This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Access, Agency & The Abortion Underground with Rebecca Grant | 358

Starting point is 00:00:00 You know what's better than the one big thing? Two big things. Exactly. The new iPhone 17 Pro on TELUS' five-year rate plan price lock. Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever, plus more peace of mind with your bill over five years. This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at TELUS.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply.

Starting point is 00:00:25 Now streaming on Paramount Plus. It's the epic return of Mayor of Kingstown. Warden? You know who I am. Starring Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner. I swear in these walls. Emmy Award winner Edie Falco. You're an ex-con who ran this place for years. And now, now you can't do that.

Starting point is 00:00:44 And BAFTA Award winner Lenny James. You're about to have a plague of outsiders descend on your town. Let me tell you this. It's got to be consequences. Mayor of Kingstown, new season now streaming on Paramount Plus. I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today, with you as the decider. And that's the tricky part, right?

Starting point is 00:01:21 You being the decider for you. Because baked into this mission is the commitment to choice. whatever feels true and real and right for you is how you do woman's work, which means if I'm serious about this mission, I have to allow for someone else's choice to be the opposite of mine and still honor it as right and real and true for them. And while I definitely have my own beliefs and strong opinions, while there are things that feel so obvious and fundamental to me, if I really mean it when I say you are the decider, then I have to leave space for someone else to choose differently, even if it's the opposite of what I would choose. And friend, that ain't easy. Honestly, it's a battle for me. My ego likes to think that it knows best. My

Starting point is 00:02:09 righteousness can be very convincing. And I wrestle with whether giving room for multiple truths is the easy way out or the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. But here's what I believe. reproductive freedom, the right to decide if, when, and how to become a parent is the clearest, sharpest measure of whether women in any society actually have choice and equity. For me, it's the metaphorical hill I'm willing to die on, though to be clear, I really hope it doesn't come to that. And if you're listening, I have to believe that we want some version of the same thing, choice and equity. We may disagree on the definitions or the path to get there, but I hope you'll listen with an open mind. And if you already agree with me, I hope you'll listen with an open heart.

Starting point is 00:03:01 Because our ranting, finger-pointing memes and rage comments, they may not be serving the very cause we hold dear. The issue may feel simple, but solving it requires complexity, nuance, empathy, listening, you know, those soft skills that are actually the hardest ones. So maybe today's guests will disagree with everything I just said, and I am wildly open to that because she's the expert. She's been living this, reporting on this for years. Rebecca Grant is a freelance journalist and author who has spent more than a decade reporting on reproductive rights, health, and justice. Her work has appeared just about everywhere from This American Life in New York Magazine to the Atlantic L&NPR. She's the author of birth, three mothers, nine months, and pregnancy in America,

Starting point is 00:03:47 and her latest book, Access, Inside the Abortion Underground and the 60-year battle for reproductive freedom is a definitive, eye-opening history of the movement for reproductive freedom across generations and borders. Rebecca's work centers on the bravery, ingenuity, and determination of women who have fought for autonomy, and it serves as both a chronicle and a rallying cry for the work we have ahead. So, Rebecca, thank you for being here. And I would love if you could just give us a quick overview, and I know this is not a quick thing, but how we got here, the history of reproductive freedom leading up to this point in time. I got on the beat in 2015. And so that was actually a really interesting time to be starting out as a reporter

Starting point is 00:04:35 covering abortion, kind of specifically, but also reproductive rights more broadly. And, you know, I talk about this in the forward of my book where I had just become a full-time freelancer and I knew that I wanted to specialize. I knew I wanted to focus on a beat. And I knew that I wanted it to be reproductive rights abortion. And I had this moment where I was talking with an older male editor in a magazine who kind of said to me like, I don't know if that's enough of a beat. I don't know if there's the relevancy. I don't know if there's the urgency. It feels like settled law. It feels like this is not, you know, a kind of dynamic situation with ongoing, you know, blah, blah. And I really disagreed with that clearly.

Starting point is 00:05:15 because I've spent the past 10 years doing the opposite. Well, and because we are where we are today, right? Of course, and because we are where we are. And so I think that the moment when I entered the beat, in a sense, was a moment of complacency, but also of transition. Because since the midterms in 2010, which were sort of like the Tea Party wave, there was this huge trend of anti-abortion laws of abortion restrictions passing all over the country. They were known as trap laws, targeted restriction of abortion providers.

Starting point is 00:05:45 and so it was basically laws that were geared at making it as hard as possible for abortion providers to continue doing their work. So examples of those laws could be ambulatory surgical center requirements, which would say that an abortion clinic has to have like the hallways be a certain width so that a stretcher or a gurney can go through even though complications were exceedingly rare or admitting privilege requirements, which said that clinics or providers had to have backup at a hospital, even though, again, complications are rare. and that hospitals in their emergency rooms were required to take emergency patients anyway. So all of these laws were not actually about promoting women's health and safety.

Starting point is 00:06:24 They were about making it harder to provide abortion care. And I think that there was this sort of underestimation of how pernicious those laws can be and of the impact that they were having. And so clinics were struggling. In some cases, they were closing down. It was getting harder and harder for patients to access care. And so it did, to me, it felt like this crisis. but it also sort of felt like one that was maybe not widely understood to be a crisis.

Starting point is 00:06:52 And then the 2016 election happened. And all of a sudden, people were really paying attention to and worried about the fate of reproductive rights. And so I think that, you know, obviously there's like a whole bunch of milestone and watershed moments that have occurred that I document in the book. And one of the things that I really enjoyed doing was, you know, both following them forward from that point as I had traced them over the course of my career. So, you know, in 2016, there was also a Supreme Court case that kind of upheld abortion rights and access to abortion. So there's just been these wild swings, but then it was also this opportunity to go back in history and to kind of understand even more deeply how we got here. So looking at the movement

Starting point is 00:07:35 that kind of helped lead to Roe v. Wade in the 70s, but then also how once that legal decision happened, there were immediately efforts to roll back abortion rights. And so it wasn't necessarily, you know, I feel like the history is so in some ways, well, I don't know, it's not linear. Like there's been these ebbs and these flows. And then there's been this kind of tendency, I think, to not believe. Or I think there was this tendency, even among people who work in the movement, that like, Roe will never be lost.

Starting point is 00:08:07 We will have this. And so I think for many people, the 2022 decision, that overturned Roe, Dobbs v. Dex and Women's Health Organization, was a wake-up call for a lot of people. And, you know, in many ways, it's been incredibly devastating and catastrophic for so many reasons. And I also think it has, in some ways, transformed the reproductive rights movement, the abortion access movement. I mean, it really has affected the landscape for activists and people who care about this issue kind of on all sides. And I definitely want to delve into that. I do have a couple questions. I'm trying to, I don't know, the way I had to frame this in my mind is to try

Starting point is 00:08:49 to stick to some of the history and the facts, at least on the onset, because I do have very strong opinions about this. And I don't want this show or this episode to become about my opinion. So when we talk about history of abortion first, when we go way, way, way, way back, abortion has always been a thing. Is that a fair statement to make? Absolutely. And there's so many examples across cultures from all of these different traditions, all these different moments and history of the techniques that people used, whether they were lay people, individuals, whether they were part of a healing tradition. And in some cases, there are commonalities. And there was sort of this, like this ancient Egyptian text, for instance, which is frequently

Starting point is 00:09:37 referenced in the book that talks about a particular kind of like, I don't know, concoction, and I guess you could say that people used as an abortifacian. And there were medical professionals who looked at it and they thought, oh, like there are reasons to think that this might actually been effective. And there are certain plants, you know, a lot of sort of these herbal traditions that will pop up. I mean, obviously it varies some depending on the particular place that you're talking about. But for a long, long, long, long, long time, the idea of ending a pregnancy before what was called the moment of quickening, which is sort of around the time that someone can first feel a fetus move, that wasn't considered

Starting point is 00:10:15 an abortion like we think of it today. And there were all of these euphemisms that were used. I mean, I kind of mostly focused on the ones in the U.S., but it was this idea of bringing back your period, restoring the menzies. Like, it was sort of this idea of regulating this natural menstrual cycle rather than thinking of it as ending a pregnancy. And so this idea that, you know, abortion or early abortion or whatever it is has always been this really abu wrong thing is absolutely untrue. I mean, in the 19th century in America, there was this concerted effort to make it a thing, but it hadn't been. And there were plenty of tradespeople of kind of early pharmaceutical compounders or healers from different traditions back before medicine in the U.S. was formalized

Starting point is 00:11:01 who would advertise in newspapers and they would use euphemisms like some of the ones I was talking about before but I mean they were openly saying you know if you've missed a couple periods like here's this thing that can help bring it back and so it's absolutely true that abortion has always existed it will always exist as long as there are people who can get pregnant there will be people who don't want to be pregnant and we'll look for a solution to figure out how not to be and the question is how easy it is for them to do that how safe it is for them to do that how effective whatever tools that they're using are, but it's not like the idea that you could ever get rid of abortion is just, I mean, it's just not true. I mean, that aligns with what I believe is the idea that

Starting point is 00:11:43 this will ever stop as as anine. And again, correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding was religion and seeing it as ending a pregnancy or killing a baby is sort of a newer concept. This started more in the middle of the last century where it became so much of a talking point as we see today. Again, is that fair? Is that accurate? Yeah, absolutely. You know, religious leaders were a major part of the movement for abortion in the late 60s and in the early 70s. And there, I mean, there's a number of examples of this, but one of them is that there was an organization, kind of a network, a nationwide network called the clergy consultation service on abortion, which was a network of clergy members from across states who were part of this kind of

Starting point is 00:12:32 referral network, I guess you could say, where they would talk with their constituents. I don't know if that's my word for that. That makes it sound political. But they would talk with people who were from their religious communities who came to them and they would refer them to safe and vetted abortion providers. They would help them find it. And they were pretty vocal about why this was important and stepping up and seeing that as a calling.

Starting point is 00:12:53 And I mean, I remember reading some piece of history about how like the Southern Baptist Convention had been, you know, not opposed to abortion during. that time. And so I think a lot of that shift and that deep connection between religion, but really specifically certain strains, I think, of Christianity and opposition to abortion, those really didn't become as closely tethered as we think of them being today until the 80s. And it was a concerted, or maybe late 70s, but it was a concerted effort to link those things together. Okay. Now, and I don't know if we can do this, but when we strip away the politics and the opinions of today, what are some basic facts that people need to know about abortion access

Starting point is 00:13:38 right now? I think the biggest thing that has changed that feels the most relevant and kind of staling it right now is about the arrival of medication, abortion, of abortion pills. And so certainly, you know, I will say at front, abortion pills, medication abortion is not a good option for everyone. There are people who have contraindications. There are people who, that's not their preferred method for whatever reason of managing it. And I believe that all of those people deserve access to, you know, clinical care, in clinic care, whatever procedure is best for them with the medical oversight to the degree that they want it. Like, that absolutely is true. However, there's also no doubting that the arrival of medication abortion has completely transformed what the landscape of

Starting point is 00:14:28 abortion access looks like. And that's not only true in the U.S., but it's it's true abroad. And I would say that the radical potential of medication abortion, we really saw internationally before we even saw that in the U.S. And so, you know, before the Dobbs decision or maybe even before COVID, medication abortion was not like the majority method. It wasn't sort of the most common method. And it has been steadily, steadily climbing. And it has surged in the wake of the Dobbs decision, and during COVID when the FDA's laws on telemedicine abortion changed. So in the U.S. for a long time, you couldn't access the medication outside of a clinic. So all of the barriers that were involved in visiting a clinic were just as true for accessing the abortion pills. During COVID,

Starting point is 00:15:15 the FDA changed its rules, saying that it could be mailed. And so for the first time in the U.S., people were able to access medication abortion mailed to their home. And they could appreciate the convenience, the privacy, the discretion, the kind of control that they had over the process. And I think that that has really shaped in many ways what the post-dobs landscape has looked like. So there are organizations that are protected by shield laws, which are states that laws that blue states have passed that basically say we will protect abortion providers who serve patients who are out of state. And certainly there have been many legal efforts trying to prosecute those doctors.

Starting point is 00:15:57 or bring civil claims against them or stop them from doing that work. But part of the impact of shield laws has been that abortion has gone up since the Dobbs decision. There have been more abortions each year since Dobbs than there were before that. And so I think that ultimately it's the availability of the pills and, of course, sort of the existence of them that's really shaping what abortion access looks like today. I mean, I think it's now one in four abortions happens via telemedicine. And so, you know, certainly there is an incredibly important and robust on the ground grassroots network of people, abortion funds, mutual aid, societies, practical support groups who are helping people travel out of state and out of state travel for abortion care to brick and mortar clinics. You know, the numbers of people traveling has also surge. So that's a really important pathway as well. But, you know, I think, I mean, maybe this is just me with the specific lens of the book. But I absolutely think it's fair to say that these online sources,

Starting point is 00:16:55 for medication abortion are kind of, I think, one of the most influential factors facing the access landscape right now. If you're anything like me, drinking enough water every day sounds great in theory, right up there with getting eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and folding the laundry right away, which is why I found a smarter way to stay hydrated with cure. Cure hydration packs are clean and simple, plant-based electrolytes, no added sugar, and just 25 calories. They hydrate better than water alone, and get this.

Starting point is 00:17:25 actually tastes good. My favorite flavor is lemonade, but they have several great flavors that you can try, which make drinking water feel like less of a chore. They even have a cure hydration variety pack for kids. JJ uses them over long practices or tournament weekends, and honestly, I use them then too, because hauling kids around to all of their activities should qualify as a sport. Listen, staying hydrated isn't just about water. You also need electrolytes. That's why I love cure. It's clean, tastes great, and actually works. And for this is Woman's Work listeners, you can get 20% off your first order at Curehydration.com slash Woman's Work with code Woman's Work. And if you get a post-purchase survey, make sure to let them know you heard about Cure right here. It really helps support the show. Don't just drink more water. Upgrade it with Cure. Get no frills delivered.

Starting point is 00:18:18 Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for $2.50 a month. Learn more at p.c.express.ca. So in the subtitle of your book, you call it an abortion underground. Is this contributing to that? The fact that obviously since Dobbs, the regulation falls to the states, and so you see more people going to other states for care and for access, when you say abortion underground,

Starting point is 00:18:49 is that what you're referring to or is there more to it than that? I am referring to, I think, any channel that is in some way kind of defying, resisting, subverting the laws. And I'm sort of being really careful with my words there because it is 100% legal for people to travel out of state to a state where abortion is legal. So I'm really hesitant to refer to that in any way as an underground activity because it's not an abortion funds in many states. In the book, I focus on one in Texas, they have gotten legal clarity. They have fought and protected that, you know, helping people travel out of state or people's right to travel out of state. Those are constitutionally protected actions. But at the same time, I do think that there's a resonance to this idea of the underground because before Roe, because there wasn't

Starting point is 00:19:43 abortion pills back then, you know, there was nothing you could mail to people for them to self-manage their abortion at home. What the underground did look like were these referral networks. It was like the clergy service I mentioned before or some of the other historical groups I talk about in the book where most of what they were doing was finding abortion providers and helping people figure out how, like helping people find them, figure out how to get to them, giving them ways to stay safe as they were doing it. So there were absolutely these sort of like pipelines and travel channels that people were following in a way that I do think is somewhat evocative of the way that out-of-state travel is functioning today. So again, abortion funds and the work that they do,

Starting point is 00:20:21 out-of-state travel fully legal, but there is some connection to what the kind of the pathways were before Roe. I was just going to reiterate, you know, this idea that it is absolutely legal to travel out of state and out of the country for medical care. We see people will do it all the time. And even for like, what's the word, not necessary medical care, like I know several people who've traveled out of state to get plastic surgery or who've gone out of the country for cancer treatment or what have you. So I think because there's this stigma around it that sometimes it seems like it's illegal, but I'm so glad that you reiterated that part. Well, and I also think there's so much fearmongering around it, right? I mean, Texas has tried to pass these kind of highway

Starting point is 00:21:08 laws that are saying that like you can't travel on certain local jurisdictions, like you can't trying to say you can't travel on certain roads for the purpose of accessing an abortion. So like there's been a lot of attempts to confuse and muddy the waters. And then with, laws that say like aid and a bet if you help someone have an abortion, people are really confused on what that means and does that include someone going out of state? So I think that it's important to recognize both the very intentional campaign of obfuscation that has happened to make people confused and scared. I mean, it's this chilling effect, right? But you can travel to a state where abortion is legal and access an abortion. The other thing that I was going to say

Starting point is 00:21:45 just about kind of with regards to the underground is that one of the really revolutionary things that the arrival of medication abortion did, of abortion pills, is it decoupled legality and safety in a way? Because it used to be that illegal abortion was synonymous with unsafe abortion. And so a lot of what the activism was was trying to make illegal abortion safer in the years before Roe, but it was dangerous, right? I mean, there were unscrupulous providers, there were unhygienic conditions. People could get robbed or sexually assaulted as they accessed abortion care. There were so many complications from unsafe abortion that hospitals had wards called infected OB. But medication abortion is extremely safe and effective. Decades and decades of research shows this. And it's safe

Starting point is 00:22:29 and effective when people manage it outside of a clinical environment. And so what that has meant is that you can access an illegal abortion safely. And it has meant that there are countries that have abortion bans where abortion is actually pretty accessible. And it is meant that there are countries where abortion is legal, but because of kind of the whole regulatory infrastructure around it, it's more difficult to access. And so it really changed all of these boundaries and these category lines. And there are all of these examples, which I chart in the book, of countries of activists and countries that have used medication abortion and different ways of helping people, you know, access it and figure out how to take it safely, that have then gone on to

Starting point is 00:23:10 change the laws. I think Argentina is a great example of this. Ireland is a great example of this where there was a way in which medication abortion was so ubiquitous, even though it wasn't legal, that it led to, it led to legal change. And so bringing that kind of to the U.S., I think that, you know, an organ, like the shield law providers, like I was talking about before, an organization like eight access, which is the largest kind of network of shield law providers. Again, you know, this term underground does it apply to them? They're certified prescribers, prescribing FDA-approved medication. Everything they're doing is a board, but they are challenging abortion bans. And I do think that there's sort of an underground

Starting point is 00:23:52 component to that insofar as kind of underground, to me, evokes this mode of resistance. And then I guess the final category are these community support networks, which I think you could solidly refer to them as underground, because these are really people who are sourcing the medication outside of FDA-approved channels. They have their own supply chain. And people can contact them through an encrypted kind of contact form requesting the medication, and they will mail it to them for free. And so that really is kind of, I think, the way that these modern underground networks and sort of the purest sense of the word underground are operating, which is to say, like, there's no, you know, it's outside of these legal boundaries. This is all fascinating. And

Starting point is 00:24:36 obviously medication is making a big difference. But there are going to be people or circumstances where we will still need clinics or doctors to perform abortions, how do we make sure that that remains a priority while also supporting a safe and easier option? You know, doctors will always be necessary. Abortion providers, brick and mortar clinics will always be necessary. I mean, there are those reasons that I touched on before of why medication isn't a good option for everyone, but then there's also people who have complications.

Starting point is 00:25:13 later in pregnancy that are threatening to the maternal health care or there's some sort of a fetal abnormality that comes up on a scan, right? And so, I mean, even people who are very much having wanted pregnancies will encounter situations or complications in which the care that is needed to save their lives or preserve their fertility or are necessary for them to make the best decision for their family is abortion care. And people can, you know, sometimes this can sort of get semantic, but miscarriage management is abortion care. It's the same. And so I think that something that's so important to understand is that abortion bans make pregnancy more dangerous for everyone. And there are all of these lawsuits. I mean, there was a really kind of a big one in Texas

Starting point is 00:25:59 that was helmed by a plaintiff named Amanda Zerwaski. I hope I'm saying her name right. But she had a really life-threatening pregnancy complication and was extremely ill. And the hospital couldn't intervene to save her life until she was, you know, how close to death store. And that ultimately had an impact on her fertility. Her life was at risk because they couldn't intervene. She was having a wanted pregnancy. And so it's just if you have a society where people are getting pregnant, which like, again, just like with abortion, that's never not going to exist, you have to have doctors and clinics and nurses and providers who are equipped to provide this kind of care because so many people need it in lots of different situations. And I think that, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:39 ultimately, as I talk about in my first book, we have a maternal health crisis in this country already. Maternal mortality is by there have been studies that have been happening in states with abortion bans that have looked at increased rates of maternal mortality, of infant mortality, of increased racial disparities and maternal health outcomes. All of this is being exacerbated by these abortion bans. And so, you know, I think that it's critical to have both clinics and, you know, ways to get people to them that is affordable and, you know, that sort of is a real option for them, right?

Starting point is 00:27:16 The farther the distance are, the harder that is. That's important because people should absolutely have the choice over how they end their pregnancy. I mean, not only whether they do, but how. And like I said before, medication, abortion, not a good fit for everyone. But it's also important because we are always going to need clinicians who know how to provide this type of care, no matter where you are or what your belief system. is. And so these kinds of laws, they put everyone's health at risk.

Starting point is 00:27:43 So you already answered this, but I was going to ask the question if it's true being a first world country. And I know a lot of Americans are proud to be American. And yet, this is an area where we fall behind quite a bit, right? The maternal care, the maternal deaths that are happening. We're not the best when it comes to this. Fair? Absolutely. We're one of, I believe it's three or four countries. And the last time I looked up the statistic was maybe a year or two ago, so this might be a little bit outdated, but it certainly hasn't gotten better here. They're one of the only countries where our maternal mortality rates have been getting worse.

Starting point is 00:28:19 That's pretty shocking. And so even in countries where their overall rates of maternal mortality and morbidity might be higher than ours, but their trajectory is different, right? They're moving towards something better, which we are not. And so it's something that I think, I think so often maternal health care and abortion care are treated as some sort of like diametrically opposed thing, but they're not. They're so intimately, intricately, kind of inextricably, all the vocabulary words related. And so, you know, of course, I've really been able to see that through the course of reporting both of these books. But I think that we are in the midst of a maternal health crisis that already existed, but is only getting worse and has continued to get worse because of the abortion bans. I mean, in Idaho, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, they've had a mass exodus of OBGYNs. Something like one in five OBGYNs has left the state. Rural health, you know, rural hospitals are closing, which means that people who live in rural areas are having a harder time getting care. So it's like it's all feeding each other, you know. Well, and I just want to read.

Starting point is 00:29:29 reiterate that that makes it less safe for women to be pregnant in Idaho. That's what we're saying here, right? Like, for saying that we care so much about babies and the care of pregnant women, this is contrary. This flies in the face of all of that. Absolutely. There's a piece of reporting that it's not my own reporting. It was I read it in an article and I cite it in the book, but that women in Idaho are increasingly getting airlift insurance because if they're facing, a life-threatening pregnancy complication, they do not trust that they will be able to get timely, urgent care that they need

Starting point is 00:30:06 in the state that they live. And so they're taking out extra insurance to make sure they can be airlifted someplace else. I mean, that is wild. With the time that we have left, and you've already done a few of these, I was hoping we could challenge some of the myths. So, for example, a myth being that if we make abortion illegal,

Starting point is 00:30:25 that there will be less of it or none of it. And you already said this, but abortions have increased since Dobbs in 2022. We mentioned a few others that abortion care is just about people who don't want to have babies as opposed to women who have health complications or, you know, need to make the choice of how to for their own life and the safety. What are a couple other myths that you would challenge based on your experience and research? I think one important one is that a majority of people who have abortions,

Starting point is 00:30:58 They already have children. I think there's this myth that it's sort of people, I don't know, being selfish and careless or something. Right. And it's young, single people who are using it as birth control as opposed to. Totally. And so from the data, we know that that's not true. I believe it's 60% of abortion patients already have a child, you know, at least one. And I also know that anecdotally, right? I mean, over the past 10 years, I've spent how many hours, I've interviewed how many people about their experiences seeking abortion care. And that myth has never once been sort of anything that I have seen validated in any of that reporting. So yeah, I think that that's an important one. And I think for a lot of abortion seekers, part of their decision-making process

Starting point is 00:31:40 is that they want to be the best possible parent to the children that they have. And so I just think that's important to recognize that it's like it can be part of a very responsible and carefully thought out parenting choice. So I think that's important. I know I've said this, but I think another one is the idea that medication abortion is unsafe. And I'm specifically saying that because there is this ongoing, I mean, I think it was just today or maybe yesterday that the Health and Human Services Department announced that they were going to be doing some sort of additional review of Mitha Pristone, which is one of the two drugs that's part of the medication abortion regimen. And this is something that anti-abortion activists have been trying to do for a long time.

Starting point is 00:32:20 They've been trying to claim that Mitha Pristone is unsafe and that it should be reevaluated. So if a Christian was initially approved by the FDA in the year 2000, but it was initially approved in France in the late 80s. And so even to get it approved in the U.S. was this decade-plus-long battle that I do document some in the book where there was all of this evidence about the safety and efficacy of this medication, but there was so much politics involved in getting it approved in the first place. And so it was like this huge battle and there had to be so much data about its safety to get it approved in the year 2000. in the year since then, there's only been more data showing its safety and efficacy. And so the idea that it needs additional reviewer study is ridiculous. And, you know, it's sort of like not a coincidence that I think it was like RFK Jr. who said something about if there's new evidence, maybe then we would review Mithephystone.

Starting point is 00:33:16 And then I think the next day there was some conservative think tank that came out with a paper, not scientifically valid. I mean, just sort of like this ERSAT scientific paper that said, oh, like, actually, here's the real data. And I mean, so there's this very concerted effort to try to claim that this medication is not safe. And that is just an absolute myth. It's not true. I think the danger is that we have made this particular topic a right or left issue. And my anecdotal experience is, and I have been very fortunate to not have to have made this choice.

Starting point is 00:33:57 But I have been part of several women's choice in both directions, whether to have a baby or not have a baby. And what has been interesting is the women have fallen on both sides of the political spectrum. And I don't know if we can challenge this myth in a way, but this doesn't feel like a left or right. This feels like a choice issue. This feels like an equity issue. This feels like a freedom issue for women in society to me. Any thoughts or reactions on that? Where to start? I think one is, I know that from my own reporting and life as well, that people from lots of different faith backgrounds and political backgrounds have abortions. And there's also, you know, data about this that like people who identify as some of the religious kind of faiths that are more associated with being anti-abortion,

Starting point is 00:34:50 don't have fewer abortions than people from other religious backgrounds. Like, there is data, there is evidence to reflect that. I also have interviewed plenty of clinical providers over the years who have treated patients who were protesting outside their clinic, came in to get an abortion, and then went back to protesting outside their clinic. And I think a thing that can happen sometimes is that people think, oh, well, I'm opposed to this in theory. And then they're faced with a situation in their own life, that makes them feel differently about their own decision, I guess. Maybe you could say. And so ultimately, I think that it's important to remember that you can be someone who would never choose or thinks you would never choose to have an abortion. But why that means that you should

Starting point is 00:35:32 generalize that to anyone else who might not feel the same way is a question that I have never gotten a good answer for. I have never been able to understand. If you oppose abortion, don't have an abortion. Like, that feels fairly straightforward to me. But imposing that or trying to impose that or past moral judgment on other people for making a different decision, I just, I still have a hard time understanding. And I think that it's okay for it to be a complicated decision. It's okay for it to be an uncomplicated decision. I mean, there are people who just like, this is what I want and they do it and they know it's what they need, and that's fine. There are also people who really struggle and wrestle with the decision and that's okay too and I think that there has been maybe within the the pro-choice movement or

Starting point is 00:36:17 the reproductive rights movement there has been this reluctance historically kind of to allow space for that because it seems like it's then opening the door to this narrative I don't know that people sort of don't really could never sort of want an abortion or it contributes to stigma and so I think that that has made it tough sometimes for people to recognize that they have complicated feelings or they're struggling through their decision I think we have to be able to create space for that. And I think abortion providers also do this. Like when people are going in for their appointments, providers talk with people. They counsel them. They talk with them about, you know, let's go through this. Like they're not sort of in this situation where you walk into a clinic and like

Starting point is 00:36:56 you have to continue down that path. I mean, I've been in rooms where providers are having those conversations. So anyway, all of this is just to say that it's okay for it to be complicated. It's also okay for it not to be complicated. But that ultimately doesn't mean that even if it is complicated and someone does decide to have an abortion and that it's the wrong decision. And there's this huge study. I know I've talked a lot about studies, but I'm a journalist. I always want to be like, there's evidence. But the turnaway study, which was by an academic out of the University of California, San Francisco, her name's either Diana Green Foster or Diana Foster Green. I'm so sorry at the top of my head. I can't remember which order. But it's surveyed tens of thousands of women about their

Starting point is 00:37:32 abortion and those who were unable to get an abortion. And this is another myth, is that people regret their abortions. People do not regret their abortions. People, even if they're struggling with it afterwards generally feel relief and the sense of freedom. And so ultimately, it's the most intimate individual decision a person can make. And I really don't think that anybody except for the individual and who they choose to let into their decision-making process really needs to have an opinion. Agreed. I'll just add it's okay for you, you meaning anyone, to be firm on what your choice would be without transferring. that to everybody else. I think for me, it's caring less about what other people's choices are and more

Starting point is 00:38:17 about that we have the opportunity to make that choice. That is the basis of freedom and responsibility and all the things we claim to hold dear. And as I said at the beginning, the hill I'm willing to die on though I hope I don't have to die. Rebecca, thank you for the very important work that you're doing for writing both of these books and for being here today. So again, I just want to reiterate, the book is called Access. Get it on Amazon or wherever you buy books or go to your local bookstore. Let's keep them in business. Rebecca's website is rebecca ggrant.com. We're going to put her links every way to find and follow her as well as a link to get the book in show notes. Rebecca, thank you. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation. I appreciate you having me

Starting point is 00:39:03 on. Me too. Okay. Friend, here is where I land. We can debate politics. We can disagree on policies. We can rant about the hypocrisy and we can fight about the details. But underneath it all, the thread that ties this podcast together, the thing that ties women's work together is choice. Choice is the foundation. It's the starting line, the through line, and the finish line, the freedom to decide what is right, true, and real for you about your body, your career, your relationships, your future. Without it, we cannot be free or have equity. And if we're serious about rewriting the rules, torching the supposed to's and shedding the shoulds, and trust me, I am serious about that. Then we have to protect and fight for the one thing that makes all of it possible.

Starting point is 00:39:49 Your right, my right, our right to choose. Redefining woman's work isn't about giving the same answer or following the same path. It's about claiming the right to choose your own. Simply put, choice isn't part of the definition. It is the definition. This is woman's work. Thank you.

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Access, Agency & The Abortion Underground with Rebecca Grant | 358

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.