old man Semen To say when the nurse handed me a photo a marble of tissue growing, I only asked if I would feel better when it was done. Is never to say we would have just been another thing for you to hate. A food stamp, tick, fat lazy breeder, did be prison number, a white trash trailer hitch, a rape, a black boy with a gun and no daddy, A bitter, exhausted nail holding up our own crucifixion a thing to pity, promote,

donate to a poverty gutter. To gather your own reigning self esteem in To say I cried from my best friend as I took my panties down and laid on the table is to sever the stitch of shame, To let the milk of this choosing spill from me until I am fresh vessel. It is to unlatch my wrist bound in penance to the unhelpful, to the watchers with only birds to give. To say the doctor's face was a blur of soft cotton, but his voice was a crisp still speculum is to free the pigeon of truth

from its cage, so that it might return dove. To say, in the recovery room, I smelled the twenty shades of Crimson escape fleeing down all the women's thighs is to say I am seer and to story and conqueror and scared teenage girl thirteen credits shy of statistic to say that I have never spent three hundred and fifty dollars more wisely is to hang my two degrees in a

house whose shoulders refused to slump. To stare down the brick and backhand of this world without reproach in the land that would sooner fuck or forget us, that would rather see me orphan than owner of my own flesh. To say that I did not choose to keep that which I know would have been beautiful and brutal, is to say unashamedly that I did choose life. To say unapologetically that I did choose life. I did choose life

mine abortion. The Body Politic is executive produced by me Katie Couric and was created by small team led by our intrepid supervising producer Lauren Hansen. Editing and say ound designed by Derrick Clements and Jessica krin Chich, researched by Nina Perlman, and a special thanks to case Um producers Courtney Litz and Adriana Fasio