Choice is Good; Justice is Better

Carrie Gillon: Hi, and welcome to the Vocal Fries Podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination.

Megan Figueroa: I'm Megan Figueroa.

Carrie: I'm Carrie Gillon.

Megan: I'm looking at your face and the computer isn't in between you and me. Wait, there...

Carrie: Technically, there is a computer in between us.

Megan: Yeah, there is. 

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: However, we are in the same meet space.

Carrie: Yes, we are.

Megan: Wait.

Carrie: That's what we used to say back in the aughts or whatever.

Megan: Like meet, not meat.

Carrie: Meat. Meat space as opposed to cyberspace.

Megan: Wait, you say meat? Like the meat some people eat?

Carrie: We are made out of meat. We are meat. It's creepy, I know.

Megan: People made out of meat also meet.

Carrie: Yes, it's true. 

Megan: Okay. I had never heard that before, but.

Carrie: Yeah, it's old. I definitely aged myself right there.

Megan: It's alright.

Carrie: It's alright. 

Megan: I think you've aged yourself [inaudible]. Nothing new to share about that here. No. 

Carrie: But so before we begin, I'd like to thank two new Patreon for this month. Gwendolyn Reyrig, I hope I said that right, I'm so sorry if I didn't, and Janie Lee.

Megan: I just, like, when you say sorry.

Carrie: Sorry.

Megan: You're hanging on to that from Canada, you're not letting that go.

Carrie: It comes and goes. Sometimes, I definitely say sorry and sometimes I say sorry. When I say it, about half the time I pay attention just to see how I've said it. But that was not one of the times.

Megan: Yes. Well, I feel like Canada comes out when I'm around you. It's one of the things you can hold over me. You're just an American.

Carrie: I guess. We'll see how much longer I can do that after the next election.

Megan: Yeah. But I think what I managed to lose there was a thank you to our new Patreon, I'm sorry. No, very grateful to you. 

Carrie: Yes, thank you so much.

Megan: Yeah, it's like a little thank you every month that we're from you saying that, "Okay, you are doing something that I'm listening to and actually enjoy, so I appreciate it."

Carrie: Yeah, it's definitely validating. 

Megan: Yeah. Because, I mean, I was once a teenage girl, so I still have a lot of insecurities and I need to be validated every once in a while.

Carrie: Yes, we just want a virtual hug. 

Megan: Yeah, exactly.

Carrie: A little like, you know.

Megan: If any of you are not yet Patreon, you can become one by going to patreon.com/vocalfriespod. If you join at the five-dollar level, you also get a bonus episode once a month.

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: We were talking about different pronunciations last time. I got to talk about Timothy Oliphant, which is the only thing I talk about these days.

Carrie: You really do. 

Megan: I know. We were just at brunch.

Carrie: She's not even making that up.

Megan: No, I was just telling Carrie at brunch how I'm watching both Deadwood and Justified at the same time. When I get sad about those, watch the Santa Clarita Diet.

Carrie: Triple header.

Megan: Yeah. But the main point here is he says realtor and some people say, realtor, so you get to hear that fun stuff on things like our monthly bonus episodes via Patreon.

Carrie: Yeah, and the stickers are really cute.

Megan: Yes, they are. We have stickers.

Carrie: We have new ones that we send out periodically as well, so you don't just get one. 

Megan: Yeah, the one right now is don't be an asshole, except it's don't be an asterisk because...

Carrie: Well, you eventually get that one.

Megan: Yeah, eventually. But that's one of the ones and I love it.

Carrie: Me too.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: You were going to tell me about something.

Megan: I mean, I just saw a tweet. My girl AOC. AOC retweets Jake Tapper, who shares this bit of news that the president of the United States says about Meghan Markle. I didn't know that she was nasty. AOC says, "Readings from the misogynist dictionary. Nasty, adjective. One, a woman who doesn't bow under your thumb, or two, a woman who's not attracted to you. For example, when a misogynist encounters a nasty woman, he'll almost surely try to denigrate her appearance, intelligence, or character." We've seen this played out before in 2016 when he called Hillary Clinton nasty during one of the debates.

Carrie: Called her a nasty woman.

Megan: A nasty woman. You saw that take off. That was one of those things where it's interesting because like reclamation happened immediately.

Carrie: Yeah, one of my friends gave me a keychain, which I still have that says nasty woman. 

Megan: Yeah, and I still see stuff that says, nasty woman. When I see it, I'm like, "Yeah." I'm not like, "Ugh." It's still like one of those things where it's like, "No, we got to recla--..." and he's like doubling down. We're seeing now.

Carrie: Yes. Why I like it because what it means is I'm the kind of woman that he will dislike. That's why I feel like it's reclaimable.

Megan: Yes. That's true. Because, I mean, I was going to say who wants to be a woman that he would like? But there are some.

Carrie: There are some.

Megan: But yeah, no, absolutely. Love the fact that he would hate me. Love it. Then to have something that says nasty woman is kind of saying, "I know that he'll hate me and I don't give a fuck."

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: But she's right, of course. This is straight from the playbook. Like, it's under language and what you can do with language and how...

Carrie: How does it get used against people, in this case, women?

Megan: Yeah, which is part of the course when it comes to misogynistic folks. 

Carrie: Yes. My favorite part of this whole thing is that there's a bunch of people who are claiming that he didn't say what he said.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: They're like, "Listen to the whole context." You're like, "I did."

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: He said that.

Megan: No, that was Jake Tapper's point, and AOC retweeting him. Jake Tapper saying, "Here, this is literally what he said. Here is the quote."

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: Of course, this is like, I mean, this is layered. He wasn't like debating someone on stage like another politician. This was just like a civilian who happens to be like Duchess now or whatever. Like it's fucked up and he's about to go meet like...

Carrie: Yeah. The rest of the royal family. 

Megan: Right. Even her husband, I believe, like not her. She's not going to be there because good for her. 

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: But like what the fuck?

Carrie: Well, I mean, I'm sure he thinks she's uppity, like way beyond her station.

Megan: Yes. [inaudible].

Carrie: Ugh.

Megan: Right. But I mean, this is not the first time that Alexandria has said something directly calling out the language that people use against women. 

Carrie: It's true. She's a very keen ear for linguistic discrimination towards women in particular and I think other forms as well, but she's just had more opportunity to address that.

Megan: Well, yeah. Then, of course, the whole situation with her name.

Carrie: With her name.

Megan: I mean, that's not related to sexism or racism, but...

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: She definitely knows what linguistic discrimination is, that's for sure.

Carrie: Also, her code-switching as well. 

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: She has addressed a couple of different vectors for linguistic discrimination. It's just there's so much against women.

Megan: Yeah. I mean, the president, I just hate saying that word with him.

Carrie: That's why I call him by his name. 

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: I also hate saying his name.

Megan: I know.

Carrie: I just don't really care. 

Megan: I know. I feel like his name doesn't have any power anymore.

Carrie: That's true. It's also like a verb.

Megan: It is a verb. But, you know, so. No, Trump has said so many terrible things. Like, why am I picking up on this? It's such an obvious example and he's doing it again. Like, it was a huge example of using language against women back in 2016. Now, to hear him use the same word when he's backed into, like a metaphorical corner of facing a woman who doesn't like him, who's smarter than him, probably, honestly. 

Carrie: Yeah. Definitely. [inaudible].

Megan: Definitely with Hillary. But, you know...

Carrie: I think both.

Megan: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I mean, I haven't seen much about Meghan Markle, but I'm just assuming [inaudible].

Carrie: No, she's definitely smarter than him.

Megan: Yeah, it's kind of predictable at this point with him.

Carrie: I'm pretty sure he called Pelosi nasty as well.

Megan: Yeah. Among other things, for sure.

Carrie: Yeah. It's interesting it didn't really stick or it didn't make that much of a splash when he called Nancy Pelosi nasty. Maybe it's just because there's just so much garbage coming out of his mouth at this point, right? That, I don't know. But this one is making slightly more of a splash. I think it's because his words are doubling down on him not even saying it. When you can hear it with your own ears and the transcript is clear as day.

Megan: Right. Yeah.

Carrie: I think it's because someone pointed out that maybe it's because it's embedded. He said something, "I didn't know that she was nasty." People are trying to parse that and make it sound like, "He's not really saying she's nasty." But, okay, here's a little bit of linguistic jargon. 

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: No is a [inaudible], which means you have to presuppose or assume whatever is in the embedded clause is true, so she is nasty, in order to interpret a sentence, you have to interpret she is nasty as being true.

Megan: Right. 

Carrie: So he's calling her nasty.

Megan: That was semantics for you. That is the place where you don't want to wander into an accident. But no, it's actually like language math telling you the truth of the matter, which is that he's calling her nasty.

Carrie: But yeah, it's really interesting how people are trying to interpret this in a way that's favorable to him. Because they have to, right? Because they're part of this cult.

Megan: [inaudible]. Yes. They're this cult. It's like, spending your energy on anything else. This is ridiculous.

Carrie: Well, I guess it's worse if they're part of that QAnon bullshit. But that's a whole other conversation.

Megan: Yes. Like oh my gosh. Yeah. Now, lots of mental gymnastics happening here to try to get out of giving him the of admitting that he said this. If we spent more, if people like that spent more time on their own linguistic discrimination the world would be a better place. But that's not what they're spending that energy on.

Carrie: Nope. 

Megan: Not at all.

Carrie: Today we're talking about something particularly political.

Megan: Yeah. It's like one of the top, what is it? Like, let's imagine that at a dining room or a fancy dinner, one of the three topics that people would expect you not to talk about at that dinner.

Carrie: Yes.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: We're talking about reproductive justice and the language around that.

Megan: It's very important.

Carrie: Yeah, it's really important. It's really interesting too. Like, yeah, just thinking about the ways that we can talk in more precise ways, but also like, like really getting at what you're trying to get at as opposed to just using the same words that we've been using for a few decades.

Megan: Yeah. Until our guest Mary-Caitlyn Valentinsson came on and talked to us about this, I did not realize how I was limiting what I was talking about when I used some of the words that I was using. Not only can you possibly not talk about precisely what you're talking about, but you could be erasing people and things that you don't mean to erase. Yeah, it's good to know these things. I'm so happy to have learned how to better talk about them from someone who is doing a lot of work in that area. The work that I do is mostly being angry on the internet.

Carrie: Twenty-four-seven.

Megan: Yeah. You know? Anything else we want to say about that being political? I mean...

Carrie: Well, I mean, it's interesting because I think one of the reasons why it gets talked about in such a particular way is partially because of who the target of the laws is. We're talking about not just, but the main impetus was all these abortion bans or like really strict abortion limits. If when you really dig down into it, it's precisely about trying to get more white babies. White cis women are the target and I think that's why so much of the noise has been about women, even though obviously women are not the only ones who can get pregnant as we discussed. Also why white women are so upset in a way that everyone else is like, hello, we've been talking about this for a long time? Because we were not the targets before.

Megan: Right. Yeah. Think about all the black women and Latinx women who have been in the reproductive justice fight for so long because they have been targets of very disgusting laws. 

Carrie: Yes. Exactly.

Megan: I mean, this might be another one of those things where white women are late to the game or not quite there yet.

Carrie: Yeah and that's okay. We can get there.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: But part of it is being aware of why white women are getting upset now as opposed to previous times and maybe we should be more upset just in general.

Megan: Yes. Yeah. Because this is an attack on all...

Carrie: It is an attack on all people who can get pregnant and we should care. We shouldn't only just care when it affects us. Like, we're the ones that they want more babies from.

Megan: Right. Yeah. Exactly. Ultimately, this hurts everyone. People who knew pregnant or not. This is like...

Carrie: Yeah. It's dangerous for so many people and cis men should care too.

Megan: Yeah. Not just because you have a mother or a daughter or a sister.

Carrie: No, because we are human beings.

Megan: Yes. I feel like this is political and everything is political. I think both of us would feel like it'd be a disservice if we ignored something that so obviously has to do with language. 

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: One of the first questions we asked Mary Galen is, what does this have to do with language? Like you ask these questions where you know the answer, but you're like, "We just need to say it aloud again."

Carrie: Yeah. To me, this is kind of more of an obvious place. But that's because...I've been thinking about these things for a long time. As I said in the interview, I remember the first time I even came across reproductive justice as opposed to reproductive rights was after one of the many police shootings of a black man. I don't remember which one it was. Some black women on Twitter were saying things like, "This is a reproductive justice issue that our babies, our boys are being murdered on the street." I was like, "That just changed my whole worldview." I guess Twitter is sometimes good. Sometimes. Yes. I have such a love-hate relationship with that place.

Megan: I know. Me too. 

Carrie: Social media in general, frankly, but it's just like, anyway.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: Yeah, that's when it became very clear to me that the language we're using is very important, but it's good to say it out loud like you said.

Megan: Yes. It is. Yeah. Again, even if you've been thinking about these things and care about these things for years, I feel like you're going to learn something. 

Carrie: Yes. Because there's probably at least one piece of the puzzle that you've never heard of before, at least that was the case with me. Yeah.

Megan: Right. Yeah. Let's get to it. Okay. Great. I'm really excited. Well, we're really excited to have Mary-Caitlyn Valentinson here with us today. One of my very good friends. This is very exciting. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Joint Anthropology and Linguistics Program at the University of Arizona. She is almost finished. Very exciting. She is a sociolinguist and linguistic anthropologist who studies how media and pop culture shape the way people use language. One day, we'll have her back to talk about that. But today we are going to talk about good linguistic practices within reproductive justice, which is very important always, but at the forefront of a lot of our minds right now in particular. Thank you for coming, Mary-Caitlyn. 

Mary-Caitlyn Valentinsson: Thank you for having me. It has been my dream to be on this podcast for such a long time. I'm thrilled to be here.

Megan: Awesome. All right. You're helping us create an episode that I think is very important that I'll be sharing with everyone I know, like even harder because this is a very important topic and very timely. 

Mary-Caitlyn: Very timely. 

Megan: Let's just start off with just very broad question. What the heck does language have to do with reproductive justice?

Mary-Caitlyn: It's a good question. But I mean, it's too big to answer in a short, you know.

Megan: Sure. Absolutely. 

Mary-Caitlyn: Because what does language has to do with reproductive justice is the same answer as what does language have to do with any other kind of social justice movement. It shapes how we like to think about who's included and excluded from the movement. It helps how we think about like how we strategize and how we plan for different actions we can take. It kind of creates this foundation for how we conceptualize the future that we want, right, with respect to reproductive justice and bodily autonomy and rights and choice and all of these sorts of things. If you think language is important for talking about issues of racial inequality in the U.S., if you think language is important for how we talk about issues of immigration, then it follows that it's also important to think about how we use language when we're talking about reproductive rights as well.

Carrie: What I'm hearing from you, from what you've just said, is that it is also important who we're not talking about or who is erasing from the conversation when we talk about reproductive justice, just as much as it is important who we do include.

Mary-Caitlyn: Yeah, absolutely. Those kinds of questions have been really visible in the last couple of weeks with the news about Georgia's six-week abortion ban, about Alabama's universal abortion ban, although I do also want to be clear that the Alabama law does not go into effect for another six months. If you are listening in Alabama, you can still get an abortion because there's also a lot of... I mean, I don't want to call it fear-mongering because I think it's a very reasonable reaction for people to be afraid in light of these laws. But I've also seen a lot of people going like, "You can't get an abortion in Alabama anymore." It's not true yet. That law is going to be challenged in the courts. There's a lot of activism that needs to be done, that is being done actually now, very much right this second. But anyway, a lot of the reporting and conversations around some of these laws have included a kind of struggle with how to talk about who's targeted by these laws, right? On the one hand, it is definitely true, and we should definitely say that these laws are motivated by a kind of old-school flavor of misogyny that sees gender as a very strict binary system. That's an important part of what is motivating these laws and who the writers and authors of these laws are imagining themselves to be targeting. But when you're talking about controlling someone's right to decide when and how to get pregnant, those sorts of concerns affect more than just cis women. They affect trans men, and they affect non-binary people, just as much as they affect cis women. Then on the flip side, there are plenty of women, trans and cis, who cannot get pregnant for a variety of reasons. It's a limited and inaccurate view to talk only about women, only about cis women, when you're talking about reproductive justice in general, but certainly when you're talking about abortion bans and limits on abortion specifically.

Carrie: One of the things that I've noticed online is there have been people who want to be more inclusive, but the language that they use, I find dehumanizing, so they'll use things like people with uteruses. I know that literally refers to the same group of people as people who can get pregnant, but somehow it just feels so much ickier to me.

Mary-Caitlyn: Yeah, I'm with you. I think in that kind of phrasing, there is a reduction to the body parts or organs, which feels a little squicky to me also. Most of the reproductive justice activists whose practice I like to follow are trying to shift the language use towards phrases like people who can get pregnant, which I think is both precise and accurate in the same way that people with uteruses is, perhaps slightly less icky and then it doesn't narrow down this conversation to one particular organ or body part, which can feel weird. It's also got that kind of little bit of fun alliteration, which I quite like. People can get pregnant, I think that found was cool. For people who are having conversations about these issues, well, I think with any kind of shifting your linguistic practice to more accurately reflect your values and your social justice commitments, it can be tricky sometimes to sort of train yourself to adopt a new linguistic practice. But I would invite people to try people who can get pregnant, talking about how these laws can affect people who get pregnant, talking about how these laws marginalize and target and limit the viability of pursuing life, liberty, and happiness of people who can get pregnant. That's what the reproductive justice movement tends to be, as far as I've seen, has sort of started trending towards. That's one workaround to eliminating some of the more limited gendered language that we use to talk about these issues.

Megan: A couple of other terms that are very important because we're at the forefront of this conversation are pro-choice and pro-life. Why is this dichotomy problematic? 

Mary-Caitlyn: Oh, my gosh. I mean, people who are way more intelligent than I have than I am have written at length about this. I actually want to discuss issues with both of those phrases, both pro-choice and pro-life, but we'll start with the bad guys.

Megan: Sure. Yeah.

Carrie: Yes.

Mary-Caitlyn: One of the many criticisms of the so-called pro-life designation is that their concern with life very often stops the second the child in question is born, right? There's a huge concern about forcing people to remain pregnant, forcing people to carry pregnancies to term, forcing people to give birth in ways, that they don't want or at all, right? Then once a child is born, we don't have good practices set up for like helping parents get good preschool education or good elementary through high school, through college education. We don't have a good social support system set up to help parents get access to food, diapers, and childcare. We have a pretty robust sort of school-to-prison pipeline in place. Your kid is born and very well maybe sort of tracked into this into being framed as like this like sort of problem delinquent citizen. The concern with life and the pro-life movement, so to speak, feels very limited, feels very false, and very narrowly concerned with a very specific timeframe of life and conception of life, if you want to call it that because not all religions or cultures believe that life begins at the moment of conception. That's where arguments about religious liberty come into it, right? I think it's not actually true that the Christian Bible says specifically that life begins at conception. 

Carrie: It says that it starts with breath.

Mary-Caitlyn: At breath, right? That's really not in line with the religious arguments that many "pro-life" people are making. That's one side of it.

Megan: They're completely discounting the life of the person who's pregnant. Yeah.

Mary-Caitlyn: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the life of the person who's pregnant gets maybe completely derailed or maybe I mean, I don't need to tell anybody who's listening how having a child and raising a child can change your lifestyle and your life practice and stuff. For many reasons, both like personal in the vein of I just don't want to have children or kind of more. I'm not sure what's the word structural, or sociological. I've already got many children. I don't I don't want to or I can't afford to feed and clothe and educate and house another one. This seems like a relevant moment to drop in an important abortion fact, which is that most people who get abortions are already parents. They've already got children. Another so that's like another sort of discursive strategy of the "pro-life" side of that. They imagine people who are going to get abortions as irresponsible young people who just haven't realized the beauty of becoming a parent and blah, blah, blah. In fact, many of them do have children, love being parents, and don't want to have another child. Yeah, you're right. I'm glad you brought that up, Megan because it's true that the pro-life focus on life absolutely disregards the life and right to a happy life, well-being, health, and economic security of the person who is pregnant and would ostensibly give birth to this purported child.

Megan: It's actually somewhat dangerous to be pregnant, too. It's like 60 times more likely to end in death for the person who's pregnant than then giving birth is like or being pregnant versus having an abortion. It's just completely discounting how dangerous it can be and how life-sucking it is like actually physically like while the fetus is growing, it can really damage your health.

Mary-Caitlyn: Yeah. Not to mention, I mean, the fact that the United States has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, particularly for black women. Yeah, I think the way that the so-called pro-life movement understands what life means is limited to a very kind narrow, and not universally shared idea of who counts as whose life is worth protecting, let's say what counts as life and it sucks.

Megan: It's got to be hands down there. They're like go-to discursive or not discursive, they're the go-to rhetorical device, right?

Carrie: Also their conceptions of what motherhood is, like because, of course, they use these very gendered terms, but they just have these particular expectations of what this should look like. It almost never does look like that, even for the people who really want to get pregnant, really want to have children. It's much messier than their conception.

Megan: What about pro-choice?

Mary-Caitlyn: One kind of language-based or discursive strategy that people who support the right to access abortion have sort of countered the pro-life movement with is framing them as anti-choice and people on the other side, so to speak. There are also quotation marks there as pro-choice. That's not that's a good that's a fine place to start, I think. But it is also that perspective becomes somewhat limiting because the choice is a lot... I'm really trying to be careful to not badmouth anyone because there are so many people doing a wide range of really important work in various facets of reproductive justice, so I'm not going to like to name any names of organizations or people and I don't want to make it seem like I'm not admiring of the work that this huge swath of coalitions are doing to advance reproductive justice. That said, the pro-choice, anti-choice distinction very often intentionally or not gets boiled down to the choice to have an abortion or not have an abortion. That is, of course, the forefront of our minds right now. That's a very central right to be protecting and fighting for. But in a reproductive justice framework, which is the language we've been using so far in this conversation, reproductive justice is a framework that asks us to consider all of the possible reproductive options that a person might want to avail themselves of over their lifetime, which includes abortion, but it's not limited to that. It is also asking us to consider how can we make sure, for instance, the United States doesn't have one of the highest rates of black maternal mortality in the world.

Megan: Sure. Yeah.

Mary-Caitlyn: That's absurd, right? It also asks us to say, "Okay, but some people do want to be pregnant and some people do want to get pregnant and have children. How can we make sure they have access to the resources they need to have healthy pregnancies and raise their children in sort of healthy and happy households?" It asks us to a reproductive justice framework rather than a repro rights framework or a pro-choice, anti-choice framework and asks us to look not just at should we let people get abortions or not, yes or no, which is kind of what pro-choice, anti-choice gets boiled down to. It asks us to say, "Can we make sure people who want abortions get abortions? Can we also make sure that people who want to be pregnant and have children are able to do so in ways that are healthy, ways that affirm their cultural and religious beliefs and their gender identity and their family composition, family makeup?" It's a bit more expansive and a bit more kind of open to people who have other visions for their reproductive lives rather than just, I don't want to get pregnant, so I need to be able to get an abortion.

Megan: I guess you've probably already covered this, but just in case there's something that we've missed, are there better options, or better terminologies we can be using? Is it just reproductive justice or is there more?

Mary-Caitlyn: Reproductive justice is the kind of language that the hardcore activists in this movement are using to talk about the policies, the legislation, and the movement work that is centering, making sure people have access to all of the possible options for their reproductive health and reproductive lives. I mentioned some other sort of framework terminologies like reproductive rights, and reproductive health frameworks. It's not to say that those are mutually incompatible. There might be some situations in which it's more precise to say reproductive rights, perhaps if you're talking about legal or legislation-based conversation that would make more sense. But I said this before, like American idealism phrase, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, when you're talking about how those things intersect with a person's ability to get pregnant, I think it's both more accurate and more expansive to talk about reproductive justice in general. Because again, it acknowledges those people who do want to be pregnant, do want to have children, and want to be able to raise them in healthy and loving ways. I think if you've got that kind of distinction in your pocket and you've got that unlock in your brain, then you're good to go.

Carrie: Okay. Cool. 

Megan: Awesome. Yeah, I'm just thinking of like, I mean, if you're having the casual conversations we have these days about reproductive justice and all these things. Would you just say that you're someone who is interested in reproductive justice, who cares about reproductive justice, and that kind of can now be the new "pro-choice"?

Mary-Caitlyn: I would love to see that. Again, I think there are times when it's appropriate to focus on specific aspects of the range of reproductive options that should be available to people. Right now, it's appropriate that the focus is abortion. Is appropriate perhaps in certain conversations to be talking about pro-choice versus anti-choice. Even while you're having those kinds of more focused conversations, it's important to remember that these options don't kind of exist in isolation, right? The right and the ability to access an abortion, which are different things, are still always interconnected with the ability to have a healthy pregnancy, deliver a child healthily, and raise a child healthily. I don't know, that sounds a little goofy but never mind.

Megan: I'm interested in reproductive justice being the new pro-choice, if we want to be more inclu-- Yeah.

Mary-Caitlyn: I would love that. I think that would be awesome. It's a pretty diverse, it's a pretty broad movement, so I don't want to speak for everyone in the movement, so to speak. But I think that's what the hardcore activists are trending towards, and I would love to see it used accurately in more public discourse. I think that would be very cool to see.

Megan: Well, yeah, I've always just said pro-choice, and I've always thought of it as a woman chooses whether she wants to be a mom when she wants to be a mom, all these things, and I've kind of used it to include everything you're talking about, but I see now how it does boil it down to just abortion. 

Mary-Caitlyn: You're pointing to something kind of unfortunate, which is that I think probably, I'm not going to speak for people who invented this language. I don't actually even know who invented the pro-choice designation. It's probable that they had a more inclusive sort of vision for what that language meant, but when I look at media reporting about pro-choice versus anti-choice dynamics, it's very frequently boiled down to or centered on the right to get an abortion, or right to not get an abortion, never mind access, which is again a totally different issue.

Megan: Well, wouldn't this be that they're kind of like, it's like a play? It's straight from the playbook. It seems like, we're going to boil it down to abortion, and that way it's easier to kind of beat you, kind of win this game. That's what it feels like at this point when we're thinking pro-life versus pro-choice. It's like the bad guys are just making us out to seem like abortion lovers or whatever, which I do love abortion because it's a great option. I want people to have access to safe abortions, but that's what their game is, right?

Carrie: Yeah, I remember a while ago, I saw a billboard, and I believe this was in Canada, which by the way, has no abortion laws whatsoever. It said, not pro-choice, not pro-life. I was like... That was basically trying to frame pro-choicers as pro-abortion in all instances at all times, you know? Yeah, that makes it feel more like a game, as opposed to a stance.

Megan: Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of like, let's paint them as people who are like, here's a person who can get pregnant and want to have a baby and raise this baby, but here are these pro-choice people who would prefer this person get an abortion.

Mary-Caitlyn: Right. Exactly. That's not the case. I want people who want abortions, for whatever reason, to be able to get a safe and, I mean, I would love for them to all be free, but I'll be realistic, safe, and affordable abortion that they don't have to travel like zillions of hours to or go through ridiculous mandatory waiting periods where a physician is forced to tell them false medical information, you know?

Megan: Show them a sonogram.

Mary-Caitlyn: I would also love people who want to get pregnant to be able to get pregnant and like have good medical care and have healthy pregnancies and healthy deliveries and healthy babies. Doi, I want both of those things. 

Megan: Right.

Carrie: Yeah. Me too.

Megan: I love it then that we have this language that I mean, I'm happy to have this now, to have reproductive justice as the language that I can use since I care about these things.

Carrie: Yeah, I remember the first time I encountered this terminology. I don't remember which death it was surrounding, but one of the many Black men that have been shot and killed in this country, someone brought up the point, like the fact that they used Black mothers as the terminology. Black mothers could lose their sons in these ways is another reproductive justice issue. That's when I first heard about it. Yeah.

Megan: Wow. Yeah.

Mary-Caitlyn: Yeah. I mean, that goes, that connects to the issue of being able to raise children in healthy, safe communities. That is something that reproductive justice activists are actively advocating for. Yeah, I mean, it also, I love that you brought that up, Carrie, because that also shows how reproductive justice intersects with other areas of like broader social justice movements. It's connected to racial justice. It's in kind of more obvious ways connected to issues of gender justice. 

Megan: Housing justice. 

Mary-Caitlyn: Yeah. Absolutely.

Carrie: Yeah, it's all connected. I think we've kind of touched on this, but what are some of the logical fallacies that folks employ when they're talking about reproductive justice?

Mary-Caitlyn: Well, I think this is a nice segue into one of the areas of, or one of the like, types of linguistic practice that I have also been noticing in a lot of conversations about these abortion laws. Obviously, it's obvious how gendered language intersects with these conversations, but this is not exactly a logical fallacy, but bear with me. I've been noticing, and I'm sure you two have also a lot of references to dystopian futures and regressing to oppressive pasts and just to drop a little linguistic anthropology theory in here, in Linganth and in some flavors of sociolinguistics, we call this chronotopic language. Chronos is time topos is place and chronotopic language is linguistic practices that evoke a particular sense of time placiness. When people are talking about how these abortion laws are, are leading us into some dystopian future, you're meant to sort of the picture in your head the sensation of being in this world where everything you do is controlled by some kind of like, maybe like robotic automaton government that is involved in all aspects of your lives, right? When we invoke the language of like, we're regressing back to the like, back to when women were oppressed all the time, blah, blah, blah. We're regressing to the 1950s. It's meant to evoke this kind of like, sense of maybe a peaceful and perfect looking, leave it to Beaver Street on the outside that covers up all of the injustices that were and kind of still going on, right?

Megan: There's a lot of that happening these days.

Mary-Caitlyn: There's a lot of that happening.

Carrie: Yeah.

Mary-Caitlyn: It's interesting and it goes... I think it's really fascinating from a linguistic, from a chronotopic analysis point of view that it kind of goes in both directions. We're afraid of this dystopian future and we're afraid of this regressive past. But the reason I think it's worthwhile to kind of unpack those rhetorical and discursive strategies is that those fears are only really true for cis white women. Why is that? This sense of government control over people's reproductive choices has been pretty standard practice for many marginalized groups well into the 20th century.

Carrie: Actually into the 21st century, at least in some places. Like in Saskatchewan, I believe they were still sterilizing indigenous women.

Mary-Caitlyn: Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure, that doesn't surprise me to hear that's true in Canada. It infuriates me, but it does not surprise me. In the U.S., native women were being forcibly sterilized by the Indian Health Service without consent. I mean, forcibly, yeah, without consent. In the 60s and the 70s, which was at the height of this kind of second-wave feminist push for abortion rights, it was when was Roe v. Wade affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1973. At the kind of mainstream mostly white feminist movement is saying, "We need access to abortion, we don't all want to become pregnant." That's fair and true. Native women are being forcibly sterilized by government services, you know. I would also encourage people to look up the very long history of forced sterilization of Puerto Rican women. I mean, also, I don't know the history of this specifically, but I believe that it was primarily Puerto Rican women on whom early forms of hormonal birth control were tested without consent, right? For many marginalized people, all of these reproductive technologies that we love and rely on, birth control, abortion, and sterilization, which is probably a great option for some people who can get pregnant but don't want to, are also tied up in these violent and horrifying histories of control of the bodies of people of color. This language says, "No, these laws passed and now we're like regressing into this horrific past." It's like, "Well, I mean, I think I read this morning that the state of Oregon did this last forced sterilization in the 1980s. How far back is this regressive past? Because it seems like it was kind of like just yesterday, sort of."

Megan: Right.

Carrie: Yeah. In my lifetime, at least.

Megan: Yeah.

Mary-Caitlyn: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Definitely within living memory. I mean, is it right to call something a dystopian future when many women who are still alive today live through this kind of oppressive control of their reproductive choices within our lifetimes? That kind of like [inaudible] spatio-temporal language, when we say these laws are creating a dystopian future, these laws are regressing us back to this really oppressive past, it does two things, which, again, are not quite fallacies, but do sort of like obscure the factual landscape, let's say. They center the reproductive experiences of cis, white, and mostly middle-class women in the United States, and they erase these, again, incredibly violent histories where reproductive technology that we rely on and want people to be able to use in kind of like affirming in positive ways has been used to violently oppress and subjugate many different, mostly racialized communities.

Carrie: Yeah, you're absolutely right that we need to remember these things, and it just reminds me also of like who invented the stirrups and what he did to black women in particular. If you don't know that, go look it up, although you'll be horrified, but yeah.

Megan: Yeah.

Mary-Caitlyn: Yeah. It's a really difficult thing to, it's a really uncomfortable thing to reckon with that these reproductive technologies that we want all people who can get pregnant to have, again, like affirming positive use of, where their invention and their creation was rooted in these eugenicists, violent, genocidal beliefs, right? That's another reason why this reproductive justice framework, to go back to that, feels better, in my opinion, to use because it makes space for those histories, right? There are communities who would not find abortion to be a relevant decision for them because it is tied up again in these histories of oppression and erasure of their communities. For them, I'm getting into a tricky place because I don't want to speak for these oppressed communities of which there are many different communities that have had these sorts of reproductive control tactics used against them. It is important for everyone, all people who can get pregnant, but especially for them to make sure that there are also concerted activist efforts going on to ensure that they can have healthy pregnancies, healthy deliveries, healthy children, etc. 

Megan: Yeah, absolutely. Wow, it's so important. It's so heavy. I'm so glad that we're having this conversation and that more people are going to be able to hear it, the benefits of having a podcast, right? I wonder if you have any advice on how to think about these issues more thoughtfully because as you mentioned earlier, it's really hard to change linguistic practices. 

Mary-Caitlyn: Well, I would, so I'm new-ish to reproductive justice activism. I've been doing this work for a couple of years now. Like many white women, I got really active after the 2016 presidential election. I thought, oh shit, I have to do something. I picked an issue to focus on and this is it, right? But there are people who have been doing this organizing and doing this activism for decades. My strategy when I feel like I need to learn more about how to talk about these issues is to look to the experts and follow their lead. I'll mention a couple of organizations, I guess I can't think of any people off the top of my head to point to, but one of my all-time favorite organizations, the National Network of Abortion Funds, they're abortionfunds.org, they're on Twitter as @abortionfunds. They will be retweeting and linking to people, to the leaders of this movement who are really models of best practices for how to talk about these issues. That's come up a lot lately too in these conversations where you see... I've seen a lot of very well-meaning, usually white people who will sort of say, "This ban is horrifying. We have to create these support networks so we can help people who need to get abortions travel to states where they can access them or help move them out of the state." All this ridiculous stuff. But I mean, the abortion funds are already there. Abortion funds do this work. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Wouldn't it be great if instead of having these people say, "We have to invent this new activism strategy?" They look to the people who have already been doing this and say, "How can we contribute? Do you need my time volunteer-wise? Do you need my money?" By the way, set up a monthly recurring donation to your local abortion fund. Do it right now.

Carrie: Yeah, it could be as little as a dollar, right? These are things you can make a difference even if you feel like you can't. 

Mary-Caitlyn: Oh my gosh. I'll be very frank. I have a $10 monthly recurring donation set up to my local abortion fund, the Abortion Fund of Arizona, whom I also volunteer with. Shout out to AFAZ. Ten dollars a month is like, I mean, that's two fancy tea lattes at my tea place, right? It's not that much. But the reason I specifically say monthly recurring donations is because it makes it easier to provide financial assistance to people who need abortions when the fund can count on a set amount of money coming in. I mean, you guys have a Patreon. You guys know this. It is much more reliable when you know somebody is giving you five bucks a month than if you get a one-time $100 donation. That's freaking awesome. Duh? But next month, you can't count on that, right? It is, again, I don't want to speak for all funds who have different needs and concerns, but if you go to abortionfunds.org, you can look up a fund that's near you. I think it's really cute to give to your neighborhood fund so you feel like you're helping people in your community. Yeah, so I would invite people to circle back to your actual question. I would invite people to like... these laws are upsetting and horrifying and frightening and it is really exciting that people see this as a call to action to get involved in reproductive justice activism. But you do not need to reinvent the wheel. You do not need to... I mean, I've seen also a lot of calls [inaudible], people are using the language of the underground railroad. 

Megan: Yeah, I was going to bring that up. I've seen that. Yeah. [inaudible]

Carrie: Yeah.

Mary-Caitlyn: Not cool, dude. Let us not appropriate this language about, like, slavery abolition to talk about a very different issue. Abortion funds have the political know-how, the logistical know-how, and the resources to help people who need abortions in states where abortions are restricted to abortions elsewhere. If all of these new laws are sparking a desire in you to contribute to that effort,  don't join any Facebook groups for, like, anti-networks. Don't do that. Go to abortionfunds.org, find your local abortion fund, ask them if they want a new volunteer, and ask them how you can set up a monthly recurring donation. That would be much more effective than starting... Also, I mean, just from a logistical standpoint, I'm kind of a lazy person. I don't want to have to invent this work. Many brilliant people have been doing this work, as I say, for decades. I'm just going to show up when they ask me to. Circling back to your original question, look, find out who the leaders of the movement are, and follow their practice. They are the experts, and they've really been in this work for years and years, so they have kind of theoretical knowledge and also practical experiential knowledge to guide the discussions in a maximally inclusive and minimally assholic way.

Carrie: Nice. I like it.

Megan: Never heard that said out loud.

Carrie: Really? I said it out loud.

Megan: [inaudible]

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: [inaudible] assholic?

Carrie: I say assholic, but yeah. 

Megan: Okay, maybe that's the difference.

Megan: Thank you so much for coming and talking to us about this.

Mary-Caitlyn: Thank you for having me.

Carrie: Yeah, thank you so much.

Megan: I think it's so important, and I'm really excited to share this conversation with more people. Yeah, as you say, don't be an asshole.

Carrie: Don't be an asshole.

Mary-Caitlyn: Don't be an asshole. Wow, I feel so really fulfilled that I finally got to say that.

Megan: It's the cherry on top.

Carrie: The Vocal Fries Podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon for Half Tone Audio. Theme music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at vocalfriespod. You can email us at vocalfries [email protected] and our website is vocalfriespod.com.