Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Beyond the Stigma: A Candid Convo on Abortion, Reproductive Health, and Personal Choice

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

In this episode of Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex with Dr. Sue & Charlie, Dr. Sue and Charlie dive into the complex and often misunderstood topic of abortion as healthcare. Tackling societal conditioning and pervasive myths, they shed light on the impact of restrictive reproductive laws, the importance of comprehensive sex education, and why access to contraception is crucial for real choice in reproductive health. Dr. Sue and Charlie break down the misleading claims behind recent restrictive laws and policies, exposing how medical inaccuracies shape public perception and policy. They explore the stark realities of maternal mortality in the United States, and the profound effects of restrictive abortion laws on families and quality of life. Through a compassionate and clear discussion, they emphasize that reproductive choices are deeply personal and should not be politicized. Dr. Sue and Charlie encourage listeners to protect their privacy by deleting period-tracking data (except for Euki), seek reliable health resources, and challenge misinformation. Wrapping up, they invite listeners to share the episode, join the conversation, and consider what it means to empower individuals to make informed choices about their bodies. If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestions

Hey everyone, welcome to Unzipping Taboo's Candid Conversations About Sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to dive into the topics of sex and sexuality that you might be curious about but don't always feel comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversation. So zip down and let's get candid. In today's episode, we are going to be focusing on abortion is healthcare. So before you all turn away because you heard the word abortion, stick with us, please. First, hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. Would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself before we get started? Yeah. So I'm primarily a sexuality educator. I'm also an

author and I speaker and I do all lots of things. But I think for this one, I want to dive back a little further in my history because I started a lot of my work in reproductive health clinics, most of which didn't actually provide abortions, but that didn't stop us from getting threats. So I have that boots on the ground experience that I'm probably going to be drawing from. But I've been working in the field for a couple of decades now, and I've seen how things have changed, some better, some worse. And so we're going to kind of try to balance out some misinformation, but also talk about what people are experiencing. Because I think this is one of those times where stories are just as important as numbers. But that's me. But now we have to talk

about you. So for those of you who are just tuning in for the first time, interesting choice of episode. But this is my curious co-host, Charlie, who's always ready to explore the ins and outs of sex, relationship, and all those taboo topics that we rarely talk about. Do you want to give us a little more information? Sure. Dr. Sue and I have been friends for many, many years. And for us, no topic has been off limits. And so especially by virtue of Dr. Sue's background, we just found that we were having these kind of these candid conversations together. And I am someone who traditionally, who enjoys challenging traditions, expectations, and the societal norms of my role in society as a, as a woman. So that being, joining you as your co-host on this podcast was

a welcome call. I'm so glad we started this so many months ago. So, so I just want to give people little an idea of kind of how we come up with our show topics because I feel like if you listen to them in order it's kind of like what is going on here and for the first 10 that we've put out which were well past so for those of you listening for the first time you have homework we really want to do some foundational stuff because so much of that guides the rest of what we're going to talk about and then we sat down and we said what do we need to talk about that people don't get a chance to talk about and so we start having some of those conversations we start coming up with topics and then we just kind of start having conversations offline about well

what's next and where do we have to go and the topic of abortion is one that we kept coming back to because it is one of those topics that we don't usually see like an open honest conversation about when right when charlie when you said abortion at the very beginning and then made the joke of like don't turn us off um people as soon as you heard that word folks you have a thought or two and so when we were getting ready for today's show it was one of those things that i've realized i think i've always realized this but as poor as our sex ed is in this country and we did a whole episode on that already even in the places where it's great they're not talking about abortion so if If you don't know what it is and how it works and the ins and outs of it and the information and how to learn what you don't know, you're not going to get it there.

If you're lucky and you go to a college course where you get it, you're going to get it there. But otherwise, it's just what you can get from conversation or from the Internet. And so we really did want to make sure we tackled this in one of the early episodes. But if it seems like it's out of place, it's because we really think this is one of those, that groundwork that we still need to lay. It is one of those top taboo topics around sex and sexuality. And I would add on as far as not really learning about the ins and outs. If you do learn about abortion in a sex ed class, in a junior high class, or a high school class, it is very likely charged with messaging. especially depending on the type of school that you go to if you were if you went to a private

school a private religious school there could have been just subliminal messaging that you received surrounding um surrounding abortion and reproductive health based on the environment that you were going that your education was structured under so i want to add that cap that caveat as well, because I know, um, our listeners come from a variety of different backgrounds. Um, and so there's that level of here's, here's my thing, social conditioning, um, that you need to pay attention to when you are receiving information, who's the source, who's giving you the messaging, what is their motivation to give you that messaging and that information and are they giving they may be giving you the breadth of options for pregnancy

but they'll maybe spend a little bit more time and use positive language surrounding adoption versus abortion so i just wanted to add that yeah and sometimes i think it's a familial thing too because i know that in the very rare times i do a lot of speaking with folks who are 16 over and the very rare times where abortion comes up because it is not usually something i'm talking to people 16 over about um but when we do talk to them about maybe conversations they're having with the younger generations it's it's always a like we don't like there's this look on their face if we don't we don't talk about this in public and so if you if you are in a situation where you're trying to talk to family members about what to do it may not seem like a safe

place to do it so you may turn to friends and online to get information and so we just want to be that place where we can have an open dialogue about it yes as we said at the top of the show no judgment no judgment so now that we've laid that foundation for the episode dr sue i'm going to i know i feel like that was like the super heaviest foundation we've ever done before. And I'm like, no different. Yeah. So where, where shall we start? I think we need to start with what the word actually is. That's a great point because I have found in personal conversations that are not with you, especially with, I know it's shocking that I talk to people that don't have a microphone in front of them.

Um, but that is that is exactly where I start the conversation, especially if I'm talking with someone who has a differing opinion, you know, starting a conversation with, OK, let's make sure we are operating from the same definition and not the PR definition is kind of how I phrase it. So with that, yeah, I think it's really important that we're actually talking about the difference between an abortion where a person is taking steps to have one done and a spontaneous abortion, because technically a spontaneous abortion is a miscarriage. But we often don't use that word because the word abortion comes with so much baggage. And it's interesting because for years when I when I talk about abortion in my classes, I always start with let me clean up my language. When I use the word abortion, I'm not talking about a miscarriage. And I used to make comments like because we don't pass laws about that. And unfortunately, that's not true anymore. We are seeing states where they are trying to criminalize women having miscarriages or stillbirth. And that is not something people can control. but we are seeing an uptick in how many prosecutors are trying to go after women for having miscarriages and stillbirths. So when we're talking about abortion today, I believe that we're both talking about not that. Correct. Okay. And I think it's important to talk

about what that looks like in the U.S. today. We do know we have a few folks who turn in from overseas, so we do want to give a shout out to you. We cannot possibly do a show on abortion worldwide. I think that's a little outside our thing. So we are going to focus on the U.S., but we do appreciate you listening. For the U.S., I think a lot of folks have this idea that abortions, like you go down to a place and you have it like you have a surgical procedure. And for some folks, that is what it looks like. But the majority of abortions in the U.S. now are done medical abortions, which are by pills. And it may be doctor prescribed or it may be that they're getting them online and having it mailed to them so there is we actually have a lot less data now

than we used to because we used to have data on people going to clinics assuming that they were recording that data because even even with when it was legal there were still places and times where they may not have been recording all the information now with people doing this in the privacy of their own home we don't necessarily know as much about it so i want to i want to call out that when we're talking about abortion we may not be talking about having a surgical procedure done we may be talking indeed about people who are taking pills and managing it in their safety of their own spaces that's a that's a great acknowledgement to have um i would i'm also curious as to you know so much talk so much of the um discourse around this in media and political

politically charged um circles you know there's a lot of fear-mongering um and i think there was even talk uh you know certain messaging out there that a woman could go at nine months and and get an abortion and i've and i've heard in those conversations where i'm discussing it with people who um who identify themselves aligned with the pro-life movement my argument there is no woman makes a decision to carry a child to term and at the h hour says you know what i i'm good i changed my mind that's they're also not going to do the procedure they're gonna they're gonna deliver the baby they're gonna induce labor they're gonna

deliver the baby um so so yeah i just i think i want i'm trying to i think segue this into what we know as far as demographically are there cases where abortion access actually helps families or helps the mother um do you want is there anything we can speak to around that there there's so much around that um we need to keep in mind that the majority of abortions and when I say a majority I usually don't do numbers because again we don't always know now with the changing of how they're ever evolving right but from what we do know from the from the numbers that we do have the vast majority and when I say that I mean over 90 percent of abortions are being done in like the first 13 weeks people are not waiting if if there is any kind of issue with an

abortion later like after 20 weeks we're looking at the fetus is already dead and it's just being delivered so she doesn't have to carry around a dead fetus or her life is so at risk that they need to do something to protect her so these cases of and i've heard those two those stories and those stories just don't accurately reflect what people are going through right women who often choose to have abortions and again and i want to keep stressing this because i know we're going to get someone who goes well that's not true i'm going off the numbers and what we know and i'm acknowledging what we don't know because we people are doing this in a private way that had not been done before but the majority of women who sorry not the majority i think it's

somewhere around 40 something percent don't quote me on that um we'll go with 40 i like round numbers. 40% of women who are pregnant and have an abortion that we know about are actually below the federal poverty level. And so having a baby is not cheap. And if you're already struggling to feed the mouths in the household, bringing another human into the household is a challenge. And for those of you who are unaware, I do actually want to give this number because I happen to have it in front of me. For the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia, the federal poverty level for one person is below $15,000 a year. So when we're talking about at least a third of folks who are having abortion are below that, it is really for the good of the mother. And if she

does have a child already, so let's say there's two in the household, we're looking at a poverty guideline of $20,000. It is sometimes the most effective way to help protect the children you already have to make sure you continue to feed them and get them medical care. And if it's a child that is potentially being born into an unhealthy relationship where there's violence, if it's because she got pregnant because she was not allowed to use contraception, there are times where women may be making the decision to try to protect themselves and not bring a child into a relationship that's unhealthy and possibly um possibly uh violent and so when you're talking about kind of for the good of all the other folks who may be in the household i'm

not sure if that's where you are going but that's kind of that's part of it absolutely that's part of it and i think that kind for me that that branches into my position around the modern pro-life movement that it is pro-birth because if we're pro-life we are pro-living people we are pro the mother's life we are pro the children's lives that exist and so really what what I interpret the modern pro-life movement to mean is pro-birth and and controlling population growth all of the like all of these kind of long-term tangible things and so that it just when you look at the whole picture of life because once that child is born And there are many memes out there that kind of point to this, right? If the, you know, if the child, if the pregnancy you save comes out and is trans or homosexual or any number of all not mainstream accepted identities or poor or to a single mother or.

right um are you still gonna advocate and for that life as it's living and that's i mean that's been an argument first i have to say i'm not a fan of the pro-life term because i agree with you i do think it really is pro-birth because we very often turn our backs and when i say we i mean i mean policy and us as a larger group we oftentimes turns our backs on like helping them with wick and with getting them access to medical care. I'm also not a huge fan. So those are some of the first programs cut in budget. Right.

In the budget, right? I'm also not a huge fan of the term pro-choice because to me that's an incredibly limiting, it's just limiting to me. And I see too many examples where people say they're pro-life here, but I'm not pro-life there, or I'm pro-choice here and not pro-choice there. So I do want to own that.

I actually don't love any of the terminology around it. What I find really fascinating is that people who are pro-life, and we'll use that term pro-life, not pro-birth here, because I do know people who really do believe that they are protecting the sanctity of this potential human being. The thing that I think we can all agree on, regardless of the side that you're on, is that we would like no person to be in that position where they have to make that decision. And that's where I've always gotten stuck. because if if everyone can agree that we would rather people not be in a position where they need to make a decision about abortion why are we not doing more to prevent that and that's easy to do well nothing there are there are improvements that could be made for that yeah yeah comprehensive sex ed k to 12 by trained teachers i know i'm going to piss off my teachers when i say that

but by trained teachers you know what they're doing access to contraception because we don't know what's going to happen now with affordable care because right now contraception unless you work for certain employers is covered if you take away people's access to contraception they're not going to stop having sex so if you really want to stop people from having abortions we should be doing more to stop them from getting pregnant easy access to contraception free access to contraception comprehensive sexual education and i think that's where i get stuck if we're all agreeing like we'd rather not people be in the situation where they need to make this decision why like where's the impetus to do more to prevent that and i think all sides don't do a good job

on that argument because they're because the focus is on the other side and not the main issue yeah right it's about being right instead of you know what how can we combine our intellectual forces, to your point, to promote preventative measures and not procedures, but like medication and information and all of those things that will prevent someone being in the position to have to make a very hard decision. I think that's just kind of my other issue broadly with how this issue is talked about especially i i mean it is a continued way to vilify women in my opinion um you know a woman in the span of a year and dr sue i this is this is me speaking anecdotally so i'm i welcome correction in the span of a consecutive 12 months a woman can give birth

once ah see that's why i said no technically twice okay you really i mean it's like an 11 month separation like you're coming down to the final month okay i've always heard the term irish twins to be like two kids born within the same year so within the same year or within the same of each other okay but so rare so rare so we'll wear that most okay okay mostly yeah well we'll do uh what is that the um the drudge report or just like liar liar pants on fire like the fact checking anyway sidebar on that anyway um so that is so rare whereas a man can father more than two in the span of 12 months he could he could become i mean he could get as many women pregnant in a day as he could theoretically ejaculate and have enough sperm

to do it exactly yes so the and audience this is me speaking as me um this the whole conversation and regulation around abortion access is a way to vilify and control the humans that can give birth. There is absolutely some misogyny going on there. But at the same time, I want to point out, because I have heard about women who want to get their tubes tied because they know relatively young, they don't want to, for whatever reason they don't want to be a parent they have medical conditions that would make it difficult or risk their own lives or whatever it doesn't really matter what their reasons are

and doctors will not perform the procedure i have also i have friends who are men who have not met as much resistance but who still were told to think about it and come back and so so yes a lot of what we're seeing right now is is based in misogyny and sexism but There are men who have tried to get their tubes tied in their 30s and have been told no. Yeah. So it does exist for everybody. It does. It does. But largely the regulation and legislation that is codified, the responsibility is put on the person that can give birth. Yes, 100%. And I bring that up because in the last 24 hours, I've had one person reach out to me and say, where can I get a vasectomy? I'm a younger man, but I know I don't want to have kids. And like, we have to sit there and try to figure out where. So I do want to point out that it is not just women that we are limiting access to health care to.

No, absolutely. Yeah, there is. There is always that that kind of judgment from. And that's that's a lot of what it is in spaces. You know, I did. I had friends who are same sex couple. They wanted to have a child. They had enlisted a surrogate and the surrogate was, you know, 36. and um the attorney representing the couple had this take on their surrogate about well how does she know that she doesn't want to have children of her own i met my husband when i was 40 and so there's that layer so it's not just doctors you know it's anybody in this child care child space, child regulation space, that there is that layer of their own experience and their own perspective that you wind up having to navigate where really it should be neutral and just the facts about the decision you're making. And maybe you give them a 24-hour like, is this what you really want?

but not because like oh I had this experience and I'm so glad I didn't you know it's just in for it's like a cooling off period like a lemon law you know essentially um bad bad analogy this is gonna be a little bit of a clumsy episode but you know what I mean it just is get just the facts do what you need to do to make the decision and if you've done all of that there there should be very minimal are you sure yeah so there's there's like taking notes because there's like 18 things that just came up i feel like i say this every episode there's like 18 things that came up so one of the problems that i think we have and i want to make sure i'm owning my statements i think one of the problems that we have is that we do see women's purpose in this

country as being moms and so much of what we do is this idea of well you may want to be at one point Like you don't know what's going to happen. And I don't know if you've ever read the book Eat, Pray, Love, but there's a quote in there that says something about the fact that becoming a parent is kind of like getting a tattoo on your face. You better be pretty damn sure it's what you want. and there are women who are just like this is this is not what i want i know i'll never want it you know maybe i'll be happy to adopt or if someone has kids of their own i'll be happy to become a step-parent but it is so much of what we do comes from this idea that that women are supposed to be mothers and so we don't allow that space a lot of times um for this idea that it might not be true so that was thought one do you have anything to say no thought two connected in my head but also not connected um i'm trying to figure out which one i want i think we're going to totally change

direction when i go into one of these the waiting period i kind of want to talk about the waiting period issue yeah um because we assume that folks can get i know what you were saying about like take some time and think about the decision but i've heard this with abortion and here's the thing i'm poor i'm working one job maybe two to try to make ends meet i go to the doctor and i'm told i have to come back the next day i may not be able to take the second day off work i may be traveling 50 to 100 miles to get to the provider in the first place although telehealth is is is a thing but and if i do have a kid i had to find child care and and so i i've heard people say oh well just have them wait a day and it's a very privileged it is a very privileged way of looking

at it i may not have i may be able to get a car for one day to get to where i need to go but otherwise i rely on mass transit and i can't go out 50 miles to the person for the second time so i just want to throw i know i know what you were saying about like they think about it but i i also become really concerned when we make that part of the process agreed yeah yeah um i want to throw out there changing subjects again yes i i've i've worked with a lot of women who've who've made a lot of different decisions i've worked with women who had the abortion and they don't regret the decision to have an abortion they regret that they were in that position the first time because this idea that women are like traumatized for years and years

and years and their psychological distress like if there's a study about it it wasn't very a good one the majority of data say that most women come to come to peace some i'm sure do struggle i the women i've met who've had abortions it's more like i wish i hadn't have had to go through that but i did there are women who have the abortion they're like yep it's the best thing for me at the time and let's move on I've met women who decided to keep their kids and those kids are like the light of their life and the the best thing that's ever happened to them and I've I've worked with women who had the kid and they hate that kid and the kid knows it and there's an unhealthy yeah we talk about not being able to grow and thrive so but I've never of all

the women I've met in in the work that I've done over literally decades in this field I've never met the woman who was like, well, I'm pregnant. Didn't want to be. Yeah. Abortion. I've never met that woman who made the decision lightly. I have never met that. Yeah. I've never met that decision who the woman who didn't struggle with it, even if they knew it was what was best for them. There was never that. Yeah. Let's do this. Like maybe eventually they got there because they realized it was what was best for them or healthiest for them. But I've never met that woman who made that decision lightly. Yeah. And I, I think we need to make space for that. And I feel like you've been agreeing, so I want to give you, I think that's, I think that's a great

thing to, uh, a great topic to, or again, being clumsy, but that's important to highlight because by the time they walk through those doors, they're the amount of time and energy that they have spent thinking about getting to this decision. It's to your point. It's not that they said, oh, I'm pregnant. I know I don't want to have this kid. This is what I'm going to do. That's not that's not what happens typically.

And and again, by the time that they are walking through those doors, filling out the paperwork, getting ready, it's just in the case of medical abortions. um you know they could be getting the or the surgical abortions and they could be opting for medical abortions but there's i don't know of any woman where we've talked about this where they said oh yeah 100 i knew that if i was going to get pregnant that was going to be my decision yeah that's not that is in my experience again that has never been this story and if it is you if you're the and we're not saying those and if you're the exception please that's that's great too that's good too there's there there are those exceptions there are those things where you you

could have done everything to mitigate the pregnancy or not but you knew from if you ever got a positive test that that was going to be your decision um and that that is your decision that is your choice that is your body that is what you are entitled to do and if you are on this earth yes and if you are a woman and and this is you that we're describing like you knew because i do know people who have genetic conditions that if they get pregnant they are like 100 sure they couldn't carry the term and it would just be this very traumatic until we got to that point who are like if I get pregnant I would probably abort but if you are that woman who is 100% comfortable with kind of how that decision is made if you're comfortable reaching out to us

we always have in the show description how to reach out to us I'd love to have a conversation with you maybe not on live on air but just to get a sense of what that was like for you yeah but that's not most people and here's the thing that kills me about the six-month bands that are out there um most women don't know that they're and i'm using the term woman and i do want to clean up my language for a second six month or six week six weeks do i say month yeah whoops no correct that yeah where's my kind of button six weeks six weeks six weeks yeah i do want to correct my language i know we're saying female a lot i know a couple of times you've said people who can get pregnant folks who do not identify as female can get pregnant and we we

want to own that. I'm going to keep using female because it's easier language. And this is already a tough conversation. I do want to acknowledge that you may not identify as female and you may be pregnant and in a situation where you're trying to figure out what's going on. Also, what I've noticed from students, because I do do community presentations or I did a lot more before COVID, but when I would say woman, people be like, no, no, no, you mean girls. I'm like, no, no, no. I mean, women, the majority of women who have an abortion in this country. And this is true, a majority like over 50 are actually in their 20s so i do want to clean up that language a bit i do know that there are girls who have abortions before the age of 18 statistically there are not

that many i do know that there are older women who have abortions again statistically not that that many but i i want to clean up our language on that just a little bit yeah i think that's important yeah so the six week six week six week ban six week ban heartbeat bills who don't you No, you have to go and use that term. And now I'm going to take even more notes. Hold on. Because that's medically inaccurate. The thing about the six-week ban is that most women do not realize they're pregnant until about four or five weeks in.

Because it's like you were saying before. it's the i'm not ready for this decision i don't want to be there it's not like woman misses her period and the next day she's doing a pregnancy test it's the oh maybe it was maybe it was something i ate or you know there's this panic period and then you're like okay i guess i'm gonna have to address it so then you go and you get the home pregnancy test and then you maybe even wait a day or two after you get the pregnancy test because you're like any second now yeah yeah or maybe you want to get to the clinic but but now you have to wait another week to get into the clinic and and and that's the concern about the six-week bans is that

a lot of women and we don't have the numbers a lot of women don't know they're pregnant and by the time they're figuring out they're pregnant they've missed that six-week window right so that's again that's part of that concern if if we're trying to take care of women as humans if we're trying to take care of humans and let them human life human life and let them make the best decisions for them given their circumstances their body their medical records their their medical conditions we've now taken away that ability because of an arbitrary six week number so yeah because yeah because because of i you know there there's a lot of talk out there with some of this legislation that has been passed that it's people making decisions

about bodies that they don't understand. And while I can appreciate that argument, I don't think it's entirely true because I think that these legislators are being informed by medical professionals who have, maybe they are doctors and nurses under a religious umbrella and driving this agenda. I mean, I believe that is kind of the birth, no pun intended, of the modern pro-life movement is it was a certain religion, doctors and nurses driving it and using pictures that other doctors and nurses that aligned with them gave them and things like that to promote what and i kind of call it i call it the pr term of pro-life and abortion so this modern understanding or this modern conception again no pro no pun intended um

i know uh this modern take on abortion and what it means so i don't think that Look, legislators, people who enter into the arena politic aren't dumb and they know what they want to advance and they will get information from constituents or people that will either echo what they want to advance or inform them and change their mind and then they start to advance it. so so i don't think it's entirely ignorance on there's a good part of ignorance though i think you're right i think people have an agenda and they're going to want to come in and they're going to push that agenda but if i hear one more elected official talk about women being raped and getting pregnant from it and them saying well their bodies have ways of taking care of that that that's not that's not how that works but i think they they they're savvy enough to say that crap um because they know it's a soundbite and it's gonna make the media cycle yeah because i

think intellectually behind closed doors they effing know better why are you censoring yourself on a show called they fucking know better they're smart enough they're savvy enough they they fucking know the information they do they just know how to play the media cycle and the perception that like oh their bodies they're smart enough they know see and i i so i don't want to get hung up here because i feel like you and i could argue about this for a very long time and we probably will continue um but but we were talking about this actually the other day i was doing a training for teachers on how to teach sex and gender in puberty and the issue of why we should teach boys about menstruation came up and someone brought up the idea that when we send women

astronauts to space so these are some of the smartest people we know who are like the engineers and they send them with like like hundreds hundreds of tampons for like six days it does make me question what they do and don't know about the female body and how it works but that's not legislators. No, but I'm saying that these are very intelligent people. Wow. There's someone's going to take that and run with, well, when you politics, not anyway, I do think that people are responding to soundbites and I do absolutely think that's part of the game, but I do also believe that there is a lack of knowledge when it comes to how human bodies work. Yes. I think there is a general lack of knowledge. I think the people that are driving policy do not have

that lack of knowledge entirely. But general public and many people, I mean, we did a whole episode on the state of sex ed. So there is a deficiency here for our compatriots and information surrounding this. So I want to be clear about that. I do think that there is misunderstanding, missing information um under education and uh to how reproductive health works for both sides for both male and female reproductive organs yep and and physiological symptoms i i have worked with men who are older like in their 60s who have gotten their younger girlfriend's pregnant and they're like i thought i couldn't do that because i'm old that that there's just that lack of understanding across the board but i want to go back to the the heartbeat

bill because you brought it up and now i'm angry the term heartbeat at six weeks is medically inaccurate there's no heart that's speeding there there may be the ability from what will what are cardiac cells and will eventually become hearts that we can get impulses from them but there is no actual heartbeat so i don't want to repeat that word because it it feeds into the inaccuracy so when you hear someone say heartbeat bill i want you to say that's not medically accurate and move on in the conversation that's everyone's homework because i'm sure you're going to do that calmly but that's the that goes back to that point of those sound bites and catchy phrases and the pr terms and how in my opinion the pro the modern pro-life movement has has

co-opted the term abortion effectively for pr advancement of their cause and that's where i want to come back to thanks for taking me full circle without seeing my notes you're welcome i appreciate that that's why we're co-hosts when we talk about this idea of it being pro-life and i know you've already said that they're talking about pro-birth they are only focusing on the life of the fetus because one of the things that we have seen since the overturning a roe v wade is the number of women who are dying because of complications from pregnancy because of complications from whatever it may be and there have been some really horrific stories that have been coming out and unfortunately they're coming out mostly in the south it happens not just in

the south but we women are dying from preventable causes because they happen to be pregnant and and that's the part i struggle with when you say you are pro-life and you are letting women die the u.s has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the industrialized world which i think we should be ashamed of and that that statistic has been true even free roe v wade being overturned yes because we do not take we do not put value in protecting the lives of women i don't think my students know i'm really big on owning things i don't think that we as a society put put value on saving lives of women but one of the things that we saw happen and i do still kind of keep a foot in texas which is why i often refer there is that

we are watching the maternal mortality rates of texas go back up so you pass laws that we're supposed to protect life but women are dying and nobody has an answer to that and that's that's concerning and with it with that mother's life that woman's life the fetus is also dying yep so you've now lost two pro-life has now prevented two lives from existing yep and not to mention if it was a single mom and she was the only provider or if she was in a relationship you've now lost that income not oh that sounds horrible that i'm like woman's eye loss of income but you've impacted the entire family. And we do know, it was fascinating. I was, when I was very young in the field and thought I knew everything, I was talking to a priest from Catholics for Choice,

which may have been the most eyeopening 15, 20 minute conversation I had at the beginning of my career. Oh, wow. And he was talking about how at the time, and again, we don't always have the numbers now, but how at the time, the majority of women who had abortions were actually already moms they just couldn't afford and when I say afford I mean financially emotionally physically to bring another child into that into that family it was eye-opening for me because I had always bought the rhetoric of like oh they just don't want kids no they they do and they might again in the future just not right now yeah and I completely lost where I was going I was having that memory of that priest. He did. He rocked my world. And if you're not familiar with Catholics

for Choice, you may want to give them a look and kind of read some of their stuff. Where was I going with this, Charlie? Oh, goodness. That is a great question. Yeah. It was the pro-life piece. Yeah, the pro-life piece and that we are watching the maternal death rates rise. Got it. So when we talk, thank you. So if we have this idea that women already have children and they already have families we are not just losing the mom and the fetus we are in some ways having very strong impacts on that entire family unit yeah i found it there it is i was at a conference with a lot of people who work in reproductive health and this was two years ago i don't know it all runs together these days it was when we started seeing the changes it was after it was

after the overturning of roe v wade and there was a palpable fear in the room that i had never and I've been going to this conference off and on for decades, palpable fear. And what we're hearing is stories of women coming in who either are pregnant or may be pregnant. And instead of doctors treating them, they like have to get legal involved. So the doctors don't feel like they can do the things that they need to do. And what we're seeing is we're seeing doctors who are leaving states where they don't feel like they can be physicians in the way that they want to be physicians. I have a friend who works in med schools, and they are telling me that they're seeing medical students who will not even consider going into those states where it's so restrictive.

So now we're taking away access to care, even good prenatal care. So if we're losing OBGYNs, it's not even like we're just losing OBGYNs who are doing abortions. We're losing OBGYNs who are doing good prenatal care, which helps mom and the eventual child have a happier, healthy life. So everything we're doing is is is not helping quality of life or life in general yeah only other thing i want to throw out there is i have a i have a friend who has a long-term manageable chronic disease but is requires medication for her entire life she is not pregnant she has no intention of becoming pregnant and suddenly after being on this medication for years she was being denied medication that she needed to function because she could potentially one day

get pregnant she wound up eventually getting the medication but there was a lapse in when she was able to get it and and her health suffered greatly in in that time between before she was able to get that medication again and so when we are talking about life and we're talking about not just quantity but also quality of life we're not really doing anything to support that right now and i think that needs to be called out yeah we're when when these movements are talking about life they're talking about theoretical life. Because I think the other thing that I want to point out that I meant to bring up earlier is, and it goes with that understanding of women's reproductive health. When a woman gets pregnant, our bodies have a physiological reaction to that

feet to that implantation. Because initially, our bodies think it's like a foreign invasion, for lack of a better term. And so our bodies go through something to try and protect us. And that's not based on the circumstances of how the sperm met the egg and what the quality of that intercourse was um it just that is what a human body does and so in the cases where or in the states where um criminalizing physiological responses that we have no control over again is not pro-life no no this was a tough one there it is it was it was a tough very it is it is and i the other thing that i just want to point out for um for listeners who maybe i don't know who were born in the 2000s

um it is important to note that roe v wade didn't even make it to 50 years old it was passed in 73 and it was overturned 20 22 yeah so it didn't even make it 50 years and so uh it is a charged charged term a charged topic but if you are someone who values life look at the existing lives and and go from there at least a couple wrap-ups before we head out yeah i think now's as good a time as any if you have an app that tracks your period and it is not yuki which is e-u-k-i yuki does not sell their data but if you are using a period tracking app i would strongly encourage you to

delete the data because we are seeing instances where apps are being asked to give up that information to prove that women knew that they were pregnant and since we don't know what's going to be happening with laws and legislation i would encourage you to do that if you are pregnant and do not want to be and are looking for options there are places that you can go and if you need financial help there are organizations that can help you we are seeing a huge increase almost double i believe in the number of women who have had to leave their state to go have an abortion done so there are at this time when we are recording there are still options in this country um but there are resources to help you the thing that i want to keep in mind and i know

this was like i'd said this earlier on but i'm being serious with this call to action i don't care how you identify pro-life pro-choice anti-life anti-baby i don't i don't really care if you want to help do something about this then let's roll up our sleeves and get it done and if you want to know how reach out to me but we need to start we need to stop having women be in these situations not that it's always preventable because things happen contraception fails rape incest stealthing we could do that

for it oh there's a great topic there's a topic and I'm not or sometimes someone is excited to be pregnant and suddenly

there's realizing there's going to be a fetal abnormality or defect or fetal death may occur but if we want to do something about

the hundreds of thousands of women who are put in this situation and you really want to make the change then let's do it let's fight for comprehensive sex ed

let's make sure we're keeping contraception available and making sure it's accessible Like when we talk about the number of women in this country who live in contraceptive deserts and can't access contraception, there are things we can do. If you really want to stop women from having abortions, then let's work together to stop

them being in situations where it's preventable. Let's do something about it. So that's my little call to action. I think that is the perfect wrap up here for this charged episode. um i want to thank everyone for joining us on this episode of unzipping taboos um it was it was a heavy one and we do want to acknowledge that and make space for that we hope today's episode did spark new thoughts maybe opens up dialogues worth having and please remember your curiosity is the key to breaking down these barriers embracing a healthier

Your Understanding of Sex and Relationships and Reproductive Health. And if you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a review. If you're comfortable, leave a comment on this or any other episode that you've listened to. We want to engage with you. This is the title of our show is Conversations, and it's not just a conversation between Dr. Sue and I. um so leave a review share it with someone who might need to hear this if you've got a question or a topic or feedback you want to um send to us please do so reach out to us via the link in the episode description above all not above all um additionally we want to give a special shout out

to ali o'brien for our incredible theme music thank you so much ali and until next time keep the conversation going. Stay curious, keep unzipping those taboos, and take care, everyone.