Endless Thread - Return of the Aunties

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

It's been eight months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and more people are relying on Reddit for help accessing abortion services than ever. Endless Thread revisits r/auntienetwork and looks at how it and other online communities are trying to fill the widening gaps in abortion access. Credits: This episode was written and produced by Grace Tatter. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Ben Brock Johnson and Grace Tatter are the co-hosts.

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WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Hey, Ben. Who is this? It's me. It's Grace. Oh, hey, Grace. New phone, who this, Grace? Well, as you all know, I'm a producer here on Endless Thread, and Amory's not here

She's hard at work at something else. But last summer, I was the one who worked with you and Amory on an episode about a subreddit called The Auntie Network. That feels like a million years ago, even though I remember it well. People, aunties offer to help people who need help getting abortions. Exactly. Yeah. We looked at how the group's membership had exploded right after the Supreme Court decision of returning Roe, which triggered abortion bans across the country. And then as we were about to publish the episode,

We got ourselves a little update. I remember. Yep, right before we clicked publish. In the harried climate after the Supreme Court decision, the moderators of the Auntie Network decided they needed to stop and think about exactly how they wanted to help. They shut R-Slache Onty Network down. And now R-Slasis-Onti Network is back,

and the abortion landscape already looks a whole lot different than it did a while back now, which is part of the reason why we wanted to, to talk about this again, right, Grace? Yeah, since that episode aired, 13 states and counting have banned abortion. And last time we talked about how when things seem dire, it can be heartening to look at the helpers,

the people who are helping. Now the gaps the helpers are trying to fill are a whole lot wider. Yeah, and online communities are playing a more important role than ever in how people access abortion. The Internet is where people are figuring out their options, where they're getting medical advice because if you live in a state where it's banned, you can't go to a doctor.

They're pretty much where people are going for everything. Back in July, we could only speculate about the role that subreddits and other online communities would play in abortion access after it became illegal or severely restricted in so much of the country. And now we're living it. Three more states have now officially banned abortion services

as trigger laws take effect today. Tonight, Mississippi, one of several states with these trigger laws, looking to ban abortions immediately. Utah, one of 26 states, either moving to ban abortion outright or severely restricting abortion rights. Yesterday, West Virginia's legislature passed a sweeping abortion ban with few exceptions. I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Grace Tatter.

And you're listening to Endless Thread. We're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Today, an Auntie Update. When the Auntie Network came back online in September, one of the moderators emailed me to let me know. And I was curious if there was any difference in the types of post they were seeing then before the Supreme Court decision. And? So I thought that there would be a lot more requests for help from places like Texas, where abortion is now banned. But the post were still coming from all over the country, and we're still mainly people offering assistance, not asking

for it. Okay. So how often are people actually taking them up on those offers? It's hard to say, since a lot of times that happens via direct or personal message. But I talked to one auntie who did have someone reach out to her with pretty serious needs. This auntie is called Cat. That's a nickname based on her initials. Yeah, and just a quick note to folks, most of the people in this episode asked for us to not use their full names because of safety and legal concerns around this issue.

Yeah. So Cat was in Ohio. Where abortion is still at the moment legal. For now. It's been in pretty continuous flux since last summer. For a few months, they had a so-called heartbeat bill in place that limited abortion to a time period before most women even know they're pregnant. A court blocked that, though. So abortion is legal in Ohio up until 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Okay. That is complicated to keep track of. Yeah. And also, Ohio is one of at least 27 states with a required 24-hour waiting period. So even though abortion is legal, you have to essentially get two appointments. one for counseling and one for the abortion itself. And that obviously makes logistics even more complicated. So anyway, in December, Kat got a message from someone who lives in the same city as her. And this person told Kat that she had mobility issues. She used this wheelchair. She had very little

in the way of money and that she needed an abortion. Was Kat at all concerned that this person was trying to get something else from her like money or just maybe trolling or anything like that? Yeah, because that actually does kind of happen. Everyone I talked to who posts on the Auntie Network has gotten kind of fishing messages from people who are either anti-abortion or just trying to get money. But the Auntie Network actually has rules about this. They tell people using it not to give people money. It's not allowed. Still, initially, Kat was wary anyways because, you know, stranger danger. I was a little unsure of who I was talking to and if it was real because it was such a, it seemed like such an extreme situation. I want to back up a little here and hear Kat explain what motivated her to post and the Auntie subreddit in the first place. I actually grew up very conservative. And at one point I was probably would consider myself a staunchly pro-life until I got it. pregnant, and I needed an abortion.

This was about 12 years ago. Kat scheduled an appointment at a local clinic. When I went, I went to the clinic by myself, and when I pulled up, there were protesters outside. A man ran out of the clinic to her car. He was wearing a reflective vest. He ran to my car with an umbrella and a jacket, and I didn't know who he was, and he put it over my windshield and shielded me.

And it was amid the chaos and the yelling and the barbs they were throwing at me. Kat remembers that the man was elderly, grandparent aged, and that he talked to her in a soothing tone. I think he was trying to drown out as much of the noise as possible and shoeing them off. And then me just saying a very brisk thank you and being on my way. Kat says even though their interaction was short, this volunteer changed her life. That 30 seconds that that man was next to me was so impactful that it made me want to do that for someone else. Afterward, she started talking to her friends about abortion and why she thought people should have that option. And word got around that she was kind of a safe person to go to.

This thing began to happen where people would start sending people to me, whether it was a conversation or they actually needed some reproductive health care. Over the years, Kat helped a few acquaintances navigate this decision. When she found the Auntie Sub last summer, it seemed like a good way for her to continue this work. So fast forward to December, she gets this direct message or private message from this person who needed help. And she arranged a phone call. She was terrified. Her voice was shaking at points. And you can't, you know, she'd be a rich actress in Hollywood.

You can't fake that. that was, she was terrified. It was hard to listen to, you know, knowing her fear. So Kat started making calls. There are only nine abortion clinics right now in the whole state of Ohio. But two of them are actually in the area that Kat and this women live in. Promising. Yeah, but when Kat called the clinics on behalf of this woman she was trying to help,

neither of them had any availability. That's something happening more and more in states where abortion is still legal, right? Because they're having to serve more patients from other states? Exactly. But luckily, Kat was able to help this person find an appointment. The only problem was it was a couple of hours away. She was even more terrified because she did not drive. She did not have a license and she had no funds. Okay, but this is where an abortion fund could be helpful, right? Usually, but the abortion fund of Ohio has had a hectic year. And around the holidays, the staff announced a couple week break. They even took down the intake form on their website.

We had missed it by a matter of days. I believe that they were even taking hiatus from social media. So you couldn't even get, you know, a little crumb of advice. Wow. This is like so complicated. Like you like literally can't even get the most basic information to help you figure out how to do what you need to do. It's wild. Yeah. It feels really. Kafka-esque. So Kat made another post on the onto network asking for help with transportation to the city with the available appointment, Dayton, Ohio, and for a place to stay overnight, because remember the 24-hour waiting period, Kat also posted in her city subreddit, and someone else crossed posted it in Dayton's subreddit, and a woman who saw that post reached out to Kat saying

her family could offer a wheelchair-friendly place to stay. So lots of subreddits involved. Wow. I vetted them. It felt like I hardly needed to. Just because we talked on the phone, I think, for, I think, it was like an hour and a half. I talked to this person. And she was equally as passionate and driven as I was about this. And then I got another, I got another message from someone else willing to transport for to Dayton whatever day she needed. And I got a lot of offers eventually when I had posted it separately on my local group. I'm sure a lot of people are thinking, well, that's risky. And unfortunately, that's the position that we're in. So at this point, it sounds like we have three Redditors on this abortion plan, someone to stay with it in Dayton, a driver, and Kat, who seems like she's kind of acting as like a coordinator. Exactly.

And Kat felt really solid about all of them and their plan. But... Uh-oh. Another but. There's always another but. The clinic was running behind schedule. So by the time they could see her for her first appointment, it was not enough time to honor that mandatory 24-hour waiting period. So the procedure had to be rescheduled for the following week. Oh, my God.

Yeah. And Kat heard this, and her stomach just dropped. It adds a whole other layer of complications. But fortunately, the team she'd assembled from Reddit was on it. The person that drove her up was like, don't even find someone else. She's comfortable with me. we really bonded. I'm going to take her back.

This was an entire day. She took out of her, you know, she took out of her work day and her life to take her out there. And then she was going to do the same thing next week. And so after all of that, this woman was able to get the abortion that she needed. She sent me a couple of messages afterwards. She was relieved and grateful.

And I think it was all a bit surreal. because there was so much, a lot of hustle and bustle getting it done. And then it was over. And I think she is just sort of just relaxing and depreciating. But, you know, she's out of the waters for now. It sounds like it turns out, without the help from strangers on the Internet, this woman wouldn't have been able to get an abortion in time, even in a state where it's technically legal.

Is that right? Yeah. And clearly there are a lot of people willing to help people like this woman. But at the same time, I understand why there are so many safety concerns about the Auntie Network way of doing things. Because what if any one of these people have been a bad actor or just promise more than they could actually deliver? Yeah, this seems like potential like catfish central and like really bad catfish central. Not a great system for health care, I would say. Not at all.

And Kat actually says the same thing. Nobody wants to turn to Reddit. You want to call your doctor's office and say, hi, this is what's going on. Can you help me? And they would say, yes, come in. Yes, this is covered by your insurance. We don't get any of that.

This is a network of people that are there. And, I mean, we want to be there, but we don't want to be there doing that. So that brings us back to the Auntie Network and the changes that they underwent during their hiatus, right? The moderators wanted to take time to address a lot of concerns they'd heard, mainly surrounding safety and the fact that it is so hard to vet anonymous volunteers on the Internet. They used to manually go through every potential Auntie's post history before proving. them. Now they have a bot to help them do that. This is one of the moderators of the Auntie Network. Her name

is Kiana. With a bot, it can let us know if there are any sort of words such as like the N-word or something like that that would immediately flag and we'll say like, you know, we don't think you're a good fit to be an Auntie or a helper. The moderators also wanted a way

to make their role in the abortion access ecosystem crystal clear. A common critique we talked about last summer was that the Auntie Network was copying the work that abortion funds had already been doing for years, but less effectively, according to those funds, because the volunteers posting in the subreddit weren't as trained or as vetted as the volunteers for more established organizations. Yeah, so in their new iteration, they doubled down on their messaging that they are a last resort. A stopgap if no other help from established organizations is available.

Here's another one of the moderators. Her username is Lollie Brock Sassanak, or Lolly, for short. We've rewarded our initial response to every post. So now it says, hey, please be aware that these groups are available and these people are available and they're vetted. And if that is what you choose, that's great. If for some reason they can't fulfill all of your needs, we're here to back them up and we will help you out. So we made sure that we were promoting that better because we had not really... The Ante Network isn't the only way people are using Reddit. There's one subreddit in particular that a lot of people are going to for answers. It is aptly titled R-slash abortion. More about how volunteers are making sure that everyone who goes to R-slash-abortion for help gets a good answer after the break. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerds.

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November of 2008. But Arella Messing came across it in 2019. I am an abortion researcher and activist. I'm a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins. And I am the founding director of Ours, the online abortion resource squad. Back in 2019, Ariela was looking at R-slash abortion, and she realized that a lot of the information on it was imperfect. So she sent a direct message to an acquaintance who also works on reproductive issues. I was just telling her, like, this is such a gap. Like, there's a need here. I really think, like, organizations should have people answering these questions.

And she said, well, couldn't we? And so within 24 hours, we had a Slack up that had the Reddit feed coming in. And we just said, let's invite some friends. or other activists who know their stuff and commit to answering every question or to making sure that every question has a good answer. Arello was organizing Orsvon here is when the pandemic started in 2020, and she noticed a huge uptick imposed on the subreddit. This was before the Supreme Court overturned Roe,

so abortion was still legal everywhere. But in many states, there was mass confusion about whether or not abortion clinics were essential services, quote-unquote, and thus allowed to stay open. And that was the beginning of the chaos. The Ohio Attorney General is ordering a Cleveland Women's Clinic to stop performing elective surgical abortions, calling it a violation of the health department's orders.

The governor there signed an executive order, banning non-essential procedures. So that includes abortions during this pandemic. West Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Alabama, and Oklahoma have also put either considers or put out abortions on hold altogether. Some abortion providers. People would say, like, call the clinic and find out if they're open. And in Texas, they opened and closed the clinics during the span of a month,

something like 15 times because of court decisions. And clinic doesn't have time to answer the phone and tell each person if they're open or closed, right? It's just not realistic, and it doesn't really make sense for people to have to do that. And also people hate making phone calls. So that was when I first decided to make a website that helped people with the instructions. Like, it really just said, like, deep breath. Like, you are allowed to get an abortion.

You have a right to get it. And it doesn't matter if there's a pandemic or not. And here's how you should do that. During the pandemic, telehealth became a lot more common, which meant it was now possible for a lot more people to manage their own abortions totally at home. And after the bans went into effect last summer, at-home medication abortions became the best option for even more people. Even if you live in a state where abortion is banned, there are pharmacies that will mail you the necessary pills. Those are Mithopristone and Mysoprostal.

More than half of abortions are done via this two-pill regimen, and the FDA has said this combination of medication, is really safe, but it can be stressful. People don't know what to expect. People want to read and to hear sort of like the unfiltered and uncensored stories of abortion, particularly for medication abortion, but really for both. Like, there are great efforts that are being made to share more abortion stories, but they rarely get into like the details, right? on Reddit because it's anonymous and because people know that they wanted this information,

they provide like every detail of the experience. And I think it's so funny because people are constantly writing like, sorry, TMI, TMI, but like then they just are going for it. But like people want the TMI, right? Aurella strongly recommends that users go through a verified online pharmacy, but there have been plenty of reports about people using Reddit to get the necessary. medication through other means. If you post on any subreddit asking for help with abortion, you might get a private message

from someone offering to mail you the pills directly. Sometimes these messages are from people who procured pills from a doctor and then ended up not needing them. There are also a volunteer distribution network, sourcing the pills for Mexico and other countries. And there are people selling the pills, trying to make a buck. We immediately, as moderators, would remove those posts and basically explain to people that this is illegal?

While the mods of R-slash abortion can't control private messages, these posts are definitely not allowed on the subreddit, even if they're well-intentioned. And a lot of times people just didn't know that. Like, they had no idea. And we were like, yes, sharing or selling prescription medication is illegal. So we can't allow this here. And it's against Reddit terms of service,

which puts our whole Reddit sub in, Jeopardy, and this resource is really important. It's impossible to know exactly how many people are connecting to the resources they need from R-Sash abortion, but we know it's a lot. There are about 50 posts a day, mostly people asking for advice or sharing their own stories or experiences. And way more people are visiting the sub. Aurella says that it gets about 60,000 individual visitors monthly and 800,000.

page views. In some cases, people aren't turning to R-slash abortion for answers for themselves. They're trying to help their loved ones. Like another person we talked to named Stephanie. I'm 30-ish something years old, and I live in central Texas. A little more about Stephanie. She lives on a military base with her children and two partners. They're polyamorous. Like Kat, Stephanie didn't always think that abortion should be illegal. I was one of those people standing outside the abortion clinics with the signs, making people feel shitty for making this very personal decision. Really? I was, yeah.

At 16, that was me. Stephanie began to change her mind as she became an adult, but she really became convinced that abortion should be an option when she had her own children. I had three pregnancies that made me really sick the whole time. And I was glad to make those sacrifices because I chose those pregnancies, all three of them. And I never for a moment wanted to end. any of those pregnancies, but they were sacrifices. They were deep sacrifices that I made and took over my entire body for a long period of time. And I don't think that I just, I finally came to a place in my maturity, I think, honestly,

where I realized the only reason anyone should ever go through that is because they choose to. Stephanie was very aware of the news when Texas's abortion ban went into effect last summer. after the Supreme Court decision. We thought we were being careful, I think. You know, we thought we were all using protection and that the courts would kick in, and it was kind of one of those, cross your fingers, hope it doesn't happen to you while this is going on,

that eventually things will be righted by the government, hopefully. A few months after Texas's ban went into effect, one of Stephanie's partners discovered that she was pregnant. The idea of having another kid in the house wasn't a problem. It was that this wasn't what she wanted and it wasn't a great time. And she also has some mental health issues and she's still in the process of getting her medications correct for that. And that's just not a good time to bring a baby into the world, you know, when you're not stable. And I just kind of went into take care of my person mode.

At first, they thought they had found a loophole in the ban. Stephanie's partner's husband is in the military. He was overseas at the time, and they lived on a military base, so in Texas, but in a federally controlled area. Actually, the first thing we did do was because she's a military spouse, we called the base because, you know, Biden had made these promises that military families would still have access. And so we were like, well, maybe she has access on base. And so we called her. By then actually didn't promise that specifically, as is often the case with abortion. there was a lot of conflicting and really confusing messaging.

But eventually the Pentagon did announce it would pay for service members and their families to travel out of state for abortion. But that didn't happen until later. So Stephanie turned to where else? Reddit. She posted this on both the R-slash-a-a-Ni network and the R-slash-abortion subreddits. My girlfriend, who doesn't have Reddit, just realized she needs immediate assistance. She's nine-week-five days. So some options are already not available to her.

What is the fastest way she can get help? And then I put an update later that said, we have a plan at the moment. There's a chance of this plan taking too long, and we may need to create a backup plan involving travel. She would want to travel with her boyfriend. They may need help. I'll be working on the backup plan.

The R-slash-abortion sub delivered. Stephanie was directed to a website called Aid Access. It connects patients in places where abortion is illegal with European doctors. who then fill their prescriptions through a pharmacy based in India. According to the website, it costs $105 and shipping takes one to three weeks. Aid access was started by a physician and is a trusted resource by people in the reproductive justice space. Still, it felt pretty risky. They needed the pills to arrive in no more than two weeks or it would be too late for medical abortion to be a safe option.

And they need to travel out of state, introducing a whole host of other complications. And these pills had a long way to go. What was the first country? I can't remember. Oh, yeah. England. England to India to Texas. That's, you know, that's a male journey that I would not have a lot of faith in.

Yeah, exactly. And they even said in this thing that there is a chance that this won't even arrive. And if it doesn't, just contact us, it will give you a refund. And I was like, oh, great. The medication got there in time, and Stephanie was able to support her partner through the process by gathering more information from another post on R-slash abortion. We talked to Stephanie a few months after all this happened. Physically, she's starting afraid. She's still processing it mentally because, you know, even if it's by choice, it's in miscarriage. And that has emotional and hormonal side effects.

As another thing I wish people who were trying to ban abortion understood is that even people who make this choice, like, they may have to mourn. For the foreseeable future, abortion is going to be illegal in large parts of this country. And the gaps that these online communities are trying to fill are going to get wider and wider. As we're recording, we don't know what's going to happen with the Texas court decision that could ban one of the pills used for medication abortions nationwide. So that would mean that even if you live in a state where abortion is legal, it would be a lot harder to get one. In our last episode about the Auntie Network, we talked about how when things look bleak, it can be heartening to look at the helpers. But we're putting a lot on the helpers. I checked in with Aaron Smith, who we talked to last summer.

They're the director of the Kentucky Health Justice Network, whose work includes funding abortion for Kentuckians, all of whom now have to go out of state. for abortion care. Aaron works with a lot of volunteers who go through extensive training and betting. It is not something that is for everybody. It's very much you're coming in kind of like a social worker or a caseworker. And as we know, those are very high, intense, stressful jobs, which is why it's important for us to have as many volunteers as we can, because sometimes people can do this for a couple months. It's like, I need a mental break. This is very... Aaron is always training more volunteers and encourages them to rotate out. But sometimes helpers don't have reserves.

Take Keanu, one of the moderators of the Auntie Network. She works on reproductive issues as part of her day job, and Reddit used to be an escape. She used it to talk about the real housewives. And don't worry, Keiana is still

enjoying and posting about real housewives. Woo, thank goodness. But now she's thinking about reproductive justice all of the time, not just at work. Now that I am a mod, I do, it's still very, fun app, but I still have to make sure that I'm doing my mod duties. And sometimes I will

casually be on red and scrolling. And I'll forget that I'll be like, oh, I need to just check in and make sure that, you know, no one's posts anything or things like that. And then there's R-Sash abortion where there's just a constant flow of post with really urgent questions. Arellella feels pressure to moderate the sub pretty much 24-7. So people can get their questions answered in a timely manner. And so she can make sure they're getting. good information. Reddit moderators aren't paid, which Arellella is okay with, but she'd like to have funding for ORE so she could train more volunteers to help her make sure that people can get the answers they need when they need them. The helpers need help. And this kind of reminds me of the

reason, one of the reasons, we wanted to go back to the Auntie Network in the first place. This summer, there was this flood of attention to abortion access. A lot of people volunteered or donated to funds, but then life moved on. People dropped off. And living in the Northeast, I kind of got the feeling that people thought of this as a problem for people living in the South or the Midwest, where restrictions are harsher and more common. And the headlines about all of the barriers to abortion access are constant. I get how they start to blur together for people, right? People are just getting used to the idea that accessing abortion care is really, really hard. But absent different laws and a more robust health care system, for people all over the country, there's a lot of lot writing on people continuing to care.

Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was produced and co-hosted by me, Grace Tatter, and... Yeah, Grace. And also me, Ben Brock Johnson, mixing sound design by Matt Reed. The rest of our team is Amory Severson, Quincy Walters, Dean Russell, Nora Sacks, Amy Garrell, Emily Jankowski, and Paul Weikis. Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between digital communities and real life. Today's episode,

a perfect example of that. If you've got an untold history and unsolved mystery or a wild story from the internet that you want us to tell, you can hit us up at endless thread at wbUR.org. Talk to you next week.

Woo!