Chapo Trap House - 1073 - Unsafe, Illegal, and Common feat. Kylie Cheung (9/21/26)

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

1073 - Unsafe, Illegal, and Common feat. Kylie Cheung (9/21/26) by Chapo Trap House

Hello everybody, it's Monday, September 21st, and this is your Chapo. Joining Felix and I today is journalist and author Kylie Chung, whose book, Coercion, Surviving and Resisting Abortion Bans, is currently in stores. But Kylie, Felix and I wanted to have you on because this is an issue that despite its importance, I feel has become somewhat neglected in, at least at a sort of a national level. and I want to get into like a lot of the real horror stories you document in your book. But like, would I be mistaken in believing that post-Dobbs, I'm not saying people don't care about it anymore, but at least it seems like in the platform of national politics, the abortion

and access to reproductive health care, despite the dire state of like abortion rights in America, like this issue seems to have, I don't know, been diluted in national prominence. And I'm wondering if you agree and if so, like, what do you think accounts for that? I mean, something that's interesting is I feel like especially, like, leading up to the midterms this year, like, you'll probably see, or like I'm certainly seeing, like, article after article that's about, like, voters don't care about abortion anymore. And, like, Democrats are pivoting to, like, this affordability message or something like that. And it's interesting to kind of see, like, this, like, false idea that these are, like, separable issues, if that makes sense. And then at the same time, we've seen, like, liberal thought leaders, like, as we're Klein, kind of advised or suggests that the party run, quote, unquote, like, pro-life Democrats. as like a stop gap against fascism when there's like zero evidence that there's like any desire for that. And then also there's like the fact that forced birth policies are fascism. But I think it's interesting because like in 2022 after we had the Dobbs ruling, you know, there was supposed to be like this red wave or something like that. And then we saw that was less the case because, you know,

there was such emphasis being placed on the issue of abortion. But then, you know, I think that after Trump won, it was really interesting in 2024 because we kind of see Democrats kind of engage in like the same cycle of like insisting like if you don't vote for them, you're essentially supporting a national abortion ban all while at the same time they never really articulate like what specifically they would do to like protect and expand abortion rights or prevent like all of the different cases of pregnancy related criminalization that we're seeing. That's all to say I think after Trump won in 2024, when there was such emphasis placed on, you know, running on abortion rights, you know, there was kind of this idea that like running on abortion didn't work or something

like that, even when if you actually look at polling, it's kind of one of the only, like, consistently popular positions that Democrats hold is like 81% of voters oppose, like, government interventions in pregnancies. But there is just like less emphasis being put on this issue, right now. I mean, there were a lot of really depressing aspects of the Gavin Newsom 2028 audition tour. But obviously the writing was on the wall after 2024, even though, as you said, 2022 was a great case in point for, even if all you care about is getting Democrats elected in and of itself as an issue because that's your job, because you're a staffer or whatever. You work for the pedestrian. This was an enormously effective work.

even with a not as unpopular as he got, but a fairly unpopular incumbent who most crucially could not physically articulate any of his views or really what he did that day. Newsom did this like, you know, podcast tour in the past 18 months and pitching himself as like the liberal revenge dream post-2024. For liberals that had been emboldened by the rise and fall of the brief cultural conservative movement. And it was just curiously absent from his slate of things he talked about. I mean, you would think it would be such a big part of anyone who is branding themselves as like, maybe not the most left, but just vote for me because I will make these people miserable. This next election cycle, the next presidential election cycle, they will

probably campaign like it is 2024 and underperform, especially on this issue. to your point earlier about Democrats, like, this is the, this is like, you know, sorry to use a cliche, but like this is their, the Trump card for why you always have to vote for them, right? To protect the Supreme Court, to protect Roe. And perhaps naively, I thought Roe v. Wade was like untouchable. And but, you know, they got the guys on the court for it. They did away with it. And now we're living in a post-Roe world. And like, that is a fairly large raising of the anti-the-a-abortion forces in this country. I guess what's sort of, puzzling are just stunning to me, is that from the Democrats, I don't see any related raising of

the stakes on the issue from their side. Like, as soon as the right wing had the chance, they had these bills ready to go in states like Kansas that were like, okay, Rose overturned, we're going to put it, it's up to the states now, we're going to put it to a vote. And they found very quickly that if they do put it to a vote, they will lose, even in very red states. So like, they have sort of reformatted their strategy to bypass any democratic means of testing this issue. But like, with the Democrats, there's just like not a sense of urgency. And like I said, there's not a sense of raising the stakes. Like you outlining your book all these horrific ways in which the stakes are being raised on the other side that is putting the lives of women and children and really just everyone in this country at risk. What like what do you think accounts for this? Like this lack of urgency is like, did they still think it's too controversial of an issue for them to touch?

Yeah, I've been reporting on reproductive rights. And it's like, I don't know, over the last decade. So since long before Dobbs, it was like 90% of U.S. counties lacked an abortion clinic. Being forced to travel out of state for care was very prevalent. In state legislatures across the country, I think that we've really seen over the last several decades, there's this level at which the Democratic Party kind of abandoned a lot of state legislatures. And, you know, the period from like 1973 to like 2021, which is the last year before Dobbs, there were almost 1,500 bills restricting abortion care that were passed, which is just like an unthinkable amount. And so, you know, I think that for a long time, even before Dobbs, abortion was kind of only a right in name in a lot of ways. And then we saw the consequences of that

where, you know, the maternal mortality rate, or we've long had this maternal mortality and morbidity crisis in this country. And, you know, I think that there was research in 2017 that that millennial women were more likely to die from like childbirth or like pregnancy-related complications than the generation before them. That's stunning. Kylie. And another thing that I found out from reading your book that was bone-shilling to me is that you say in states where now abortion has been criminalized. They have stopped, in some of these states, they have stopped reporting maternal mortality rates. It's really disturbing. I don't know. You have a state like Georgia where I'm sure you saw like in 2024 ProPublica reported on, it was the first reporting of like

post-Dob's deaths that have been caused by pregnancy complications. These can go from, for lack of better words, like zero to 100 immediately. And so if, you know, if doctors are like consulting like a legal team because they're afraid, you know, like is she imminently dying or close enough to death for us to intervene. That's why like these exceptions are, you know, again, like how abortion was a right in name only. A lot of these exceptions are kind of the same. But all to say, like, ProPublica did some reporting on two deaths involving Kante Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman as a result of Georgia's ban. And this was because I think that or they were able to report this. because they'd spoken to people on Georgia's maternal mortality committee.

And so Georgia, like, dismissed the entire maternal mortality committee. And then you have states like Texas where the immediate years after Dobbs, they're saying that they're not going to count that data for, like, I don't even know. I think the reasons they gave are like, oh, that was so long ago now, we don't have to do that or something like that. And then appointing to the maternal mortality, like, review committee, this quote unquote, pro-life doctor who has testified before Congress that nine and 10-year-old child rape victims can safely give birth. Like you have a doctor who has testified that before Congress and has now been appointed to, you know, be overlooking that,

like, maternal mortality data, which really gives away, like, what the agenda is there. Even before Dobbs, even before the designs of the state legislatures were clear, you know, you did see, I'm forgetting the name of the poor woman this happened to, but I think the most famous cases of these women being persecuted for having miscarriage, essentially. The most famous instance of it being that one in Indiana, I think, during Trump one. Going back to Democratic fecklessness and in action in the face of it, the argument for supporting Democrats for so long since really the second Obama term has been that, well, okay, we're never going to pass anything significant in the legislature, but we can and need to hold the White House.

in perpetuity as a bulwark against things like this. This is the result of just totally giving up on states as a project, using the party as a consulting graft agency. In terms of what we're talking about, that like even pre-Dobbs, functionally, much of America was already living in a post-row society. But since then, like I said, we've seen a steady raising of the stakes in states like Texas. Could you tell us about SB8 in Texas, the so-called bounty hunter law that comes up a lot in your writing? Yeah, absolutely. I think that even though Dobbs was ruled in June 22,

when SB8 passed and was enacted in September 2021, I think that was kind of the moment where, like, for lack of better words, and like not to be a dumer, but like that's where it was kind of over, to be honest, because then from there, I think several states also passed. similar bans, I believe Oklahoma did. But to explain what SB8 is, essentially it's a six-week abortion ban. That's where anti-abortion activists claim, like without real backing from, like, the medical community that like six weeks is supposedly when there's embryonic cardiac activity. Like, it's not even a fetus at that point. It's still an embryo. And six weeks is far and away before most people can know they're pregnant often enough. And the thing with SB8 was, instead of

being criminally enforced where like the doctor will go to jail or whatnot. Like anyone in the state can like sue whoever provided the abortion or whoever helped someone access the abortion for at least $10,000. And so it's not even that we've necessarily seen. There have only been a couple lawsuits and like they've kind of just been living in different stages of legal limbo since 2021. But the main impact of that law and of all such abortion bans really, but is, to just like essentially scare providers into not providing that care or to try to scare like

the different groups that exist to help people access abortion like abortion funds for example to just like scare people out of helping their neighbors essentially and that's kind of the function of these laws well i mean you use the example of a woman being sued by an ex-partner because or like a woman and her friends who helped her access an abortion being sued by an ex-partner and like what becomes very clear in this case is that this is not an example of like, you know, a boyfriend or a husband or potential father who is, you know, terrified at the thought of losing the life of an unborn child, but instead is empowered by the legal system in Texas to have a very powerful wedge or lever to like put pressure on a partner to either like to coerce them to either stay in the relationship

emotionally, sexually, or like using a child as like as the wedge with which to do that. Absolutely. I think that's something that, you know, I've really been following, especially like over the last year, is that you'll see like the anti-abortion movement has really latched onto this idea of, oh, abortion access enables coercion or essentially kind of trying to, they do this a lot where they try to like co-opt, like, feminist language. And we've seen that a lot where like a lot of like the most visible anti-abortion leaders are women. But, you know, they are really kind of driving home this claim that like, oh, if you can order abortion pills by mail, that allows like, abusive partners to like force someone to like take abortion pills or let or like give someone abortion pills without their knowledge. So that's like this narrative that they're really pushing right now. But you know, to your point, what we've always seen is that abortion restrictions and bans or like anything that can make it so that, you know, someone has to stay pregnant against their will. We've always seen that these function as a tool in the toolbox of abusers where, you know, I think within one year after Dobbs, the National Domestic Violence talk,

line reported that calls about reproductive coercion specifically had doubled since Dobbs, where, you know, you had all of these cases of abusers threatening or like threatening to, like, sue their victims if they had an abortion or threatening to like call the police, even though, you know, no current abortion bans, like, threatened to criminalize the patient. But there's so much confusion about these laws where like even someone who, unless you like report on them or like are a lawyer, like, there's so many different nuances that like are just not. not known. And it's very easy to, like, exploit the lack of, you know, education about these laws. But there was a specific case. I believe it started in 2023, but it was dropped at, like, the end of

2024 involving this particularly really awful man in Texas who was represented by Jonathan Mitchell, who's this really big anti-abortion lawyer. And, you know, Texas right to life, like, end of 2024, they were actively saying that they were recruiting men to sue over their partners abortions. And, you know, a Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office also, like the Washington Post reported, I think, early 2025 that his office had, like, identified one particular case where they were suing over a New York abortion provider who mailed pills into the state. And they identified that case because they collaborated with a man who was upset about his partner's abortion. But back to that specific case involving the Texas man who partnered with the attorney Jonathan Mitchell to, like,

pursue legal action against his exes abortion. Basically, it's like we found out all of these different things that otherwise wouldn't really have come to light unless he like filed that lawsuit, which is that he had been abusive to her and like threatened to like release like cyber sexual abuse material and that he like knew that she had the abortion pills and like didn't have any issue with her taking them. It was only when she did that he realized he could bring forth like this harassment lawsuit in order to continue to like pressure her to have a sexual relationship with him. those are the kind of like men that these laws are empowering more or less. You talk about the issue of like abortion pills and like how that how is that changed the sort

of terrain of how people interact with abortion. Like you talked about like for many women in America, for much of the country, there is no abortion clinic. There are no health care providers that they have to travel outside of state, often, you know, spending much of their own money that they don't have to access this health care. but like with a with with uh sort of pharmaceutical interventions there's like less of a need to go to like a physical location where you can be protested or surveilled or prevented from going to but then you get

into this issue of like states like new york or california in which this is legal where like their states rights are being threatened by these states rights of states like texas to criminalize abortion so like how has like the proliferation of like the morning after pill or drugs that can, according to the anti-abortion thing, essentially amount to an abortion that allow you to terminate a pregnancy pharmaceutically. How has that changed? And like, how has the right and the forces opposed to women's rights and abortion? How have they sort of evolved to counter what they see as like a way to evade their criminalization of abortion? For medication abortion, like, it's been approved since, or FDA approved since like 2000. And, you know, it typically entails like the use of two

medications, Mipipristone and Misoprostol, you know, I think it was during around like COVID, where, you know, telemedicine really kind of became, I guess for like a better word, like mainstreamed or normalized. And, you know, under the Biden administration, there were several, you know, there used to be some like, you know, medically unnecessary requirements that, you know, medication abortion would be dispensed in person. But, you know, it was kind of during the COVID era and, like, the rise of telemedicine that, you know, one of the benefits, honestly, was that, you know, some of those requirements were relaxed and people could safely consult with like a doctor over telemedicine and then have them mail the abortion pills to them. And, you know, that's not to minimize the extreme

harm and massive barriers that Dobbs and abortion bans have created. But if you look at the data, the national abortion rate has stayed relatively the same. And there are even, in some cases, like increases in reported abortions, largely thanks to telemedicine medication abortion, you know, which is in states at van abortion, you know, that is increasingly for a lot of people. They're the only option that's available to them. And so, you know, if you look at that data, that's like all you need to know about why Republicans and why anti-abortion activists are really, really zeroed in on medication abortion right now, where you'll increasingly see them kind of cite these non-peer-reviewed anti-abortion

studies to kind of question, you know, this medication that is less likely to result in extreme adverse complications than Tylenol. And, you know, what that's resulting in is you have states like Texas or Oklahoma that are criminalizing or prohibiting like providers from other states from like mailing pills into the state or you have Louisiana, which like was the first state in the nation in 2024 to pass a law criminalizing, even just possessing medication abortion. And that created this avalanche of, you know, consequences in hospitals where you have medications like miso-postal that are life-saving for stopping postpartum hemorrhage and just creating all of these different barriers for people in hospitals to be able to dispense it.

But all of this is playing out in real time where it's still really difficult to say what's going to happen, where you have states, you know, these anti-abortion states that are passing laws specifically to ban mailing the medication into their states. But at the same time, in California and New York and other pro-choice states, they are increasingly passing or already have passed shield laws, which protects providers in those states from facing legal consequences in Texas, for example, or Louisiana, if they mail abortion pills into the state. And then you have Louisiana, which is actively trying to extradite a doctor in New York and a doctor in California for allegedly mailing pills into Louisiana.

And, you know, it's still really, really difficult to say what's going to happen in these cases. I think that what seems to be the goal is to eventually get a case to the Supreme Court and try to get a ruling against Shield laws more or less so that anti-abortion states can essentially impose their laws and their political will on, like, pro-choice states. But then at the same time, with the Dobbs ruling, you know, in Brett Kavanaugh's opinion, for example, they really emphasized leaving this up to the states. But, you know, what that means in practice when you have such different. When you leave it up to the states, like, it seems what's happening here is that, like, obviously, the rights of one state on this issue will begin to conflict with

the rights of another. And it's very clear that the rights of anti-abortion states are being set up to supersede the rights of states where abortion is still legal. So, like, if abortion is totally legal in the state of New York and a health care provider in the state of New York, like I said, prescribes a medical abortion to a woman in Texas that they can be criminally liable for breaking the laws of another state, which doesn't apply to them because they are practicing medicine in New York. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's, I think last year I spoke to, like, this attorney who, like, specializes in extradition law. And it's really interesting because she framed it as, like, not really since, like, the 19th century in slavery. Have we seen such a disparity between, like,

what one state regards as a human right versus what one state regards as murder. And so there's obviously just going to be this clash. And it's really not clear ultimately how that's going to be resolved. Well, you talk about what rights supersede other rights? Like, what counts as a murder? And like, when do these supposedly inviolable rights come into conflict? And one of the things that you talk about is sort of some of the shortcomings of discussing abortion in like a rights-based framework. Now, this can seem perhaps a little counterintuitive because like obviously if you believe that abortion is a human right, it should be a legal and civil right as well. So like, could you explain like what are some of the difficulties with discussing this issue or framing it in a rights only context?

Yeah, I think that, you know, to kind of speak to that, I think, you know, when you look at the years before Dobbs, again, it was like 90% of US counties didn't have a provider or there were like nearly a dozen states that only had one clinic. And yet, you know, there was so little attention or care that was paid to this crisis by democratic officials or by almost anyone really outside of like the movement. And it was because, you know, we had this right. And so that allowed for this general kind of like complacency. And then at the same time, it's like, you know, a great example also. Like I've spoken to, you know, abortion funds and organizers in Missouri where, for example, like in 2024, it's like they, it was really, you know, obviously

exciting to see a supposedly like deep red state like Missouri very decisively pass, you know, this constitutional amendment to, you know, reestablish this right to abortion. But, you know, at the same time, it's interesting because, you know, while obviously it's been just a complete disaster and human rights crisis to like not have a federal right to abortion, we've seen that right be reinstated in a state like Missouri. And, you know, what I hear from organizers on the ground is that has made it so a lot of donations that might have gone to, you know, this abortion fund that would directly help people access abortion, whether that meant, you know, helping people travel or helping people access the medication or whatnot, instead kind of went very much toward,

you know, like it was a $30 million effort to get that ballot measure passed. And then, you know, there was so much different legal limbo. And then now there's another incredibly deceptive anti-abortion ballot measure in Missouri to reinstate the ban that's on the ballot this November. And so over the course of 2025, I think there were there were only 80 in clinic abortions in Missouri after, you know, that 30 million was spent on restoring that right. And so, you know, it's just a source of sometimes tension, I think, within this movement where you have abortion funds that know that like, you know, even when we have the right on paper, that there's just, you know, these massive, massive barriers to access and that, you know, a right in itself does not guarantee that.

A right that you have on paper but practically cannot be exercised is not really a right. And like, well, this gets into the thing of like why we desperately need a constitutional amendment preserving the right to an abortion because like states like set your own fucking sales tax. But like when it comes to like questions of like human agency and autonomy over one's own life and body, you cannot have a country with 50 different. versions of what counts and what does it. Right. Absolutely. Kylie, another thing that really comes across in your book, an obvious knock-on effect, or even I would say an intended effect of these

abortion bans is the overall criminalization and surveillance of pregnancy, be it wanted or unwanted. Could you talk about some of the examples in which these bands have directly killed or deeply imperiled the lives of pregnant women in this country, like whether the pregnancy is wanted, unwanted, or otherwise, in which, like, directly the medical establishment and government in collusion have directly killed or placed the lives of these women in mortal danger. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think as I spoke about earlier, like, you know,

pro-publica has done reporting on since Dobbs, at least six different women that we know, like whose names we know, who died because they, you know, weren't. able to get time-sensitive emergency abortion care. And that can lead to contracting sepsis. That can also lead to, there have been plenty of cases where women live, but they lose fallopian tubes or they lose future fertility or their health is impaired. Yeah, they're rendered infertile because of like what could have, if not save their

lives, like save their ability to have children in the future. But they were like the hospitals, these doctors. And like, Kylie, this is what is astounding to me when I think about the medical community here. If you're a doctor, I mean, I used to think the Hippocratic Oath meant something. And we all know, first do no harm, meaning that like your primary responsibility, ethically and professionally, is to the life of your patient. Women who are suffering like ectopic pregnancies are being told to like go home and come back when you're a little bit closer to death. Because the common life-saving medical intervention in all of these circumstances is an abortion.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's interesting because it's like, you know, I truly believe like at the bottom line, it's like these laws are creating this culture of fear and are to blame for, you know, killing these women. And that at the same time, it is incredibly frustrating and inexcusable that you'll have these hospitals that do have like all of these resources and like legal resources and will just be so extremely risk-averse in a way where it's like to not even save someone's life. there definitely is a good amount of culpability there, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's such a perfect storm. I mean, this is not to say that there aren't people in the medical profession, that there aren't doctors who are courageous, who will risk arrest or persecution. I mean, we've talked to some recently. But speaking broadly, the AMA and just American doctors in general, I don't think that they have ever been so risk-averse and profit motivated.

Just this 20, 30-year period. There's a lot of reasons you can ascribe to that. Partly you could put that on student loans, but just in general, it does seem like not just with this, but with so many issues that the AMA in general seems to be motivated more by perpetuating the status quo in which doctors can enrich themselves delivering worse. service to more patients and never really going out on a limb in a case like this. Yeah, I mean, just to follow up when Felix said, like, it seems like they only collectively

spring into action when it comes time to, like, defeat a public option from Medicare or, you know, like prescription drugs from Canada, where it's like doctors, both individually and as a group are a professional class that has a lot of clout. And like, would it be so hard for like someone to just be like, no, the rights of my patient come before the Texas legislature. And if you want to arrest me, go ahead. I'll fight it. Or, you know, I'll even, I'll do the time to, like, create a precedent to to make an example of, like, this is what criminalizing abortion looks like. If you care about the life and health of your patients. No, like, it's really interesting. You know, at the same time, it's like I have spoken to, like, some doctors and gotten some perspectives I find really interesting of like, you know,

like the threat also of losing, like, your medical license. Some of them will practice. in these rural counties where it's like if they're no longer an obgyne are providing like these different sexual and reproductive health services, then like essentially like their entire community would be left without care. And like that sometimes is a consideration as well. But yeah, it is really, it has been really interesting to see just like this method of of using what they call like the quote unquote wait and see approach when like someone, you know, could contract sepsis and then from their die within minutes. It is just very jarring. definitely. I mean, like, to be fair, like, yes, like a doctor in that position is certainly

risking more than I ever have, really, or ever will. But to just take it off the individual doctors, I mean, in our lifetimes, the most activated we ever saw, the AMA as a political body, as a, the biggest representative of doctors in America was to defeat the public option. it would be safe to say there's up in one tenth of that effort to mobilize themselves against this. Yeah, that's a good point. Kylie, like another example, like when we talk about like the sort of criminalization and surveillance of pregnancy writ large, not just reproductive health care or access to abortion. I mean, you write about several examples of women who are being prosecuted.

Felix brought it up being prosecuted for miscarriages or, for instance, not knowing they were pregnant, smoking some pot, hitting a positive drug test, and then being arrested for, like, endangering the life of their fetus. You talk about an example of a woman who was arrested on, like, a gun charge or, like, she had an unregistered gun in her car and, like, in that state, like, this is usually something where you get bail for. But because of a positive drug test and the fact that she tested positive for both pot and being pregnant, she was forced into rehab. But they're like, the rehab wouldn't take her because there was no evidence that she had a drug problem. And, like, you know, beds and rehab are hard to come by.

And like, specifically you talk about like the way in which like women who are having like miscarried or being thought to like have acted recklessly and endangered the quote life of their child. These are almost all non-white and poor women, right, who like have, I'm sure no access to health care, period to begin with, let alone an OBGYN or reproductive health care. And if they're harming their fetus in some way, they're being prosecuted for it. Yeah. I won't even be able to like do this justice. but like definitely like look up Ittoa County in Alabama, which there was a period where there were a dozen women in jail at the same time. I believe and it was over, you know, something related to like alleged marijuana use and being pregnant. And like, again, you know, their option was like be in jail or go to rehab, but then rehab centers won't take them because there's no evidence that they have any kind of like substance abuse issue. And some of them had like seriously risky pregnancy. Some of them had to give birth in like a jail shower. some of them had to sleep on the floor while, like, bleeding. And, you know, there was also even one case of woman who wasn't even pregnant and was, like, accused of, like, child endangerment for, like, allegedly smoking weed while pregnant. And it wasn't for at least, like, a day or two days that they gave her a pregnancy test to, like, prove that she wasn't pregnant. So that's just kind of, like, one layer of, like, what's going on there. But, you know, it's really interesting because even before Dobbs, I think it was in the years from 1973 to, like, to 2020, I think, that there were about 2,000 women who faced criminal charges that were related

to their pregnancies. And then since Dobbs, in like the two years of 2022 to 2024, there have been 400 cases. This is from like the tracking of the organization pregnancy justice. And, you know, it's interesting because it's like while we never needed abortion bans for pregnant women to, like, face criminal charges related to like their behavior around their pregnancy, you know, what abortion bans essentially do is shroud all pregnancies. in this kind of criminal suspicion and like all pregnancy losses in criminal suspicion. Guilty until proven in a sense. So like if something goes wrong with your pregnancy, then like for whatever reason, then it's just like the eye of the state is on you as like the potential mother for like what did you do to endanger this future child of yours?

And it's also like, you know, medication abortion, like what it does is it causes a miscarriage. And so basically you can't really tell like the difference between like a natural miscarriage and a medication. abortion. So that's another area of tension. And then... So like, so if you, if you're a woman who has a miscarriage, like intended or otherwise, you are immediately a suspect, essentially in a potential, I don't know, homicide in these states? I mean, you can be. It's very interesting because I mean, for lack of better words, a lot of these cops are like not especially like smart people. And like, it's just like, if they're in these states that like ban abortion, like some of that, like, this is like the most important thing to emphasize about pregnancy.

criminalization. It's like these cases ultimately, they really come down to like the biases of like an individual cop or like something like that. And it's just like, yeah. You have a, you have an absolutely blood-curdling example. I forget the exact case, but like you talk about a woman who was being physically abused by her partner. And she was pregnant and she told the cops in her area about her partner's abusive. And you say, you write that they told her that when you get married, you are one flesh and you can't abuse yourself. Yeah, that was one woman I interviewed, and that was like a past partner of hers.

And then later on, she was impregnated by rape. And that spawned like this, this is long before Dobbs, but it spawned this decade long, really traumatizing custody battle with this man who she also suspected was abusing their child. And, you know, I think that since Dobbs, I haven't seen that much reporting, but it's all, you know,

there's been a study in, 2020, this was back in 2024, that there had been tens of thousands of rape-induced pregnancies since 2022 within states that ban abortion. And in most of those states, there are no rape exceptions attached to the bans. And, you know, even with rape exceptions, again, it's like exceptions do often amount to just kind of being on paper. But, you know, it's just very disturbing when you look at, you know, just on a case-by-case level of just how traumatizing and, you know, just how much the legal system is oriented against women who are impregnated by rape who are trying to seek custody and to think about the back, the fallout.

Having to see your rapist over and over again in court in a custody dispute. What a fucking nightmare. Like that is, and kind of like, this is kind of hard to talk about, but like when I think about all of these things in total, and I know, I know the justifications for them, I know with like the public arguments being proffered. And like, I think you make a very good point about how. canny the anti-abortion side has been at sort of very cynically co-opting feminist language and the language of individual rights and bodily autonomy to sell an agenda that is the exact

opposite. And what I mean is when I take all of this in total, it is very hard for me not to think of this all as a conscious effort to essentially legalize the abuse of women and children and not just legalize it, but like, systematize it and like industrialize a process of driving women out of public life, but also like legalizing their total subordination of both women and children to the whims of whatever man is in their life. And then from a larger view, the state and the men who run it. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that an argument that I really try to put forth in the book, in general, it's just that like, I mean, for lack of better words and like, it's difficult to like say and talk about. But I really like, abortion bans

essentially do amounts like this kind of state sanctioned rate. you know, you have governments just like very physically entering woman in pregnant people's bodies in that way. And it, you know, how you put it is exactly how I would put it. And to really kind of underscore that, I think that there was a study last year that showed that there were at least like 9,000 additional reported incidents of like domestic violence associated with abortion bans or, you know, like even long before Dobbs, the leading cause of death for pregnant people was homicide, often by an abuse of violence. partner. And then, you know, when you remove someone's ability to terminate an unsafe pregnancy, it's impossible to say, like, how much more we'll see of that. If you could describe like any, you know, I don't want to call it dark genius, but like a cynicism, an effective cynicism to the anti-abortion movement, especially in the last five to ten years, it is this realization on their part that just in head-to-head pulling, Their side is not popular.

So to accomplish their goals, which they have been very effective at, they sort of become all things to all people, even when their stated goals are self-contradictory. During the sort of Tea Party era, you would see a lot of anti-abortion pundits and groups take this line that they were the anti-ugenics side. I remember one of the biggest arguments that these people took during the Obama administration was this idea that people with Down syndrome were going extinct. Like it was a race of people because of screening and pregnancy. They still co-opt this language around all types of birth defects and conditions beyond just Down syndrome

where the child would live a life of unimaginable pain and just by no one's measure even really be sentient. But at the same time, you've talked about these laws. they're criminalizing women just for not even pregnancies that are carried to term, or in some cases, not even pregnancies, just the possibility that they are going to give their kid a birth defect by, I don't know, taking like a CBD gum. Obviously, you cannot have it both ways where no, any termination of any child, any screening is eugenics and you were making all, everyone with a chromosal disorder extinct while also wanting to throw women in prison for, for just the outside chance of a birth defect and a pregnancy, they don't even want to carry a term in the first place. But it gets to be all these things because there is not a significant political will on the Democratic side to define this in the affirmative. This is not even like to be gross or like to make a chip,

but like if you were, if you really were trying to like criminalize parents, four birth defects, you would immediately knock up every fucking guy who pumped a kid out when he was over 60. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, but it's like, that's, that's what you're like. That's something highly correlated with. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't always, but it's like, I'm sorry, like the, to put it bluntly,

the seed rots. Yeah. No, that's like, like, no, I think that you bring up like a really, you know, I think that that's something that anti-abortion activists have really tried to zoom in on where it's like they know that their bands are unpopular. So they try to like reframe them or like set the terms of like what is or isn't extreme. Like that's what so much of, you know, their efforts around like, oh, Democrats support abortion up until birth. And that kind of like pushes pro-choice activists to kind of like, you know, say that they only support until like quote unquote fetal viability, even though that's not a

medical term. And the truth is that, like, there just shouldn't be government interventions in pregnancy, not, you know, oh, you can do it at this week or that week. But, you know, that's just an example of how anti-abortion activists are really good at, like, setting the terms for, like, what supposedly is or isn't extreme. And I think, you know, to your point, like, disability language and, like, attempting to, like, co-opt, you know, pro-life people, like, care about people with disabilities or whatnot, has been, like, a really driving part of some of these conversations. Or even, you know, Even just, for example, it's like there will be a lot of language about, like, how abortion is, like, genocide or abortion is, like, the Holocaust or abortion is all of these different things. But, you know, at the end of the day, like, what they ultimately are trying to justify is, like, waiding abortion with ableism or whatnot and trying to.

And, you know, it's really interesting to your point about, like, you know, how they try to, like, frame abortion as eugenics or this or that. I don't know if you've seen a lot about this. I've only really been following this for the last year. but the anti-abortion movement is really, really taking a hard line increasingly against IVF and reproductive technologies. Yeah. Yeah. Part of that is because they, you know, support like quote-unquote. Because a lot of embryos have to be created for IDF and like most of them will be, in their lines, you know, fully insult human beings will be discarded, i.e. destroyed to achieve one successful pregnancy through IVF. And that's like a big part of it. And then the other part is also just because, you know, they don't want like gay people.

to be able to build their families in this way, or they don't want to, like, expand the different ways that people are able to have families. I mean, they also don't want women past a certain age being able to still have kids or delay pregnancy, right? Right. I mean, God, I forget the context, but I saw a Republican politician,

or it was like someone, like, talking on Fox News, and, like, they were talking about how birth rates in America are going down. And this guy said, the big problem is that, like, what we've seen over the last, like, you know, called Generation or Show is a huge drop-off in people ages 16 to 19, teen having children. And quote, that's a big problem. Yeah. Yeah. Katie Miller also, like on her podcast, she was really upset about like the teen birth grade dropping. When did she have her first kid? And did she give up her job after she had kids? Because I say she's like still doing the

podcast. She's on TV all the fucking time. No, literally. Kylie, one thing I really wanted to ask you is I mean, this is just purely anecdotal. This is not based in any special novel. But I have of the issue or the polling, but just going off of these state referendums that you talked about, I have long theorized that obviously these laws are broadly unpopular on a national level and allowing women to choose is broadly more popular by a clear majority. But I also think that the anti-abortion side, that support for it is softer than it appears, because you do tend to run into a lot of people who proclaim themselves as, you know, pro-life. But you actually talk to them and they'll go, but I'm, you know, in case of like rape or incest, or if there's a birth defect, or if it's just, they eventually get down to like, oh, if the parents don't think they're ready for it.

Just eventually just giving off all the reasons that people actually get them. just obviously you've spent a lot of time talking to people who are very much on the pro side but I was wondering in talking to people who are like obviously not part of the anti-choice movement but just consider themselves broadly aligned with these bills maybe before they actually wanted to practice have you seen a lot of people sort of reconsider their position since they've been able to actually see the consequences along those lines It's a really interesting question. I think, you know, what I've actually kind of seen more so, which is honestly pretty depressing, but like, if anything, it kind of seems more so, like, since Dobbs, it's like that was kind of just the beginning in some ways for anti-abortion activists.

In Texas, in the year of 2023, I think there were like a dozen child rape victims. who had to leave the state for abortion care. And like you just have all of these, this horrible, devastating fallout. But then at the same time, it's like none of that was, it seems like none of this is enough for anti-abortion activists. Where like in this last year alone, there were a dozen states that proposed bills that would charge abortion patients, like not just the provider, but charge the patient with murder. And in some of those states like that could qualify for the death penalty. And like we're seeing more and more of these bills, even. even though they ultimately don't succeed.

Or you see in Texas, like in 2024, the Texas Republican Party, like, added to their party platform that abortion patients should be charged with murder. They're really only, it seems, doubling and tripling down, at least on, like, the architects of these policies. And I think in terms of, like, real everyday people who might identify as pro-life, I mean, it is really interesting because, like, you'll find that a lot of different people might, like, mean, different things kind of when they say that. So it is an interesting question or interesting thing to think about where it's like I think to your point like the run of the male people like not anti-abortion leaders or Republican politicians who like say their pro life. Yeah, they probably would say that they don't want, you know, a child rape victim to be forced to carry to term or for someone who, you know, their pregnancy could kill them to like carry to term. But I think that

there's just not enough self-awareness among people who might believe. Those things to see that like exceptions aren't real because if you ban abortion, then like we live in a country where it's like, it would be an entirely other episode, but it's just like we don't believe rape victims. So what do you mean? Like, oh, yeah. Or like, you know, we have this medical system that like it's incredibly difficult and dangerous to be pregnant in it, even under like ordinary circumstances. And so like you, you think that this medical system is going to like responsibly handle like, you know, these complex pregnancy complications. It's like, no. On the anti-abortion activist side, I definitely agree.

I think they're careful in how they choose their language publicly, and they probably want to avoid highlighting these cases. But not even the back of their mind. In the front of their minds, this is, I mean, the thing people always said about Sandy Hook was that it was actually a watershed moment for the NRA, because it showed them that, well, if people can accept this, they'll accept anything. I think it's the same thing, obviously, for the anti-abortion people. Like, the more horrifying the instances without, you know, mass riots or something, they go, okay, that's an unqualified success. Yeah, I think that that's absolutely right. I think, you know, that also kind of reminds me, I mean, like this other strategy,

which is just, I don't even have, like, the words for it, but it's like, you know, there's increasingly, as we see that abortion ban deaths are tragically and infuriatingly, like inevitable, you know, another strategy that we've seen from some anti-abortion groups is to kind of like more or less glorify women who received like a fatal fetal diagnosis or like learned that their pregnancy could cost them their lives and then refuse to have the abortion anyway. And so, you know, there are a couple of those stories that anti-abortion groups have really latched on to and glorified because it, you know, you can kind of reinforce this narrative of like motherhood being all about sacrifice and being like willing to like sacrifice.

your life and whatnot, but it's not even like the baby lives. Which is like, yeah. I mean, like, but Kylie, to that point, like, that's a very modern concept and it's a very evil one. Because, like, even in, like, medieval Christendom, it was always understood that the life of the mother takes precedence over that of a pregnancy. Because if a mother dies, then, like, the children are fucked, like, just to go up with feeling like, maybe this is anecdotally on my part, but what I've noticed on the right

on the anti-choice side is like, look, this was always under the surface, but like their rhetoric and sort of, I don't know, symbolism and the way they present themselves, I think has changed in an interesting way, because it used to all be about protecting the life of the child, like abortion is murder. And what I'm seeing lately is they're sort of like doing away with that, and I think they're becoming much more comfortable saying openly that this is flatly, fuck any infant, fuck an unborn child, we don't care about that. This is about punishing women. And it's about punishing women specifically for having sexual autonomy, for having the ability

to have sex on their terms. And as free from the consequences as is possible, they're like, no, we want to make that as dangerous as possible. And we want to essentially not give women any out from like any relationship with a man that they're potentially with or want to be out of. It is about hurting women for having sex. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, kind of going off of that.

I don't know how much you, like, follow, like, the manosphere or whatever, like, online. I was going to bring up the whole repeal of the 19th thing, which is like, I sort of like, you know, it's, it's like, I don't want to give it too much credit because it is like a stupid, like a meme ideology. But the thing is, like, it is concerning that, like, this is gaining some purchase or like, you know, like, it's a nudge to the Overton window, you might, you might want to say. But, like, the point is that they're like, I think that they're being more clear and an upfront than they have ever have. I think it's always been unsaid, but they're saying now, like, no, the problem is that, like, it's not even abortion as such. The problem is that women have political and legal autonomy in this country, and that needs to change. Yeah, it's interesting because it's like I follow kind of like the corollary that are like the pink pill pipeline where you're increasingly seeing like these. What's the way?

What's the pink pill pipeline? It's like, for lack of better words, like the womanosphere or it's like, I don't even know. You have like Candace Owens or like trad wife influencers who it's like. glamorize or like romanticize. I don't know, like oppression or like things like that. But it's like, I think something they've been really successful at has been misinformation about birth control just because like, and, and you know, it's just like overall. Right. It's just kind of like this crunchy thing about how like, you know, the pill or an IUD is like poison or bad for you or makes you crazy. Like, yeah. You know, and I think part of that again is that, you know, as we've talked about,

it's like abortion rights are so popular. But something that is kind of vulnerable. in some ways, like contraception because so many people have very varied adverse experiences with birth control, or there are also these really popular, like, alternative health movements right now that are, like, kind of wind up being pipelines toward right-wing ideologies, and like birth control is kind of like at the nexus of that, which has been really interesting. And the same with like IVF too, where like there's been reporting on like these very obviously, like astroturf disinformation campaigns among like female lifestyle influencers who are like, basically conspiracy theorists who are like claiming that, you know, the generation where birth control pills or like hormonal birth control became normalized, now so many of them are like relying on like

IVF or need fertility technology or whatnot. And there's this conspiracy theory about how like birth control and like abortion and all of these different things like ruined female fertility, even though there's no evidence of that. And then all of that was a pipeline toward like IVF or something like that. So there's like a lot of crunchy like alt health conspiracy theorizing around like around these issues, which again, like ultimately tends to wind up being like a pipeline toward anti-abortion and right wing ideology. Yet another consequence of people being more alienated from their own medical care. You don't even want to go to a doctor because it's a guy who like barely looks at you, type something into chat GPT because he has 500 other fucking patients tell us. You,

you, okay, yeah, you're fat. Okay, see you next year. And then that's $2,000. Yeah, I mean, I think all the, like, Maha stuff is fucking stupid, but it's very evident why it has hit so hard now. Yeah, absolutely. Kylie, going off what you were saying about, like, the sort of manosphere adjacent or, like, the currents of, like, right-wing politics among particularly young men in this country.

Like I talked about the repeal of the 19th. I remember like this sort of Nick Fuentes giggling like your body, my choice thing. And like this goes back to my point about like an evolution in anti-choice and sort of reactionary, misogynist politics where it used to be like the anti-abortion cause was very much associated with like don't have sex. You can't have sex. It's dangerous. You must, you must wait until only having sex within marriage is the only appropriate time to do that. And then it's okay, but sex is about childbearing. like I said it seems to me like among the younger

sort of I don't know new fascist young men movement in this country they they've abandoned that in terms of just this idea that like once again it's like women you do not get to decide who you have sex with and like if you have sex with one guy he more or less owns you for the rest of your life you are shackled to him forever but like like that seems to me like the animating id

driving this more than like a kind of I don't know a Christian morality about what is sexually appropriated I think it is interesting because it's like, I don't know if this is like too much of like a tangent or like off of the topic or whatever, but it is interesting because it's like, I think if you looked at like some of these like many of these like Manosphere like influencers who the Republican Party increasingly like aligns with or whatever, it's like I highly doubt like any of them or like if they got someone pregnant like right now like you know what I mean. Like I think that they would probably be some of the beneficiaries of like abortion rights or whatnot which is like it's interesting. I mean, Donald Trump personally would be like another example of that. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's interesting. And then like back in 2024 to like think about it again, it's interesting because it's like when they, the Democrats, when they were doing some of that like a messaging about like how weird Republicans were to like care about like children's genitals that much or like be that invested in like our reproductive and like bodily decisions. I think like, you know, I think there was like a lot of excitement around that.

And like obviously it's like and then they just kind of like abandoned. that strategy, I think was interesting. Zooming out, like, we've talked about some of the, like, you know, like the, the dire straits of women's rights in this country right now and, like, in the lives of anyone who's pregnant in this country right now is imperiled by this kind of shit. But, like, we talked about, like, the Democratic Party's fucklessness and their shortcomings. What would you like to see from the national pro-choice political apparatus, be they politicians, non-profits? What would be a, I don't know, a rallying cry or a platform or a message that would be commiserate with the stakes that we're all

currently living in. I mean, honestly, I think, you know, not to like make everything, like go back to 2024 so much, but one of the things that was really, for lack of better words, I guess, like psychologically difficult was like reporting simultaneously on like, you know, all of these horrors that were stemming from abortion bans, all of these women who were almost dying from abortion bans and like and how democrats would really kind of run on this message and these stakes, which were incredibly real. I mean, but then at the same time, you would have like Biden and Harris and like, you know, this administration that was taking a very active role in like the genocide in Gaza, which a big part of that genocide was reproductive violence where you see like

this 300% increase in miscarriages. You see all of the, you see C sections without. Or just shooting pregnant women. Right. Like that would just happen over and like and so you know there is this huge crisis where it's like also like is like very early in you know this iteration of the genocide like in October 2023 you had like Israel literally bombed an international Planned Parenthood Federation Clinic in Gaza and then you know they're despite that you know because like these main I mean that gets into like how how utterly inadequate the sort of like the national pro-choice political lobbying and advocacy groups have been like you see the limits of this where it's just like they want to advocate for women in this country. But like when the

Democratic Party is pursuing a genocide, in no small part directed at pregnant women in Gaza and their children, it's fucking crickets from them. Yeah. And then it's like if you criticize like the Biden administration, which is actively playing this very active role in, in that horrific reproductive genocide there, then it's like you'd be accused of like, oh, you're supporting a national abortion ban, like you're supporting Trump or whatnot. And like at the same time, it's like, again, like you literally had like a Planned Parenthood Federation Clinic that was bombed by Israel, but then at the same time, like very like national pro-choice groups in the United States. You know, and like for reasons I can on some level, like understand, are very closely aligned with the

Democratic Party. They're like an apparatus of the Democratic Party. This gets to like a like a very important dynamic that I wanted to talk to you about because, I mean, like you sent us an article you did this. It hasn't been published yet. But you make a point about how, like, really one of the most, one of the more, like, sinister, and I say sinister, but effective strategies that the Democratic Party exerts to, I don't know, like to discipline their voters and to maintain control is that they use their social liberalism as a way to hold hostage people who are disgusted with not just their foreign policy, be it supporting Israel's genocide against Palestinians, but, like, all of their manifest

shortcomings in every other aspect of, like, failing to, I don't know, like adequately regulate corporations or get money out of politics or support public health care system in this country. But at the end of the day, like, everyone is still in this vice because if you do support women's rights and the right to a legal, safe access to abortion or reproductive health care, the Democratic Party really is the only game in town. So like, in your discussions with activists or people like who are very engaged with this issue, like, is there any way out of this vice here? I know this is a bitch of a question to ask, But like, how do we begin to resolve this thing where, like, for people who's, like, life may be on the line in a state like Oklahoma or Texas, like, voting for the Democrats, it really is the only protection you have against the worst excesses of what we've just been talking about.

But, like, how do we, like, sort of, I don't know, neutralize that, like, incredibly effective disciplining tactic about how, like, well, you have to vote for us because look at what the right wing are doing. They're killing people. It's just incredibly frustrating because, I mean, to your point, it's just. this very coercive cycle of like if you criticize us or if you like hamper our ability to win in any way like you're supporting Republicans who like want a national abortion ban or this or that all while they'll use that language it's like you know I think the bind of like you know how scary project 2025 is even scarier I think in a lot of ways was that there was no democratic version of that it's like they don't like they'll say that like there's what I

about like there was no effort to like raise the stakes. Yeah. Or like or push back at like a state or now or federal level where it's just like, okay, you're going to do this. Well then we're going to do this. And like we have a number of policies ready to go or or initiatives or actions to be taken to like heighten the stakes here and to like really like raise the stakes on a national level of like the salience of this issue.

And it just seems like they're like, oh, it's bad. But like it'll get worse if you don't keep voting for us. No, yeah. It's just it's very frustrating because it's like if you don't vote for us, you'll lose your rights, but if you vote for us, like, you'll lose your, like, you'll lose your rights is what, like, and I think that that's, like, a big source of frustration. I mean, like, there's no real, like, I wish, like, I could give, like, a more satisfying answer. I think, like, I mean, I think that the term, like, harm reduction does get thrown around a lot. And then at the same

time, it's like, even in, like, 24, if ultimately you can't bring yourself to, like, vote for someone who, like, is facilitating a genocide, I'm going to blame the people facilitating the genocide more so, then I would blame you for not being able to do that ultimately. But it's like, I guess for like lack of better words, I mean, there have always been groups that have been, you know, really on the ground doing what, you know, our elected officials should be doing, but don't. Like, if you, like, abortion funds have existed since like long before Dobbs because, you know, there's always been that need. And so it's incredibly frustrating, like, how much of, like, the day to day and, like, the nitty gritty of accessing care or like any of that comes down to just like things like

mutual aid. But, you know, these networks, like they are very used to being abandoned by, like, elected officials and they are, like, if you want to know that your money is going somewhere, like I would definitely devote it to like abortion funds more so than like a political campaign or something like that. And then, you know, there are also these incredible groups like pregnancy justice, which provides, like, legal aids, like, people who face, you know, criminal charges or state interventions in their pregnancies, or if one how, which has, like, you know, a legal hotline dedicated to that. And, like, we'll also have, like, a network of attorneys where, like, if, let's say your hospital or, like, provider isn't providing you emergency abortion care and you need to get

to a lawyer right away. Like, there's just so many different pieces of, like, this care infrastructure that have, like, emerged from these incredibly frustrating policy failures. And so, You know, I think that that's something that definitely gives me hope. Well, I remember a while back, like, Bernie got in trouble when he said Planned Parenthood is the Democratic establishment. And, like, he was right about that. But, like, I guess it's like one of the few things to the credit of the Democratic Party still remains. Like, yes, it is the party that institutionally is at least on paper dedicated to supporting legal access to abortion of the rights of women. But, like, if they are part of the establishment of this huge and very powerful political party, now would be the time to, like, flex your muscles.

on this issue or do something other than fundraise over it or like spend some of that war chest that I assume that these large organizations like Planned Parenthood or Emily's List has at their disposal. Yeah, absolutely. Your point about supporting abortion funds is very well taken, but like we are in a midterm election year and like obviously everyone's looking forward to 2028 the next presidential election. Like we talked about how like sort of like shamefully this issue has become sort of displaced by other more like, you know, inflation or cost of living, the price of gas, things like that. But like as a major issue, like women's rights, freedom to choose to terminate a pregnancy, bodily autonomy, what would you like to hear

from like whoever the Democratic candidate is? Because like de facto, they're going to be the ones that's going to be having to support abortion rights against a, you know, now even more ferally heinous right wing in this country. Like what would be a platform, a policy, just like something that like could do some actual good in reversing or rolling back the tide of these heinous abuses that we've talked about on this episode. I would really love to see like candidates talk about like abortion like as like, I don't know if this answers your question, but like as an economic issue where it's like, you know, when people can't access abortion, like we've seen so much research that like they and their

children are exponentially more likely to be entrapped in like generational poverty or like domestic violence and whatnot, or you'll also see that, like, states that have banned abortion, like, are losing tens of billions of dollars in revenue or, like, people are, like, leaving these states and, like, cratering these, their, like, economies and whatnot. And so I think that, like, you know, I've seen so much coverage. It's really frustrating because it will, like, talk about, like, now that voters don't care about abortion anymore, like, Democrats are, like, pivoting to, like, affordability or whatnot. But I think that, like, that abortion has always been, like, this really major economic issue as,

like it dictates like like huge swaths of the population and their ability to like participate in the economy at all. But then I mean like I don't even know like in terms of like policies that would I would want see I guess. I mean like obviously like proactively codifying abortion rights or like shield laws to protect blue state providers who ship abortion pills across state lines are all really helpful or anything toward like pregnancy decriminalization on the whole. What about like running on a platform of like if.

you elect me, I will do everything possible to enshrine the right to an abortion in the Constitution, as is freedom of speech or the right to bear arms, or just like settle it. It's now the opposite, like the exact opposite of a federal abortion ban. And yeah, I mean, like also I think like, you know, to your point like about like universal health care, like all of these other different pieces that go toward helping people like access reproductive health care. Obviously, like, and yeah, this is inseparable from the large problem of privatized health care in this country. Because when I think about like what kind of country I would like to live in for men, women, children, just the health and well-being of everyone in

this country, it would be anyone who is pregnant can walk into a doctor's office and hospital anywhere in this country and either terminate the pregnancy then and there for free with no questions asked or avail themselves of the best health care and treatment that one can provide someone through the course of a pregnancy. And then after pregnancy, as well be given a suite of, I don't know, like, just money to raise the kid as a single mother or as a married couple, but just like a lifetime of health, education, and housing for that child. Like, that to me, that would be freedom.

Like, that would be a free country where anyone who is pregnant can, without any stress or hassle, go to where they live and avail themselves either of the ability to terminate a pregnancy in a timely and safe and legal man. manner or begin the process of bringing that child to term and have it be actually taken care of both medically and economically throughout both the pregnancy and then the future life of this child. And that is impossible to do without something like universal health care. Yeah. Like that's like a big part of like addressing like the maternal mortality crisis, maternal morbidity

crisis. Like it's not just like reversing or like repealing abortion bans but like just sweeping changes to like the health care infrastructure and like things like child care. of that as well or just are, you know, crucial toward any semblance of like reproductive justice. It's already, you know, currently such a grim situation. But if it's, if nothing changes, 20, 40 years down the line, it will be the worst of all possible worlds where it is, you know, you have, you still do have this immensely declining birth rate. Just, whatever you want to call this system that we have going in America and for much of the West,

you can't really keep it up unless the population is growing, at least a little. But where there is a shrinking population and the children who are born are children who, by and large, are children that people weren't ready for, that they didn't want, weren't able to take care of. And just through, if you want to go back to like the bad old days of the extremely high crime rates of past generations, there's a billion reasons for it. There's a billion reasons why crime has become more localized but overall declined. But I do think one of those reasons is no few people have worse lives than children that no one wanted. Yeah, no, yeah.

And we're just looking at, I mean, I can't think of any other time where a civilization has had both those problems. I mean, I personally, like, I haven't looked too, too much at, like, national birth rates or whatnot. I just, like, no, it's interesting because it's, like, at the source of a lot of these different, like, pro-natalist, like, fearmongering campaigns that are really interesting. But it's, like, to your point, like, they are decreasing. I'm not sure necessarily like how dramatically or whatnot, but like, you know, a big part of that also is just all of these different factors about like, why would someone actively want to bring in a child like under, you know, a lot of the circumstances that like we're seeing today, which is really. Well, I mean, like in general, like as a country gets more developed and more like wealthy and like a better quality of life, the birth rate goes down. So it's like, it's like, do you want one or the other? And like, and also it's like, you know, it's like there's still like 350 million people in this.

country. Also, these people are also extremely anti-immigration as well. Yeah. Like, it's, it's hard to understand what they really want here. I mean, actually, sorry, it's not difficult to understand what they really want. They want the Third Reich. But I was thinking about what you were talking about with the Manosphere, and it is like, what they remind me of the most are those, um, the ultra-Orthodox guys in Israel who like, they still want to live in Israel. They still like when Israel kills people. But they, like they themselves don't draft me I've like got to study Torah the atmosphere thing it's like the equivalent

where like marrying a woman gay dating a woman gay having sex with a woman gay yeah impregnating woman the gayest thing but we're running out of white people so there needs to be more white people

but it doesn't I'm not the one who's going to do it it's like the old neocon chicken hawk thing but for like heterosexual sex and reproduct I wasn't there, but I still care. Yeah. I served in my own way. That's like that reminds, like, do you remember like last spring when like there was, I don't even know, like the different tariffs or like trade war stuff? And then Fox News was like glorifying.

Like it'll be great to like go work at the factory or whatever. But it's like none of them wanted to work at a factory. It was, yeah, but that's what that reminds me of. I saw this amazing, uh, amazing video of. It was, this soldier had died. He died in 2013 in Afghanistan, I think. And it was this whole big publicity thing where, like, Trump was upgrading his commendation to a middle of honor. And he called the parents.

And the parents feel like Trump people and everything. And it's still sad when someone, like, loses a child. But, like, the main takeaway was, like, 30 seconds into the call fucking Trump says to this guy's dad, you know, your son, did was really great, I wouldn't have done it. Like, it just like that's really, that's, yeah, it's like everyone now. Well, uh, Kylie, we'll leave it there for today. But like, if you would like to direct our listeners, first of all, like, there will be a link to the book, coercion, surviving and resisting abortion bans. But like, in terms of supporting some of these abortion funds, is there, is there any, like, plug you'd like to make or anybody, like, if you want to direct their money or

resources to groups that are fighting back against this kind of violence against women at like a state level. What would you recommend that they do? Yeah, I mean, there are two groups that I think are doing really great work in terms of, you know, helping people who are facing like state interventions or the threat of criminalization of their pregnancies or are just trying to, like, navigate, like, their options in terms of how to safely access force in our pregnancy justice and if one how. And then, you know, in terms of, you know, in terms of, like, navigate. And then, you know, in terms of if you want to like find your local abortion fund or like an abortion fund in a specific state like Texas or Oklahoma or other states that are highly restrictive. I think you should definitely

go to the National Network of Abortion Fund's directory of funds. Kylie Chung, I really want to thank you for spending some time for your work and for just like, yeah, spending some time talking about this issue, which is like it's difficult. It is, it seems so big and demoralizing, but like there is a lot of work to be left to be done. And, you know, not to you know, like as an antidote to the doom, like, it is very clear that there is way more of us than there are of them. Yeah. By us, I mean people like who would like to continue to live in a free society. And by free, I mean, where half of the population isn't subordinated to the other half. Absolutely. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for coming on. Thank you. That'll do it for us today, everybody. Until next time, bye-bye. Bye-bye. fighting it's confrontation. We don't touch her. We don't touch her.