Abortion: The Body Politic, Part 6

we visited was already preparing for our new reality. This is an additional waiting room, so on really busy days, UM patients can also wait back here. So now that ROW has been overturned, what are things like today? We check back in with someone who works at both of these clinics to find out the impact of the Supreme Court decision before we could stand up out of our seats and moved to another room. Missourian's lost access to abortion.

Dr Kelley McNicholas, I'm the chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region in southwest Missouri. When the news hit on Friday June Dr McNicholas was in a conference room in St. Louis with Missouri Representative Corey Bush and Health in Human Services Secretary Javier B. Serra. As we were wrapping that round table, we got word

that the decision had dropped in. There was, you know, a room full of incredibly dedicated folks, some of whom have spent their entire career on abortion access, hearing it all for the first time, and it certainly was emotional, and there were folks, certainly some folks were shedding tears.

And before we could even get out of the room to process what was happening, we had heard that Missouri's Attorney General had in fact immediately invoked the trigger ban um in it was a bit surreal to have that experience with the Secretary of HHS in our presence um where you know, we could show him, you know, the real on the ground impact of that decision even immediately as we had to then, you know, make sure that our call center was aware of the decision and the

trigger being implemented um so that as patients called, they

had the right information to give to folks. We quickly regrouped and everybody, including the Secretary, headed over to the Fairview Heights Plumbic because I thought it was incredibly important for him to see the other side, to see what it was like and feel what it was like to lose access to this basic care um in one state, and then truly drive just fifteen minutes down the road across the river, as we say, UM, to a place where we were now preparing to see a flood of patients.

Illinois is uniquely situated, um unlike other critical access states, as being truly a blue island in the middle of a completely red sea or what will soon be a red sea. So for us in southern Illinois, you know, we are surrounded by Missouri, Tennessee, Indiana, and then you know, as you move further south, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, these are all states that are already have banned um abortion or severely limited it, or in the coming weeks months,

um we'll move to completely ban it altogether. And so you know, as we think about the public health crisis that this has now sparked, we're talking about mass mobilization of tens of thousands of people for basic abortion care, many of whom will be looking to the closest geographic area, which for lots of them will be southern Illinois. So this is the Fairview Heights Hell Center. It is an

eight teen thousand square foot building. When I got a chance to tour the Illinois Clinic in May and it is built as a searge site as we call it, it was pretty clear this facility was set up for the future. So you have a few case managers who are working to navigate patients there, patients who have to deal with all the challenges of getting an abortion these days, from the cost to the travel to hotel needs, all of it can be taken care of in a phone

call with one case worker. A case worker like Caroline, Alright, so you're going to transfer her over, I'll just actually need the moment. Caroline is a veteran of the Fairview Heights Health Center, having worked there for three years, first booking appointments and then moving over to the logistics center when it opened in January of no problem. So in that situation, this is a person that was previously scheduled

and she was quoted a price point. This person had a cost that was I'm a five hundred and sixty dollars. She made it in clinic and her gestation was way further than what she expected. So her cost of service is extremely more than what she expected to pay. She was already needing assistance. She's only able to provide a hundred and fifty dollars towards her total cost of service. She has a balance of one thousand and thirty dollars that she'll need assistance for. Her appointment is in a

few days. Of course, she can't just come up with five hundred and some more dollars. So that's why we are needed, Like I'm gonna find the funds for so she can receive the services. So that's a prime example of what's going on here. The center was designed to accommodate an increase in patience, So as you walked on the hall, there are lots of rooms that you'll see that you know are still empty, not in use, because

we're going to be it's designed to scale up. Southern Illinois is expecting fourteen thousand abortion refugees from other states every year. When I visited two months ago, all the empty procedure rooms, counseling spaces, and waiting areas weren't needed yet. But Dr McNicholas says it's taken no time for the center to fill up. I'll tell you that the volume is coming, I would say, at at a faster pace

than we even anticipated. So within the first seventy two hours after the decision, our way time went from about three to four days to now being already two weeks. In the last couple of days, I have started my interactions with patients by acknowledging that they've come a long way for this care. And you know, the range of responses has been anywhere from I've had no choice, um. I remember a woman from Mississippi just looked at me

and said I didn't have a choice. Um. And she and then continued to say, but I'm grateful that you're here, um, to folks who just really broke down because just getting there was so difficult. Um. We're still in that phase where folks had appointments already established and on the books in their home state, right, And so some of those folks are, you know, still getting over the reality that it really was overnight that they went from being able to go down the street to now having to go

hundreds of miles. The consequences of the Supreme Court decision are playing out in other ways as well. I mean, we have also seen all sorts of medications now at pharmacies being delayed or denied because of potential implications on pregnancy or miscarriage. You know, methatric state for example, to medication we routinely use for ec topic pregnancies. It's also one of the main stay therapies for folks who have

lupus or arthritis, for example. So folks who have been maintaining their health with these critical medications are now also finding themselves in places where they can't even get care for non pregnancy related health care issues. Because of how broad and wide sweeping this decision is, ending access to abortion in one or multiple states was never the end goal, and we should be prepared for what the next wave

of a tax looks like. Criminalization is certainly one of those, not just for folks who are having abortion, but also the folks who are providing that care. And so, you know, I think as we look to the next legislative session and we are looking to broaden our our areas of support, you know, this is a place where we're going to need to engage folks outside of our typical movement and really make sure that the fight to um to prevent some of these things is robust and in a aggressive

My name is Danassessman. I am the acting executive director at National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and we are an organization that defends the civil and human rights of people who are targeted for criminalization or other state intervention because of pregnancy or because of a pregnancy outcome, including a pregnancy loss like still birth or miscarriage, abortion, or continuing a pregnancy and giving birth. One of the ways that we're trying to get prepared for this new reality is

by working across disciplines. We are engaging more and more with healthcare providers, with child welfare workers, with UM, criminal defense attorneys, and even with police and prosecutors UM. Because so many of our cases originate in medical settings. We've had nurses call the police because they thought that a pregnant woman intentionally fell down a flight of stair us

in order to end her pregnancy. UM. She in fact was lightheaded, fell down the flight of stairs, went to the hospital to make sure that her pregnancy was okay, that she she and her pregnancy were okay, and UM and had shared that she had contemplated having an abortion

earlier on in her pregnancy. But had changed her mind her The nurse hearing that story spoke with the doctor and one of them called the police and she was charged with attempted feet aside, we understand that there will be situations in which nurses and doctors and hospital based social workers will feel like they are required to call

the police. And what we're trying to do is provide more information and tools to health care workers so that they understand that they don't have to report their patients, and their obligations to their patients include minimizing harm to them and to their families, UM, which means not involving criminal law enforcement in their lives. UM. So we are focusing on interdisciplinary response and an all hands on deck response because that's sort of what's demanded in this crisis.

And you know, one example that we have that we can point to is the Latti's Fisher case, which is a case we worked on in nineteen a case out of Mississippi where a woman who maintained consistently that she experiences still birth called nine one because she was experiencing a medical emergency and was deemed suspect because at some point in her pregnancy, she had googled medication abortion, um and I just think that we have very few cases to point to, but that is one, and I think

very um informative of of of what we may see in the not so distant future. We've been asked a few times, you know what, what what would you advise someone who wants to get an abortion or wants to access medication abortion in a banned state? What would you advise them to do with respect to sort of getting information? And I said something along the lines of talked to

as few people as possible. It's so utterly devastating to think that we are now forced to advise people to not share what they're going through with others for fear of facing criminal, criminal repercussions, not just for themselves, but maybe even for the people who helped them. I think it's not disconnected from what is also happening, which is that primarily women, but all people with the capacity for pregnancy will not be part of public life, you know that.

I think about the generational impact that this could have if things don't how dramatically shift, you know, in the next round of elections. And I don't have a lot of hope. There's a lot of analysis over what having access to abortion has allowed. It allows women to stay in college, and it allows women to move to move out of poverty. And we will see a general disappearance

of women from public life. And we may not see it in two years or in five years, but in twenty years or in thirty years, we will see such a dramatic shift in who is participating in public discourse, who are the people we see publicly, who is making policy. I'm mourned for that. I'm mourn for the individual people who will be impacted, but also mourned for what we will miss as a society coming up, what the public

and private sectors are doing to protect abortion. I think this hashtag say abortion started with I actually believe it was Renee Bracy Sherman from We Testify started using that hashtag during the presidential debates because she noticed that none of the Democratic candidates seemed willing to actually say the word abortion, and we're instead using euphemisms to talk about abortion, so saying like uh, women's health or reproductive choice, like

really skirting saying the word of abortion. My name is Caramailman. My pronouns are they and he. I am the chief research analyst for reproaction. Part of the reason it's so important to hear our politicians, like our Democratic progressive leaders say the word abortion is because our opposition isn't afraid to say the word abortion. They love to talk about abortion because they see it as a winning issue for them.

And if we an abortion to become a winning issue for us, which it is that the majority of people support abortion and abortion access, we actually have to be willing to say the word Chairwoman Maloney and ranking Member Comer, thank you for inviting me to speak today. Congresswoman Pramalajaia Paul is a Democrat from Washington State. I speak to you as one of the one in four women in

America who have had an abortion. She's not only one of the few politicians willing to say the word abortion, she was one of the first to share her own abortion story, first in an op ed in twenty nineteen, and then before Congress in I remember googling congress member abortion story to see if anybody else had talked about it at the time, and what did you find? The

only person I found was Jackie Spear. Congressman Jackie Spear had on the floor of the House in really angered towards a number of comments that were being made by a Republican member. You know, I had really planned to speak about something else, but the gentleman from New Jersey has just put my stomach in knots because I'm one of those women he spoke about just now, I had a procedure at seventeen weeks. She talked about the medical

necessities that she faced when she had her abortion. It was quite a different story, but it was the only time I found and so I just decided to go ahead. And um, I think the reaction was overwhelming from across

the country, including from some people I didn't expect. You know, a man who identified himself as a Republican who doesn't believe in abortion, and he read it and he said, I came away with a deep respect for something you said, which is that you are not trying to tell anybody else to have an abortion, and nobody should tell you not to have one. He said, I think I have been convinced, so mission accomplished. Yes, at least for that

one person. What is your reaction to what's going on in this country visa the abortion rights It is a catastrophic dismissive and demeaning uh decision that the Supreme Court has put forward. I feel outraged and fury because it isn't just and I don't say just dismissively. I had an abortion. I know what it means to be pregnant. Um, it isn't just about the nine months of pregnancy. It is actually about our agency as equal citizens to be

able to control our lives. Our lives do not stop to matter the moment into conception, and I think that is the issue that we just have to keep reminding people of we are. We are part of the economic engine of this country, and we have to have the right to control our own bodies and our own futures. The US is now one of only four countries that have actively moved backwards on reproductive rights. So what does this say to other nations and how does it affect

our standing in the world. We are already being seen as a country that cannot call ourselves the leader of the free world. Um, it becomes very difficult. There are fifty countries in the last twenty five years that have expanded access to abortion, and we are going in the opposite direction. We are out of sync with the American people, and we are out of sync with the world, and it really affects our ability to say that we lead anything.

And let's just think about the fact that these hypocritical Republicans say that they're pro life, pro child, pro family, but every single one of them have opposed paid family leave, childcare, the child tax credit. You can go through the list. So obviously, UM, that also affects us. And I've had world leaders you know, are people in other governments saying to me, the United States is not the country we

thought it was. We are going to have to take up leadership, um, because the United States is not capable of offering that. Do you think it will change? Can you bring the United States back as the world power that it once was and that it could be and should be? And my answer is yes, we can, but it does depend on the people turning out and voting for people, um, and eliminating some of these systemic barriers

like the filibuster. In the time since we spoke President Biden's find an executive order on abortion rights, I'm asking the Justice Department that, much like they did in the Civil rights there, to do something, do everything in their power to protect these women seeking to invoke their rights. As of this recording, abortion is already banned in at least eight states, and President Biden doesn't have the power

to restore abortion access in those states. But the Biden administration is directing doctors everywhere that if a pregnancy is causing a medical emergency, doctors are obligated to perform the life saving abortion, regardless of state law. Hospitals that don't

comply could lose their Medicare status. On Twitter, conscious woman Jaia Paul thanked President Biden for signing the executive order and called on Congress to codify ROW, which would require either changing the filibuster or electing a stronger Democrat majority in the midterms. Voting is absolutely critical. Um. I also think that there are media things around providing support to UH pregnant people who are in these states that have

banned abortion. That is really really important, and I hope there will be a series of actions that lead it up to voting that are about demonstrating our power in this economy. You know, I floated the idea of a national strike, and I'm working on it and let's see if we can get there. But I think it's important for people to understand we have power we have to show it. We have to assist those who are hurting

right now, and we have to vote in November. While reproductive rights advocates within the public sector figure out ways to protect abortion access, Rushmasu Johnny, an activist for Paid Family Leave, told me back in March that businesses need to step up. The private center has kind of not dealt with Roving Wade and reproductive rights because I think they never thought maybe the moment would come. And so it's up to businesses to provide, you know, basically provide

abortion access to their employees. Like one out of three employees will have an abortion at some point, right, so this is like the vast majority, you know, of their population. So they have to think about how they're going to actually protect support, you know what I mean, the right

to choose. Like if if I'm employed and I live in Texas and that Texas is now you know, outlawed abortions, You're going to have to pay for me to get to New York City, you know what I mean, my flight, my airfare, the cost of it, you know, it is now your problem. And and I think that this is also the cost of when companies actually don't stand up and speak out, you know, and join the fight. I think we have to, you know, they have to basically play a role in making sure that this right exists

for women. In fact, in the days and weeks since the road decision came down, many companies, from City Group to Yelp have responded by boosting travel reimbursement programs and creating funds that do exactly what Rushima suggested cover the costs associated with getting an abortion. The CEO of Amalgamated Bank, Priscilla Simms Brown, was one of the first to reveal such a plan. In an interview on CNBC, she explained why abortion is absolutely a corporate responsibility. We want to

both hire and retain qualified women. In particular, we want to give them opportunities um and we want to deliver on our diversity and inclusion goals. These are just important issues to women, and we have taken a terrible step back for half of America's workforce. We'll be right back. I think there is a short term need and then there's we need a long term strategy. Again. Here's doctor Colleen McNicholas from the Planned Parenthood Health Center and Fairview Heights, Illinois.

The short term need really does have to focus on getting people from point A to point B and then back home home. And so as much as folks can utilize resources grassroots organizations UM that are on the ground doing that work, abortion funds, practical support organizations, or the Regional Logistics Center for example, who are already doing the work figuring out that infrastructure. But the long term plan um and strategy really I think needs to be around accountability.

In this moment, I think it's a real opportunity for us as a movement to say, you know, all of the historic uh concessions that were made around abortion, you know, the big tent and room for everybody. You know, that approach is what got us here um. And so if we are going to rebuild a system that works for everybody and provides access to abortion throughout pregnancy where people are when they need it, we really have got to

start holding people accountable. And so whether that means that, you know, we stop giving them dollars when they're running for office because they've demonstrated that in fact, they aren't going to do the things that they say. They don't understand that abortion is something we cannot compromise on, you know, I think we just have to to think about how

we are holding those elected officials accountable. If we are going to rebuild better, and when we do rebuild better um and and more equitable, that it will have a um an intersectional approach, right, and that that it will truly pull in folks from all of the different justice movements, because the truth is, you know, abortion is a racial justice issue, and it is an immigrant justice issue, and

it is an environmental justice issue. And so if we are to help folks reframe to understand why the ideal is abortion care when you need it, where you need it, and paid for by your either public or private insurance, they must also understand how it fits into each one of those sectors of life. As we learned in our last episode, taking a global perspective may help us navigate

the long road ahead. So once again is one of the leaders of the green Weight movement in Latin America, Paula Avila Gian to those who are just starting to realizing, Welcome to the fight. Don't never feel that that you are too late. It's never too late to fight for our autonomy. Welcome it doesn't I don't, I don't care how you talk about this or if you're political correct or if you you you are just starting to learn

about this subject, just welcome. We need you. We need as many people as possible because the only way to win this fight is by h adding numbers to the troops. For those who have been fighting like me for a very long time, we need to cry for a little bit because this is going to be a very uh even though we know it has been happening that is going to happen for a very long time. It's a very hard moment. It's a very dark moment. But after

we cry, we need to get up. We need to wear our green wherever you have and just use it every day, and it starts showing up to every single march. Start writing to every person you know and tell them how they need to speak up. They need to use social media, they need to show up. They need to write letters to legislators. Follow all the organizations and all the work of abortion phones and on other organizations leaders

to find ways how you can get involved. Sometimes showing to march this is the most powerful thing that you can do. Sometimes donate in money is the most important thing that you can do. But you need to do something about you need to take an action in this moment. We cannot have the privilege to just stay comfortable in our homes anymore. We cannot have the privilege of the silent.

We need to show up. We need to learn about the consequences of this backlash, and we need to be prepared for what is coming because it's not going to be a short fight. It's going to be a long fight, unfortunately. But we need to show up and more people. Have the conversation with your mother, have the conversation with your sister, if you feel um encouraged and ready tell your abortion and story. If you um feel that you need to

um write something right it and send them. Pressure the media to keep covering this issue because this is going to be in a media cycle. We are going to have some months in which everybody's going to talk about this, and then people are going to forget, and so we need to keep the pressure into our duty of all of us to make sure that nobody forgets that the next crisis doesn't not forget about this one. And to our electroficials, it's on you. This is following and it's

on you to fix it. There actually are more people on the side of reproductive rights. After all, we know that the majority of Americans, as many as eight percent, believe that abortion should be legally accessible. So how can we better represent that majority? How can we bring those people out of the shadows and into the fight. We got the chance to consider these questions with someone in a group not often seen on the front lines of

this issue, the topic of abortion. There's a lot of shame and secrecy around the topic in general, and particularly in Republican circles. People just won't talk, women don't talk about it. I had no idea how my even family members felt about the topic. My name is Katherine Kaufman. I am a former political appointee in the Trump administration

and current mother of three in rural Lexington, Kentucky. After serving as the Minister on Gender Equity to the nineteen G seven in France, I was overwhelmed by the feeling of loss for the United States as a global leader on gender equity because of our position on sexual reproductive health.

And upon returning from that experience to hear of the law in Mississippi and my own personal experience with infertility and IVF, I published an OpEd in The Washington Post calling for Republicans to find our voice and speak out in favor of women's rights and support of global gender equity.

When I published that op ed, I was advised by a friend of mine who's in the space, to go dark on basically everything you know social media, don't check your email, don't ever open something that you don't know you know, make sure your address is in public. And the White House published their own response, and I was personally attacked by people in the White House at the time, But other than those extreme individuals, I was overwhelmed with

love and support. I had thousands of responses, all positive direct to me. Yes, I believe you, Yes, I'm with you, this is exactly where we need to be. This is how I feel, This is how my mother feels, this is how my sister feels. But very few of those

people wanted to share that on a public platform. And I have yet to meet someone in the Republican Party who hasn't been willing to have a conversation with me about a different platform, like a mother and child platform that brings civility back to the conversation and lets us connect as humans, men and women who they truly do. Even my father who um, you know, is the treasurer for the r n C and is the most loyal

Republican out there. He's out He'll say, well, I am pro life, but you know, after our woman has been told our options and spoken to the doctor, of course, that eats her choice. You know, Like, well, dad, that's always And so when you say are you an outline in the Republican Party because you're pro choice, I've really tried to define myself as someone who's pro mother and child, who um, you know, just has a deep compassion for both pregnant women and children that need support, and I

think it's an easier way to talk about it. I don't think that you can have gender equity or claim to have an equitable country without full sexual reproductive health rights. That's where I've landed on that topic. Um. But I'm not as pessimistic on the legislation being black and white, that being impossible for us to come to good legislation that does represent both the miracle of life and the

complexities of birth. I think sometimes we think we're pushed to these polar opposites, and that's just politics, and that's just the country we live in, and we kind of give up a little bit, and I actually think that we can really use our common sense. The polling is

actually really encouraging. I mean, there's probably not an issue Americans actually agree on as much as we do, as you know, of us think abortion should be legal, which is again reflective of how poor job the labels do of reflecting our position, because then only fifty five still a clear majority. But if only of Americans claim that they're pro choice but believe abortion, so it's it's all.

There is a middle. And I think if we did take the time to educated ourselves on what is actually needed for for true gender equity, if we look at the outcome that we're trying to get to rather than just and my pro life approach choice, what is the outcome that we want. We want less abortions, we want you know, full equity. We want to take care of the children that are alive and languishing in our foster care system, which by the ways, I think upwards of

four and twenty four thousand. We don't want women to die giving birth, and yet we're the only developed country in the world where maternal mortality is on the rise. And these things are to me, this is all very clearly connected, and we have to focus our attention to the output that we really want, which is are there more loved, safe and secure children with safe, healthy mother

in a country that cares for all of them? And it's a much better question to get to and what are the policies we need to put in place to get to that outcome. This fight not only needs more people, but new tools of engagement, tools like TikTok. My name is Olivia Juliana Olivia Juliana on All Socials, and I'm a nineteen year old political strategist and abortion rights activists from deep in the heart of Texas, and I'm most well known for abortion advocacy work and working for the

organization called gen Z for Change. Olivia's TikTok platform and others like it has helped shift the abortion right side of the fight from playing defense to playing offense. Last year, tax has passed what's known as Sentabill eight, which at the time was the most restrictive abortion band in the country, and it was civilian forced, so civilians and private citizens could now try to enforces against each other. I thought it was a blatant violation of privacy and I thought

it was blatantly unconstitutional. So as upset, and then I saw Texas Right to Life, which is an anti choice or pro life organization, put out a tipline that was made with the intention of allowing people to report abortion providers or people who have helped someone get an abortion past the six week mark in the state of Texas, and I was I was annoyed because these are the same people that are constantly complaining and calling things orwellian and saying like, oh, this is like N four, But

now they're trying to incentivize people to report their neighbors for health care procedures that they've made about their in choices they've made for their own bodies. So as a young person his proficient in the Internet, I was like, you know, there's no way that they can tell if these tips are true or not or authentic. And so the year previously, TikTok and gen Z had kind of taken this approach to reserve tickets to a Trump event

and then not go. So with that idea, I was like, we should do the same thing with this tip line. So I'm in a video on TikTok encouraging people to go leave a quote very authentic tip because I would never encourage people to be dishonest um, and it just blew up from their Other TikTokers jumped on the same thing. And one of my good friends who's also our digital

strategy associated gen Z but Change, Seawan Wiggs. He created a olde that you could run on your computer and it would just constantly send tips to this tipline and it just kept going and going and going, and eventually the tipline website crashed and it couldn't be used anymore. And then once that happened, the public caught on even

more and the host eventually dropped the site. So to this day that tipline is gone, like it's not been put back up again, and right to life as an organization that has branches in every stag across the country, and to this point we have not seen another tip line of that nature pop up in any other state.

I think gen Z is really unique because not only are we like writing and willing to march in the streets and go out and vote for pro choice champions, but we also know how to utilize digital tools in the Internet to fight back against oppressive things as well. I always say people ask me like, is social media good? Is it? Is it a new is it like a blatant good that we can use for things? And in the abortion rights area, I find that it has been

overwhelmingly used for good. It's been used to share resources, it's been used to uplift calls to action for specific things. In Texas, a woman was arrested on a murder charge for having what was called a spontaneous abortion, and the call to action was to call the sheriff and the district attorneys in Star County and demand that she'd be released. Because we were able to boost that action on social media, we had calls and emails coming from across the country.

I think my videos about the specific event got upwards of five hundred thousand views, and um she was eventually released because the district attorney decided not to proceed with the charm riges and they just connected the email and the phone lines. So I think it's just something that we've been blessed to be able to have in this fight. And I also think that we are more inclusive in terms of I think we're seeing younger and younger people

getting invested in this fight. I think like we think young people people think like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. I've been in events where I've seen ten year olds speak about abortion access and other issues like this. And I also think it's important because of inclusivity in terms of, like, it's not just women who have abortions, it's also transgender

and non binary people as well. And I think that my generation has done a really good job of scoping out the intersection ng communities and identities that will be affected by these problems. And I think a large part of that is social media and different can communities that are kind of coming together around these collective actions. So I think it's a really unique thing that we've kind of been afforded, and I think that it's genuinely going to help us going forward in terms of continuing to

do this work. A nineteen I shouldn't be having to organize and rally against elected officials and Supreme Court justices. I should be at parties and spending my parents money buying cute clothes, and yeah, here we are. So it's it's a very bitter sweet because I feel like a lot of us have been robbed of our youth. But I also am very grateful. Um. That's so many young people have kind of answered the call to side back against these kinds of things. I wouldn't change age the

direction of my life now. My life has been changed by activism work and by working with other young organizers. And I think that that's a sentiment that a lot of us share is it's difficult, it's tiring, it's overwhelming, but it's also extremely rewarding to know that you're not alone in fighting for these kinds of things. When we come back, when your abortion goes viral. What we can

learn from Busy Phillips road from act to activists. That's right after this, and I thought, well, I'm here now, like I have this nightly thing and we need to we need to do something. Busy Phillips is a great example of the impact pop culture and social media can have on making the personal political. She's become a prominent and reliable presence in the abortion activism ACE in the last few years, headlining a talk with Planned Parenthood president

Alexis McGill johnson at south By Southwest. So very chill time to be talking about this in Texas. Now, let's intact the yeah yeah and getting arrested outside the steps of the Supreme Court after row was overturned. For you, guys, Busy had an abortion when she was fifteen and living in Arizona. She shared her story publicly in her memoir

This Will only hurt a little. Everyone in the press like sort of focused on James Franco, which is like such an I roll to me, because I'd like written this whole book about what my experience as a woman in this specific time in this industry was. And then every single headline like around the world was like actress Busy Phillips, bashist James Franco and new memoir, And I was like, guys, I mean the book is literally almost

four pages. There is half a paragraph about what happened between me and James, which we've talked about publicly before together. Calm down, Welcome to the world of clickbase. But I felt like a little bit like I got away with it, Like I didn't have to talk about my abortion in that way. I didn't get click baited with the abortion. And so I was like, great, like, did that got to tell my story? It'll matter to the people who read it, it it won't matter to other people. I won't

get all this stuff the blowback from it. I did it, and then these extreme abortion bands started happening, and I thought, well, I want to say something on my late night show. Part of the reason why I even wanted to have one was because there are certain things that I really

believe like and we had seen. I had seen I'm friends with Jimmy and Molly Kimmel, and I had seen how Jimmy was really moved by what their son Billy went through, and like really their realization of what the health care liamscape is for people in this country, and how he he was like, I can't just stand by. I have to say something about this, and really used that opportunity and it made a big difference. It did.

It was pretty moving and profound what he did. And I thought, well, I'm here now, like I have this nightly thing and we need to we need to do something. Well, listen, I have to say something um here at busy tonight. You know, we tend not to be overtly political, but you know, as it turns out, I'm just trying to

be like a woman in the world is political. And so Brian Kemp, the governor of Orga, was going to sign their extreme abortion ban into law, and that was I had spoken with a bunch of people in the reprayer rights space and we decided, we had decided before that even happened, that we would wait until he did that and then I would talk about it on the show. The statistic is one and four women will have an

abortion before age, and that statistics sometimes surprises people. And maybe you're sitting there and thinking, I don't know a woman who would have an abortion. Well, you know me, I had an abortion when I was fifteen years old. And I'm telling you this because I'm genuinely really scared for women and girls. People that you love have had abortions,

whether they're talking about it or not. And then yeah, the hashtag was Tina phase idea, you know, largely based off of the Rondo Burt's me Too hashtag, which was kind of amazing, I mean kind of you know, a phenomenon. And I I was very hesitant about that, about jumping into that because first of all, I like, as a white woman, I'm always trying to be aware of co opting spaces where people have been doing work for a

long time. And then I'm like, Hi, but I'm in the face of this now, thanks, you know what I mean. So I was a little hesitant. But then I was at dinner with my friends Jenny and Goldie and yeah, Alabama passed that law, and I was so angry and I was like, I'm doing it. I'm just gonna I'm gonna do it. And we wrote the tweet at the table, and I was like, there's so nervous, so nervous. I don't want what if it's like becomes oh god, what if I get trolled? Like I just had all of

those feelings. I pressed and we finished our wine and dinner and I was like, I'm not going to look at this again tonight. I'm not just I'm not. And then I think it was the next day somebody called me. I was like, do you know how many people are doing this? And it's everywhere. It's on Facebook, it's on Instagram.

I was like, what, that's amazing, that's so great. And I had literally like women coming up to me while I was crossing the street in Los Angeles, like running up to tell me, like to thank me, and to say I had an abortion. Oh my god, I'm so grateful. I'm able to say it because I don't feel anything about it. I'm just so glad I get to say it.

And I sat next to a woman on the plane who was a mom of three who had had a very wanted pregnancy that she had to have an abortion because of things that were very medically it was medically necessary abortion, and said, you know, I went through this alone. No one at work went knew what I was going through, a lot of my family didn't, a lot of my friends didn't. And I felt so alone and so sad because I had such shame about it, because I was

afraid that people would judge me. And I wrote my whole story like the day after your talk show thing, I saw it on TV. I wrote this whole post on Facebook and I can't tell you like how free I feel now. And I was just like, well yeah. By June, a few weeks after going viral with her you know me hashtag, my name is Busy Phillips, Busy testified before Congress abortion is healthcare and should not be

treated as different from any other healthcare. I am so sad that we have to sit here in front of a row of politicians and give deeply personal statements because the why doesn't matter. It should not matter. I'm here today because I stand by the decision that I made

when I was fifteen years old. I am here today because my platform has allowed me to connect with thousands and thousands of people around the country that you represent who have made the same choice I have made, but who will not all get the same chance to talk

to you directly. I had a real like bright spot right after I had testified before Congress because um, one of the women from Planned Parenthood told me that, uh, after the you know me like hashtag thing went viral and people were really sharing their abortion stories, that the

approval rating for abortion went up. It's always the majority of people, but it goes, it hovers, that goes between you know, like seventy five and like eighty five percent, And it was like at an all time ten year high right after that, and I was like, that's cool. People are talking about this in a way that humanizes, right, and they're sharing their experiences very plainly. And no one's

experience is more valid than anyone else's. Because I was fifteen and it was an unwanted pregnancy is no more valid than a woman who has to has a very wanted pregnancy and has to have a medical you know, intervention abortion, or a person who's had three children, and it's like, oh my god, I thought I was going through menopause. Here's ship Okay, I'm gonna an abortion. Like the reason why doesn't matter, right, Like, you're allowed to have control over your body and what's happening in it.

And so that really crystallized for me that the piece that has been missing the whole time is the message, is the being vocal, is saying just practice saying it, like, yeah, I had an abortion last week. I had an abortion when I was fifteen. I had an abortion when I was fifteen. Practice saying it without any judgment on yourself or anyone else. Oh yeah, she know she had an abortion last year. I think when right? That was like,

may right, Okay, Suresha. We've been allowed, like we've we've allowed the other side to control a narrative about our bodies for so long. We've allowed them to tell us what's shameful. We've allowed them to scream at us and tell us that we did this as if our boyfriends had nothing to do with it. And I'm not ashamed that I was born with a uterus and ovariase I'm not ashamed of my humanity, and the idea that we should be as women, that we should be as people

with uteruses is absurd. I feel like in the country genre, there's just not a lot of people representing for the folks of us that do believe that we should have bodily and family autonomy. Amanda Shires is a Nashville based singer songwriter who has used her music to process her own abortion, but also to infiltrate an industry and an audience that hasn't exactly cotton to a conversation about reproductive rights.

Some people hear music and they don't really pay attention to the words too much, and they really like the song, so they might download it. Then they might read the words and they're like, oh, so you can get in to to somebody's mind a little bit in And then Amanda released two versions of a song. One was called Our Problem, the other The Problem. I started writing that song after I had an abortion. My friend um at the time that took me, she didn't have the same

views as I did about it, you know. And then I found that out, you know, as I was going through this, as I was like calling to make an appointment, then they put you on the waiting period, and then you go and then they do the consultation and it's oh, all so many steps and she sees, you know, kind of this process and and in the end what stuck, what stuck with me was that she, despite her differences at the time, she she was on my side. So that's where the idea started. Are you feeling well, are

you gonna tell how long have you know? I tell you something wrong? Just to be a week? So you tell them? Man and broke get all our problem is? Um is a is a story of the group of girls sitting around discussing somebody else's abortion. I wanted it to be in many voices because when I was going through this, I didn't realize that there were more people that had been through this, you know. So I was writing thinking like, I wish there was more people that

felt okay talking about it more candidly. And I think that hearing different voice tones, like touches, different frequencies, and then having the like camaraderie or the divine feminine collaboration, all that together kind of amplifies the message and also makes people feel like, you know, I'm not a bad Peron and you know, and and that's what people need

to know, rememberca why he dropped. I also wrote a version with Jason, my husband, about it, and UM, I got to the idea of the you know, me and Jason talking about it, you know, from our perspective, but also where you know, I had to make it rhyme, so some of the details aren't exactly right what you want. I'm scared to even say. This has been the hardest. He I thought that, you know, including him because his platform is bigger, and because he has the same views

on it as I do. He was willing, and I thought, you know, like we always think that telling telling our truth, maybe if it changed one mind or maybe inspired conversations. Uh, that's all helpful, you know. I just think that UM or thought and still think that. UM. It's it's important for for um everybody to be talking and helping as best they can. It's important for you know, white men to say I believe that you should have rights over your body. Also, you know, and you know, in some

ways that song was hard to sing. When Jason sings with me, I felt like I could sing it better, you know, like, Okay, I don't have to stand up here and wait for somebody to throw something at me. Jason's right here, you know, um, because you know, sometimes you don't know who you're gonna wind up singing too, and sometimes it just takes a little bit more backbone and you find that in your friends, for your family.

And that's what I did. And there was just an outpouring of people sharing their stories everywhere from you know, age thirteen to eight, and I was just flooded with with like warmth and like like a sense of belonging. It was. So it was touching, is what it was. And it was also healing. I would do it all over every every day if it was Groundhog's Day. So I do hate that not not more folks are using you know, their platforms too, you know, to help and

to teach their fan base. Not teach their fan base, but kind of like just say something, because even if you could change one mind, you never know. I've been

thinking a lot about rage and pleasure and action. I think that it is really important for women and non biners people in general like me who have been trained away from their rage to reunite with it in healthy ways, like the song we Won't Go Back, just using like heavy drums and guitar and so to to conjure up that that feeling in me so I could recognize it, embrace it and then UM find ways of building pleasure in my body so I can come to a state of clarity so that I know how to act, because

I don't know if it's fair to expect from ourselves UH solutions and action items when we are still in a rage slash numb cycle. You know, we have to we have to take care of ourselves so we can be the best tools for change. My name is Connie Limb and I go by the artist's named milk UM. It's spelled m I l c K and yes, like the substance that women create to nourish the next generation and for non binaries as well. We Won't Go Back is essentially a battle cry that is completely written, produced

and performed by women and non binary people. UM. I am so proud of this project because it is turning an anxiety and a fear into something powerful UM that I hope can help energize people as we continue to find ways to work through our burnout and work through our disappointment and our hurt and you know, work towards sustainable change. I happened to be in Washington, d C. I landed the day um after the political article leaked, so I happened to take the train into d C

for something entirely different. But when I set my luggage down in my hotel room, I had two choices. I had the choice of either to like lie down on that very comfortable looking bed and get some room service, or take the lift and go to the Supreme Court and just soak in the energy of the people and our reaction to this potential overturning of Roe v. Wade. When I was at the protest in front of the Supreme Court, I started filming everything because I felt like

I was witnessing something historic. Um and the chance of the people were very clear and very powerful. And the the chant that really got me to have my voice leap out of my own chest was we won't go back. And that chant just like brought chills down my back. So I went back to my hotel room, I rewatched the videos just to kind of take in the day and reflect, and then that chant came up on my photos app and I listened to it, and immediately the whole idea of the song just rushed through me. What

I do should be my own juice. We won't will go, we will, we will, we will, we will, And then I count. I had to test and to see what the rhythm was, and so when I tapped out the tempo, it was actually one and twenty beats per minute, and one per minute is a really popular metric because it is the um the average rate of the heart beating.

And so all the lyrics and the melodies, ideas the drums, the guitar, all of that started flooding out and I didn't completely finish the song, and I had an ideas like, why don't I make this fun? And so I posted instrumental parts of the song and invited people to write their lyrics. And the reason why I wanted to do that was because in times where we feel powerless, creativity is a really safe container for us to actice creation

and to practice agency. I got tons of lyrics, and there was one particular lyric that stood up to me from a fan, which is the opening line of the song is my body is a revolution because the current law is going to make voices feel less safe to

tell their stories. That's when I clean on music. I had to protest secretly in my own home because the ideas I had just were too radical for my traditional family at that time, and I found that writing music helped me um disguise my truth and help me express them. I feel that community is more important than ever, like actual real friendship, so that we can privately share our stories if we don't feel safe, and I hope that we can just keep our eyes and ears open of

who we can be witnesses for. This entire song was made with love by women and non binary individuals with such a pure um intention of reclaiming our power and witnessing ourselves in our power. So when people listen to this, I hope that they want to listen to it again because it makes them feel physically and emotionally good and rejuvenated. UM, because this is gonna be um an intense journey of

resilience and persistence. So I just hope that this song is like kind of like a snack in the middle of the day, helps bring a jolt of energy when you purchase We Won't Go Back. Of the proceeds go to the yellow Hammer Fond and Planned Parenthood. This is the final official episode of Abortion The Body Politics. Thank

you all so much for listening to this series. There's so much more to say about this topic, and if you subscribe to my podcast, Next Question with Katie Couric, you can keep up with any updates and interviews that come up over the summer and in my next sixth season. We do have a bonus episode of this series releasing next week. So many people generously shared their abortion stories in the making of this podcast, and we wanted to

end with their voices. You'll hear some familiar ones. Busy Philip shares her abortion story, as does Congresswoman Jaia Paul and Gloria Steinem. In the descriptions of all of these episodes, we've listed resources and ways you can help, not to mention things you can do to continue the fight. 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 sound designed by Derrick Clements,

researched by Nina Perlman. Production helped this week from Mary Do and a shout out to the Aspen Ideas Festival for letting me record in their studios. While I was there, And finally a special thank you to Casey M producers Sam Phalon, Courtney Litz, and Adriana Fasio.