July 7, 2022 • 61 mins
In Part 5 of Abortion: The Body Politic, Katie looks abroad for models of progress — and regress — when it comes to reproductive rights and abortion access. What are the trends and how does the U.S. now compare? We check in with the Center for Reproductive Rights to find out. Perhaps no region has seen more progress than Latin America. Human Rights lawyer and one of the founders of the Green Wave movement, Paula Ávila-Guillén, shares her experiences on the front lines of the decades-long fight for reproductive justice and what Americans can learn from our sisters to the South. We also hear from an activist in Mexico who is helping people across the border access abortion care they can no longer get in the United States. And academic, Lina-Maria Murillo gives us context for the unique relationship the United States and Mexico share when it comes to abortion access. There’s no denying the fact that many of the countries we are highlighting are largely conservative and Catholic. What does the progress these Catholic countries have made say about our own complicated assumptions about religion and abortion. We hear from several leaders of faith from a Jewish Rabbi to a Baptist Reverend and leaders from organizations like, Catholics for Choice and SACRED, about how they have worked reproductive rights and abortion access into their faith practice.
More information on this episode’s guests and resources
Books and more:
- When Abortion Was a Crime, by Leslie J. Reagan
- A Complicated Choice: Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-Choice Movement, by Reverend Katey Zeh
Guests include:
- Paula Ávila-Guillén, human rights lawyer, Green Wave activist
- Veronica Cruz, founder of Las Libres
- Leah Hoctor, senior regional director for Europe at the Center for Reproduct
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Katie Couric, and this is Abortion the Body Politic,
Part five. What has just occurred in the United States
is unprecedented. Globally, we have never seen retrogression on this
scale in terms of the taking away of a constitutional
right to abortion that has existed for fifty years. Today,
(00:21):
we're looking outside of the US to find out what
the viight for reproductive rights looks like in other countries
and how the United States now compares. The United States
is now in a situation which really is an outlier
in sense of the global picture. I'm Lea Hocter and
(00:45):
I work at the Center for Reproductive Rights. I'm the
Senior Regional Director for Europe at the Center, and I
lead the Center's work to make legaland policy change on
reproductive rights across Europe. Only three countries and now very
unfortunately the United States, so that makes it for have
actually moved backwards. El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland have rolled
(01:10):
back entitlements to abortion, but never on this scale. They
have done so from restrictive contexts, so they have had
laws in place that we're already generally globally regarded as
restrictive and have then scaled back those entitlments. But the
United States, what has happened in terms of the Supreme
Court's decision um, what that decision has done is taken
(01:32):
away a very robust constitutional protection for abortion rights and
completely decimated that. Globally, the trend is very clear. There
is an overwhelming movement and has been for many, many
decades across the world in all regions, towards the removal
(01:54):
of bands and highly restrictive laws on abortion, and towards
the legalization of abortion, the treatment of it as essential healthcare,
the decriminalization and the removal of barriers in law and policy.
And this is the overwhelming trend. It has been the
trend in Europe for eighty years. It has been squarely
the global trend um for at least the last thirty years.
(02:16):
I mean in the last thirty years alone, fifty five
or you know, over fifty five I think actually fifty
nine countries globally have moved towards removing bands on abortion,
legalizing abortion, and expanding access, expanding entitlements to abortion. We've
seen major systemic change in Latin America as a result
(02:39):
of the green wave. In Argentina, Columbia and Mexico, in
the European region. We've seen systemic change in Ireland, in Cyprus,
in Belgium, in Iceland. Even just in the last few weeks,
major jurisdictions Germany, France, the Netherlands all removing barriers from
to abortion from their laws Spain. Legislation is now pending
(03:01):
in Spain that will really introduce a range of very
important reforms that will increase protection for abortion rights. And
these are just a handful of examples. We've also seen
major change in African countries in Kenya, um in South Africa,
and in in Asia and Nepal, in India and South Korea,
and in range of other countries. It's not actually impossible
(03:24):
for me to list every single country in the world
that has made progressive change, because there are so many.
Some countries are now taking protective measures in direct response
to the Supreme courts reversal of Row. In the days
since the decision from the United States Supreme Court, we
are now hearing lawmakers in France, in Belgium, in Sweden
(03:48):
and Denmark discussing in a very conquerent way the reforms
they will undertake to introduce constitutional rights protection for abortion
rights in their national constitutions. We've seen Land announced that
it will undertake reforms of its laws to improve them,
to bring them into line with World Health Organization UM guidance.
(04:09):
So while for people in the United States the situation
is very troubling and very grave, what we are actually
seeing on foot of this decision in this region in
Europe is a galvanization by decision makers across the region
who care about reproductive rights to actually begin to stand
up for those rights and do something in terms of
(04:29):
their own national laws and policies to shore up that protection.
With the US now facing a long road ahead, it's
about time we turn our attention to what activists around
the world have been building. What can the US and
abortion advocates learn from the systemic change rippling across other continents.
(04:51):
We reached out to someone on the front lines of
reproductive rights in Latin America, one of the organizers of
the so called Green wave. The green wave is resistant,
is power, is hope. That's what the green wave is.
So I am Powerla Like Jen, I am a human
rights attorney reproductive rights activists all over Latin America, and
(05:15):
i am the executive director at the Women's Equality Center.
It started in Argentina when UM the LA campaign National,
the National Campaign for Legal and Free Abortion was created
in two thousand three. It all started with a symbol.
There was this handkerchief. The handkerchief was a green handkerchief.
(05:38):
The handkerchief came inspired by the Ulama. There were the
women in Argentina that were marching UM to find the
kids that their children that were disappeared during the dictor chip.
And they will march every Thursday and they will wear
these white handkerchiefs around their their heads as a symbol
of who they were. And every Thursday day at three
(06:00):
o'clock you will see the Martian even as today they
are still Martian. At this point, it's not to try
to seek their children, but their grandchildren. So it was
a movement of resistance, right, this idea that women can
come together and resists together, and like companions, all decided
instead of using white, they were using green because abortion
(06:25):
is healthcare and green is associated with the color of health.
And it started very simple, just with this idea of
you will put the handkerchief in your race, in your purse,
and and it was a not when you were on
the street of letting know somebody what you were standing for,
and I mean that you were standing for women's rights.
It means that you were standing for health I mean
(06:46):
that you were standing for abortion as a health care.
That you were standing for equality, you were standing for
democracy and all the sudden UH. Through the work of
many years, this small symbol too covered the entire Latin
American region and it has take covered the entire work.
(07:10):
It also has created changes. In the last two years,
Latin America has jumped from being one of the regions
with the most restricted abortion laws to be in a region.
There has changed its abortion laws in three countries, Argentina.
There is also the land of the current Pope just
(07:31):
changed its law in December twenty twenty recogniztion autonomy as
a as a right and UH and also making sure
that help the abortion was included in health services and
were provided free in hospitals for anybody who needed. Then
we had Mexico, through the decision of the Supreme Court.
(07:51):
He decided that in order to make it equal for everybody,
no women could be criminalized because of abortion access and
the states had the duty to change their laws. And
since that decision, nine states had changed their laws. And
then very resently we had my home country Columbia. The
true decision of the UH Constitutional Court recognized the women
(08:13):
should have autonomy to decide when and where UH interrupt
apprentices if they wish so between the first twenty four
weeks of of pregnancy and and that just is something
that we never thought that would happen in Mexico. Is
it's still a very religious country. Goluby is still a
very religious country and conservative in many ways. But what
(08:34):
we are seeing is the resistance of this movement and
the hope that this movement brings is changing laws in
the meantime here in the US for women who need
abortion care right now and live in states that ban
(08:54):
or heavily restricted traveling even outside the country, maybe their best.
But I think that there are two things that are
important to remember when we talk about abortion in the
context of traveling outside the United States. The first one
is abortionist health care, and Americans have been traveling to
Latin America for healthcare for a very long time. Then
(09:19):
tal procedures, some of the best dentists are done in
Mexico and Colombia. They are training the United States. They
go back there is much cheaper, they have all these facilities.
The tourism of health is something in exist because the
United States doesn't have a strong health care system. They
they are already are examples and you're seeking healthcare in
(09:40):
other countries. So now we are just starting abortion just
one of those services that you're going to be sicking
that is of the same quality and of the same
level that you will receive and is sometimes better than
many of the states here, like the systems that you
will have. But the other thing that is happening is
that the women who are in the border in Mexico
(10:00):
um trying to provide these services. There is an amazing
leader in Mexico, Peronica Cruise from Lallibres, who have created
this whole network of people who are willing to just
provide abortion to anybody who crosses the border or even
sometimes they across the border um to to provide help.
(10:22):
They didn't do it because it was a request for
anybody from the United States. They came together so the
Texas law and say, what are we going to do
about it? It's our border, they are our sisters. There
are our Latino systems on the other side. What are
we going to do about it? Because as Beronica says,
(10:45):
the law sometimes is wrong, and when the law is wrong,
you need to find a way to fix it. The
United States, in this case, it's just completely going backwards.
It is regressing and humanity cannot allow that. We spoke
to Veronica Cruise with the help of a translator from
(11:08):
her office in Guana Wato, Mexico. Veronica started her organization
Las Libres two decades ago. Las Libre. Las Libres is
a feminist organization that was born twenty two years ago,
and we were born in the right time to fight
for safe abortion in a state which was the most
(11:33):
restrictive for abortion rights at the time in the country
of Mexico. So, twenty two years ago, local legislators wanted
to put women victims of rape in jail after having abortions,
and and we decided to make a huge fight to
guarantee that not only would those women be released, but
(11:56):
also to have the law change so so can we
We did a great job of ensuring safe, free and
legal abortions for girls and women who were victims of rape.
From there, we started to guarantee that all women would
(12:16):
have that right to a safe and legal abortion if
they decided to do so, and and so we built
this model of safe abortions at home without medical supervision
under the protocol of the World Health Organization, and today
we've built networks across the country to ensure that. Coincidentally,
(12:42):
a week after s b A became law in Texas,
the Mexican Supreme Court decriminalized abortion. We thought it was
a good idea to help the women in Texas right
(13:02):
because in Mexican territory, the Texas lob does not apply
to them. And although our locations border each other, if
you just crossed the street, we are in Texas. So
in certain border cities, we decided to form a cross
border network to support and accompany women from Texas who
(13:25):
are seeking free, safe and legal abortions. So then more
women began to arrive from other states from the United States,
and well after the summer, women from all around the
country started coming to Mexico for help. We've already developed
(13:47):
several logistical ways over the past few months to ensure
the safety of abortion and to ensure that women and
people in the United States who are seeking them can
do so safely. The first are the women who can
cross to Mexico, those who have the ability to cross.
They can come and they can buy their mr Po
(14:08):
style pills at any pharmacy in Mexico, and they can
return home with their prescription and they can have a
virtual accompaniment to accompany them through the procedure. And then
there are other women who are crossing into Mexico, and
we have safe spaces that we arrange for them for
(14:30):
those women who want to do everything in Mexico. And
then there are others and and these are actually the majority.
These are women who write to us and we send
the pills to be hand delivered to them from here,
and then we accompany them through the process. Virtually, there
are women who are looking for our services, and there
(14:53):
are also people who want to help. And so we're
developing the model that we developed in Mexico twenty years ago,
building social solidarity, a society that accompanies the decision of
women and a guarantee of abortions, with the insurance of
the safety of women so that they do not have
(15:16):
to have abortions and restrictive and unsafe settings. We are
prepared because we know that we can be an option
that more and more women are are learning about this
possibility and they can get care through our services and
that they have us as an alternative. So so we
(15:38):
are prepared with more medicine and more hands and heads
to go along with it. But but honestly, we don't
want to solve America's problem. American society has to solve
this problem because it's not a woman's problem. It's it's
a problem of a society that allow women's rights to
(16:01):
a legal and safe abortion to be restricted. So if
we really hope that American society is prepared to deal
with this problem. When we come back the story of
one woman's border crossing abortion, this isn't the first time
(16:30):
that American women have turned to Mexico for help. In
the nineteen sixties, in particular, many women traveled to Mexico
for abortion care they were unable to get in the
United States. Women like Marcia Carlin. My name is Marcia Carlin.
I'm seventy seven and I had my abortion when I
(16:52):
was twenty one, before robi Raide was passed in nineteen
sixty six. When Marcia founders pregnant and did not want
to be she first went to an O. B. G.
Y N in San Francisco to a Dr. Loewenstein, but
he refused to do the procedure. Dr Loewenstein didn't know
(17:13):
of anybody, any doctor in the United States at that
time who would give me an abortion, so he gave
us the phone number in Tijuana for this doctor. And
it turned out the police had had a had made
him leave Tijuana. He'd run out of Tijuana because the
(17:34):
police were after him, so he was now in Warez,
so we knew we had to somehow get to Mexico.
He told us to check in at the el, pass
the hotel, and then take a taxi to a street
border in Warez and then um, a guy would pick
(17:55):
us up in her I think it was a red Chevrolet,
and were supposed to act like we knew him. And
we waited and waited on that street corner, and finally
he came by and he opened the door real fast
and said get in. So we got in, and he
drove around and around and around for at least twenty minutes,
(18:16):
drove around the back streets of Warez and probably trying
so we wouldn't know where he was going. Ended up
in a residential neighborhood in a small house and said,
coming here, the doctor's in there, and he brought me
in and a woman said sit here and wait for
the doctors. So after a while she brought me back
(18:38):
to a bedroom where there was a metal table and
she said, lie on the table. It was stirts and
the doctor came in and he was going to give
me gas, and he said I want you and I
put the gas on. Not to move, don't move at all.
But he gave me gas then, so I started having
(19:01):
wild dreams, and all of a sudden, all I remember
is he pulled the yanked the gas mask off and
said you moved. I was. It's hard to explain how
scary that was because I didn't know what he was
doing to my body and my uterus. And so he said,
(19:22):
I'm then I have to finish the operation without the gas.
And I said that's fine with me because I was
scared to death. I wasn't gonna move then, and so
he did very quickly finished what he was doing. I
guess he was scraping my uterus and and he said,
you're going to get cramps, and I did that serious fans. Anyway,
(19:47):
we left and got in the car, the red Chevrolet,
and he drove us back again and we got a
taxi back to El Paso, and then we got up
plane back to San Francisco, and then I saw Dr
Loewenstein that evening, I think for the next morning, and
he said everything looked fine. But a couple of days later,
(20:11):
I think it was two days later, I started to hemorrhage.
I'd never hemorrhage before. It's it's that in itself. It's
a very scary feeling. There's just blood gushing out of
your your vagina. My friends were very worried about me,
and so they said, call Dr. Lowency. We're gonna take
(20:34):
you back to the hospital in San Francisco. So they
drove me back. I was curled up in the backseat
of the car. I remember this distinctly, and just so anxious.
First I didn't know what was happening in my body,
and then I thought I was messing up his car
with all this blood. No, even though I tried not
(20:54):
to mess it up. So we got back and Dr
Loewenstein had talked to me and he said come right in.
And what he did that he put me out that
night and just so i'd sleep, and then first thing
in the morning he operated. I think he did a
DNC to finish the operation. He told me how scared,
(21:20):
how not he wasn't scared, but how worried he was
that I could have died from the hemorrhaging. And he
y'all also came around, gave me a hug, actually said,
stand if I want to give you a hug. And
he said, I'm so glad you will be able to
have children. And I hadn't even realized that that could be.
(21:41):
I was worried about I don't know. I was just
frightened more than anything. And he said he will be
able to have the children. I'm quite sure I was
able to have two kids. So a few years later,
when it was the right time, Dr Loewensteinen in San
(22:02):
Francisco had asked me to write up to type up
the experience, so I typed it up before I hemorrhaged.
I typed it up when I got back and gave
it to him because he wanted to know more to
help other women. I sent you a copy of the
They're right up, which I finally found. I hadn't seen
it since I gave it to him. That was great,
(22:25):
two kind of verify everything I had remembered in my mind.
I was most surprised that it ended before I hemorrhaged.
I didn't remember that that it ended like everything was fine,
but it wasn't. It was not fine. I just thank
the Lord at the end that everything worked out. Okay,
(22:46):
it's very lucky, as very very lucky. It's really hard.
It's even hard to know, like who were the people
across the border for morsons. It's very hard to know
how many. UM, I guess it is in the thousands
of My name is Lena Maria Murillo and I'm a historian.
UM I'm an assistant professor at the University of Iowa
(23:08):
and the Department of Gender, Women in Sexuality Studies, History
and Latin and Latino Latin Next six. Through her work,
Lena has uncovered evidence of just how long American women
have been traveling to Mexico for abortion care. This is
a problem with trying to find the history of things
(23:30):
that are underground and illegal, right, It's always hard to
find this sort of like moment when it started. But
through oral histories, UM I was able to document UM
one abortion clinic in into other bodies UH in the
nineteen late nineteen forties, and um the person I spoke
(23:52):
to like worked at his clinic she was a young
woman worked at at the Davalos clinic. She hired is
another young woman, uh, and he teaches her how to
do the procedure. Now she's at a doctor she's she's
just an assistant, but she teaches her, and then he
teaches his son mad and then it's like kind of
(24:13):
radio silence from that, like that oral history intribue that
I did in nineteen forties until the nineteen sixties, when
a person by the name of Patricia McGinnis, along with
um Rowena Gerner, and Lanta Fallon out of the Bay Area,
begin to really advocate very loudly for a repeal of
the abortion laws in California. Patricia McGinnis in San Francisco.
(24:39):
Um she's working class women from Oklahoma, and she's a
medical technician, historian Leslie Reagan, and she she that's like
the first person to start talking to just ordinary people
and collects petitions to reform the abortion law and make
it easier, uh, to get therapeutic abortions. And then she
(25:03):
starts talking because she had had abortions herself, she had
performed her own abortion, she had had illegal abortions, she
had illegal abortion in Mexico. And so they created this
big um not we want big pubettic quotes organization UM
called the Society Humane Abortions and then the Association to
Repeal Abortion Laws. And through those two organizations UM, they
(25:25):
begin to create a list of abortion providers in the
US Mexico border region, what's called the list of Providers
in Mexico and some in Japan and England. They go
and they to Mexico and they meet the specialists, and
they they inspect the clinics, and they set up this
(25:46):
whole thing where UM there they heart like the public
Health inspectors. And really it was Rowena Girner who was
like that. She was the one who was on top
of making sure that everybody was doing things properly. And
they ask anyone who gets this information they provide, you know,
a big packet of information of where to go, how
(26:07):
to prepare, what to expect, how much it will cost.
And they asked them to fill out, um uh something
about the procedure and to bring back information, you know,
about the quality of the procedure, was it safe, did
it appear to be um you know, sanitary, How do
(26:28):
they behave? How much did they charge you? So so
they also created you know, like a consumer pressure group
because they kept information and they would take people off
the list as they got bad information. So that's one
really important group that was sending people out of the
country UM for safe abortions, and that they are trying
(26:48):
to regulate the practitioners. What's fascinating is that she ends
up and listening those two people that I just mentioned
UM who is the son of Antonio that who had
the clinic of the nineteen fourties, and this other other
person who's the father taught her and they're like number
one on her list. She's like, I love these people.
They know what they're doing, they're amazing, they do great work.
(27:13):
And and sure enough, like as I've looked through the
UM through their files, some people were like it was fine, right,
like they didn't want to say too much. This was fine,
not a big deal. And other people went to great
links to kind of tell every detail of what the
experience had been like. And UM of the woman provider,
people had the most incredible experiences with her. She operated
(27:38):
completely underground UM out of a small house, you know,
as an all women, all women crew. UM. She was
assisted by her sister and then they had like two
other women assistants, and um, they would feed the people
that would come um and get abortions. And you know,
one woman wrote like they did my makeup when I left.
I lived prettier after my abortion and I did when
(28:00):
I got here. UM. I mean just you know, I'm
interpreting it as like really thoughtful sort of feminist, feminist
grounded care right. And so the demand for abortion goes up,
especially in the nineteen sixties when you've got like women's
liberation right is at the forefront of all this um
(28:24):
and and so people are demanding greater access to abortion care.
And so they go to northern mechical to to get
that abortion care. I want to guess tomate thousands of
people um went and and got successfully access abortion care
from reputable providers in northern Micheo. Goal. We wouldn't have
(28:45):
organizations like the Society for Humane Abortions or the Clergy
Consultation Service reform people to make a goal if these
were not good providers. A young woman dies and be
it as an egg rest on a budged abortion, and
that creates this massive like, well, what the heck is
(29:06):
going on in Mexico. We thought we had done what
we could in de Fuana. But now like this has
spread all across northern Mexico's border. The narrative that these
awful abortion mills and quad is and making we're killing
American them right was the sort of big story, and
it was bringing disrepute to places like like I'll Passo right,
(29:29):
where people in a Passo Americans and I'll Passo work
ashamed embarrassed by their Mexican compatriots who were engaging in
this unlawful activity. And they interviewed this one doctor, you
know pass So and he says, uh, you know, we
can't do anything about our Mexican neighbors. They're just lawless
(29:50):
like this at the same time that people are racializing,
May he go out this you know, Um Sarah Weddington
who goes on to r U Rovi Wade, you know,
she had an aboard Mackey Golf. She was in Austin
at the time, getting her degree in in law, becoming
an attorney. Um butt u t Austin and she's like,
you know, here I am in this dusty, dirty, backwards
(30:11):
Mexican Mexican town going to get an abortion right, like
the trope of the like back Alley butcher for people
in in the borderlands was mee goal like Mickey Go
was where these butchers lived and this is where they
did their butchery, even though there's so much information about
non butchers right, like actual providers were doing incredible work,
(30:34):
but it was they were an easy fall guy for
demanding rights in the US. And that's part of the
work that I that I'm writing about and talking about
is the way that this, like the racialist tropes worked
in the favor of like US feminist activists to be
able to say, yeah, we're leaning on some of these
folks to do the like dirty work of providing access
to abortion, and I put dirty working quotes so that
(30:56):
we can protect doctors in the US, but we'll also
use them escapegoat to say, like, we don't want women
traveling to backwards on sanitary Mehico to get abortions. We
want safe, legal abortions in the US. There are doctors
who could have performed abortions in the US, and some
(31:17):
of them did but for fear of losing their license
or fear of being accosted being known as the abortion
provider in their community. They're like, now, but I know
somebody who can help you in Mexico because we don't
care about our colleagues and Mahkoes about the way that
they're seeing or understood in their communities. As the United
(31:40):
States embarks on this new era of abortion criminalization, Lena says,
if we're willing to pay attention, there is a lot
we can learn just by taking a global perspective. One
of the lessons that run the past for me is
really thinking about the rb drariness of borders and how
(32:02):
they have to not make people care, and how people
constantly thwart them anyway. They're all means to control people.
The thought that, like all all social justice and survival understanding,
is going to emanate from the United States is absolutely incorrect.
We should be thinking about how weird going to join
(32:25):
international global coalitions for social justice in racial justice, not
as the not as the ones that are bringing the knowledge,
but the ones that are here to learn right. And
so that to me is like a critical fundamental part
of what we can learn from history. That we have
(32:45):
benefited from care from other countries and other providers in
the past, and we will likely lead them again, and
that racialist tropes and ideologies have no there's no room
for for that at this particular juncture, once again there's
(33:06):
pala a villain. The United States has been living in
a war. They was beautiful and it was privileged in
terms of autonomy for many. Still it wasn't the reality
for many or stays for a while, but at least
in general and the role protection had a lot of
power and um. In Latin America we have been in
(33:27):
the opposite for many years and we have been able
to survive. Somehow we know from a legal point of
view how to make some legal laws better when they're
still very restricted. Some of them have been through international standards,
the World Health Organizations, the UN standards. So so I
think the activists need to look to those standards that
(33:48):
we have been trying to create for twenty or thirty
years as symbols of how you make laws. There are
still very restrictive, a lot more flexible until you change everything.
But then also from examples of excess, we have had
success for the last um two years, and even in
very restricted environments like All Salvador, where there is a
(34:08):
total abortion and women in All Salvador have been criminalized
for upset, for emergencies, for miscarriages and Stilberts, which is
something that we are going to see in the United
States as well, and unfortunately dies a reality that we
have also just celebrate the freedom of sixty five women
that we were able to get out of prison. And
I think this is an opportunity for the United States
(34:30):
to say and for the activists, Okay, we haven't seen
this new reality yet, but there are others who have.
Let's bring it on board and common and I am
started seeing a lot of that already happening, but I
think it needs to be more consistence, more effectively, and
more um and more openness right for that when we
(34:52):
come back. What a progress these Catholic countries have made,
says about our own complicated relationship with religion. Votes in
(35:13):
favor of the proposals who vote will lead to the
dismantling of one of the strictest anti abortion regimes in
the world. Just south of the border, in one of
the most Catholic countries in the world, women's rights activists
have scored a major victory. This is a huge step
(35:33):
for a widely Catholic country. Much has been made of
the fact that several of the countries that have liberalized
abortion laws in the past couple of years are largely Catholic.
The Catholics can be anything but anti abortion seems to
be a shock, but Catholics and people from all faith
have been in the fight for reproductive rights all along.
(35:58):
I am Jamie Manson and I'm president of Catholics for Choice.
The dominant narrative UM that most people buy into is
that all Catholics are opposed to abortion, and all Catholics think, Um,
life begins at conception. Uh. And so that is like
the number one myth that we have to bust in
our work, because in fact, abortion is very popular among
(36:21):
Catholics in the United States, more popular actually than the
general US population. Sixty percent of Catholics did not want
to see Roe versus Wade struck down on Friday. Um.
I've seen different number. More recent numbers say sixty of
Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all our most cases. Uh.
And I think one of the most surprising numbers is
(36:43):
that one in four abortion patients in this country is Catholic,
meaning that not only did Catholic support abortion, they're having
abortions at the same rate as everyone else in this country.
So abortion is part of the life of the church.
Catholic for Choice has a decades long legacy of working
in Latin America helping liberalize abortion laws there. But now
(37:08):
it's the US that needs the help. We're going to
bring in our sisters in Latin America who are from
the Catholic for Choice UM organizations there to come and
tell us what we need to know about how to
live under a repressive anti abortion regime. How did you survive,
how did you create networks? How did you avoid the law? Um?
(37:31):
You know, and it is just a stunning moment for
us that the people that we helped we are turning
to to help us navigate us to be our visionaries,
to be our profits UM in the Road ahead. Catholics
Are Choice actually really predates ROW, not formally, but UM.
The women who ended up founding the organization were already
organizing before ROW and then really in earnest formalized after
(37:56):
the road decision. So the organization is UM just about
fifty years old now, and its purpose was really to
to ask for several things. One is for conversation about
abortion within the walls of the church, because there is
no room even at the most liberal Catholic university where
there are other conversations about controversial things, you cannot talk
(38:16):
about abortion. So wanting to you know, to be able
to have dialogue about the issue was it was a
very big, big campaign of theirs um and then to
embolden the voices of Catholics who already are pro choice.
And for those Catholics who don't know where they fall
um in in in what camp? To educate them, you know,
not to tell them what to think, but give them
(38:38):
the resources there the Church won't give them, uh, to
discern what for them is a morally complex issue. In
my opinion, for the bishops, this is not about babies,
This is not about life. This is really about controlling
women's freedom. Because there is a fundamental idea in Catholicism
of gender binary uh they call it gender complimentarity. That
(39:03):
God ordained men for a very specific role, having that
they're supposed to be leaders and take authority, and women
are meant to be servants and nurturers and care for
the family, and our most essential vocation is motherhood. According
to this theology, Um Pope chump Pulled the second had
a special phrase for women. He said, we had a
(39:23):
feminine genius, and what that really means is our uterus
is our ability to just state was our genius? And
so this is this is so pervasive, um, and I
think this is the prime mover for these men. Again,
these are ostensibly celibate, all male leadership. This is the
most radical patriarchy in the world. There's a billion Catholics.
(39:44):
They have presents in every country in the globe, in
the globe, and they also have enormous power at the
U N for that matter. And so they are terrified
of women's power and women's freedom. And um, that is
what you know, A portion is really all about. When
you can control your own fertility, you have access to
(40:06):
freedom and power. And this is the opposite of what
this hierarchy wants. It they it scares a life out
of them. Remember, they do not ordain women. Why on
earth would they want women to have access to freedom
and power. And also, all of these ideas that we're
hearing life begins a conception, personhood, these are all Catholic theology.
(40:26):
These are all Catholic theological ideas that suddenly Evangelicals believe in.
Suddenly Mormons believe in churches that never believed to this Suddenly,
when it became politically expedient where they could have a
you know, an unholy alliance. Uh. These three, these three
churches Catholicism, Mormonism and Evangelicalism, they saw the political power
and cloud they would get that they got this prime
(40:48):
seat at the Republican table. Uh, it changed everything for them.
And so but again, but these are these are you know,
to me, very fringe Catholic ideas because most Catholics don't
believe them. That are being codified into civil law. I
mean it is the grossest infringement on religious freedom, I
(41:10):
think in the history of this nation, because we have
a lot of people of faith like Jews, who not
only support abortion rights, it's required in some circumstances, and
so we are really infringing on religious freedom of others.
In a survey done of Jews in the United States
support abortion access. We go back to this value of
(41:32):
piqua nefesh, this value that means the the importance, the
value of saving a life. My name is Rabbi Kelly Levy.
I am the associate Rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, Texas,
and I work with a vibrant, inclusive, social justice oriented
(41:53):
congregation as their associate rabbi, but as a major part
of the clergy team. This is where Judaism diverges from Christianity.
In Judaism, we don't believe that life begins at conception.
We believe that life begins at first viable breath. So
as soon as a child is able to exit the
(42:15):
womb and is able to take a first breath and
is viable to take that first breath, that is when
that life truly begins. So in Judaism, when it comes
to abortion and it comes to the pregnant person, that
individual is the life that is prioritized. And so when
(42:35):
it comes to pekuah nafeesh, the the value of saving
of life, of preserving a life, that is the life
that we prioritize. So in a situation where you have
a pregnant person who has either had a terrible traumatizing
experience that caused them to become pregnant, or they find
(42:57):
themselves pregnant and know that they cannot men to lee
or physically carry this child, or they know that they
cannot care for this child after the child is born,
or they know that they won't be able to endure
forty plus weeks of this pregnancy. That is part of
that preserving of the life of that soul. It's not
(43:18):
about the fetus, who, according to Jewish tradition, does not
have the status as a living person. The Christian theology
has often taken over the conversation around faith and abortion
because so many Jews are are accepting and basically requiring
(43:43):
and demanding abortion access. It's not traditionally been something that
we've organized around. That's changed in the in recent years.
The National Council of Jewish Women has a scholar in
residence named Rabbi Dania Ruttenberg, who focuses entirely on abortion
access and actually organizing Jews around this particular effort. One
(44:03):
of the things that the Jewish world has started to
change as far as the way we approach this subject
is it's actually a violation of our religious freedom to
not have access to abortion, because we fully support abortion
access and the rights of reproductive justice, and it is
(44:25):
actually it's actually deterring our ability to practice our faith
because if you go back and look at our text,
it says there are certain situations where you absolutely must
provide an abortion. And this goes back thousands of years
and by not allowing us that opportunity that right, we
are not actually allowed to practice our religion to its fullness.
(44:49):
I grew up in a very conservative, white Evangelical church,
so I'm very familiar with a theological framework that's very
cut and dry, that things are this or they're not.
That God is this or God isn't. I'm Reverend Katie's,
I'm an ordained Baptist minister, and I'm the CEO of
the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice or our c r C,
(45:12):
as we fondly call it. There's a certain comfort and
having a sense of security that if I simply follow
these rules, then my life will be wonderful. And I
subscribe to that for a long time until I had
experiences that disrupted that framework and showed me that I
(45:32):
actually didn't have the kind of certainty that I thought
that I did, and that required me to do a
lot of soul searching around what does it mean to
be a faithful person with a different kind of theological
framework that allows for nuance and complexity. So I think
it's just as much about how we approach those conversations
(45:54):
as it is the content. And I really try in
my work not to fall into debate. What ends up
happening is if we don't talk about the real people
who are being impacted, it becomes an abstract, ideological conversation.
It's so wrong when we lose the focus on on
(46:15):
the real human beings in front of us. The way
that we talk about abortion, even on the pro choice side,
can often be really stigmatizing. We often talk about only
the most extreme cases where a person's bodily autonomy has
been violated, or we talk about it as if it's
(46:36):
always a difficult decision for people, and that those things
are true, but they don't encompass the full spectrum of
people's experiences. And I think talking about how abortion can
be such a positive thing for people. It can be
life saving for one and lots of different ways, but
(46:57):
also it can be a catalyst for really important changes
in a person's life. Abortion is a blessing. Access to
abortion is a blessing. The ability to make a reproductive
decision is a right and a blessing. So as I'm
talking to folks who maybe are struggling, I think storytelling
(47:17):
is really essential, and not just storytelling of other people,
but really asking folks, what is your reproductive story. What
is your family's reproductive story? It does not take much
digging below the surface to hear painful stories of reproductive
loss regarding infertility or pregnancy loss, or just someone who
(47:39):
was never able to create the family that they wanted.
There are stories of adoption that are traumatic. Everybody has
a story around this, and I think that that can
be a way to create that heart connection is allowing
people to tell whatever their story is. There just isn't
space for people to share these things, and I think
the first step in healing ourselves and our communities as
(48:02):
just holding space for people to share. Another faith based
organization focused on reproductive rights is called Sacred. I am
Reverend connetitition Way. I am the faith Advocacy coordinator for
Sister Song, the Woman of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. I
(48:22):
am also the national co chair for Sacred. We are
encouraging brave conversations UM, not just among faith leaders, but
faithful people to give voice to those who actually already
believe in reproductive rights, health and justice, but feel afraid
(48:42):
of what voicing that may cause. UM. So, I feel
like what Sacred really is trying to do is give
people the language UM to stand firm in their faith
around this subject. My lived experience, UM is what brought
me to this work, and that's why I do it. UM.
(49:05):
I understand what it's like to be told that your
very existence is a sin. If I don't understand anything else,
theological interpretation is that is just that it is UH
open to interpretation by the lens of those who read it.
But the one thing that we are pretty much all
(49:27):
clear about in terms of our traditions of love is
that we are supposed to love one another, and we
are supposed to be compassionate to one another, and we're
not supposed to judge one another. If I don't know
anything else, that much I do know and so UM,
I will always approach uh any subject from that lens
(49:50):
of how can I be compassionate in this moment while
someone is navigating, UM what is best for their lives?
UM and so? And I know that is a direct
result of having to navigate UM being queer and black
and Caribbean and a woman in a world that said
(50:13):
that most of those things were unacceptable. Being introduced to
and embracing the framework of reproductive justice really does expand
the possibility of understanding the moral good of abortion. We
it reproductive justice. Do believe in the human right for
(50:35):
everyone to have a child, to not have a child,
the parent the children that they have, in safe, sustainable communities,
free from interpersonal and stink state sanctioned violence, and to
have bodily autonomy. And if you believe in that, if
you believe in those tenants, then you understand that bodily autonomy,
(50:56):
which is what we're talking about when we're talking about
making reproductive choices, for our eyes, is just as morally
sound as having a child, not having a child, and
raising the children that you have. It can't be separated out,
it can't be made other um and the only people
who benefit from it being made other are those who
(51:17):
seek to divide for political expediency. And as Jamie Manson shared,
the reproductive justice framework has also been helpful for the
work Catholics for Choice does in their communities. For a
lot of Catholics who have a very rich understanding of
social justice because it's in our tradition and they were
(51:38):
raised in it, that is very eye opening as well
when we really put it in that context that abortion
is a decision that affects the entire trajectory of a
woman's life is not just about bodily autonomy. It's about
you know, every everything, you know, the every It's so
consequential for every aspect, and it intersects with almost every
issue of social justice that a lot of Catholics care
(51:59):
about out So when you put it in that context,
my goodness, UM, you see the lights go on, um
and you see people realizing, okay, like this, you know,
like I am, I do support abortion access um, And
I found my place in this movement again. Reverend Katie's
a I think that part of being a person of
(52:22):
faith is the practice of hope. And I say a
practice because it's not a feeling all of the time,
it's a discipline. And I've been talking about hope as
being something that we hold in community and not just individually.
And I think what's so important about holding hope in
community is that the vision needs to be informed by
(52:43):
the people who are being most impacted by the injustice.
And I also think that what the reproductive justice framework
has done for me is really identify the larger what
we call white Christian nationalist political agenda that has never
been used about abortion, has really been about the control
(53:03):
of bodies and maintaining power over our bodies. And so
I'm really grateful to the ways that that framework expanded
my own understanding. That is not enough to only focusing
on any one particular issue, but to really see it
within this broader framework of just what it means to
be a human being and who wants to flourish. We'll
(53:25):
be right back. My name is Sue, and I am
a forty nine year old woman from Wisconsin, and I've
spent my career in ministry in various different capacities. I
(53:46):
am now a single mother of four children. I'm divorced,
and yeah, it's probably about it. So I was twenty one.
I was in graduate school at a seminary, and I
was young from my class because I had didnt high
(54:07):
school three years. I became involved with a fellow classmate
who was there as a second career. He had been
an attorney. He was thirty six years old, UM and
going through a divorce, and I we I thought I
was madly in love. He claimed he was madly in love.
(54:28):
And we talked about marriage from the very beginning of
our relationship and kids. UM big part because he told
me that he was getting divorced because his wife didn't
want children and he really wanted kids, So that was
a huge part of that um. Probably about eight months
(54:48):
inter relationship, it got a little rocky and found out,
probably I was right around Thanksgiving, that I was pregnant,
and his immediate response was, well, you don't you have
to do And I was floored by that. I thought, well,
(55:11):
we've been talking about getting married, we'll get married, and
what is you know, where did that come from. I
was just blindsided by that. Immediately started saying, you know,
if your parents find out, they will just disown you.
They will never let you live that down. So there
was just this immediate separating me from my family, from
(55:35):
my friends, from my loved ones. And we went to
a planned parenthood and had that's where I had my
initial pregnancy tests where they confirmed that, and so I
had the abortion. It was a Saturday morning, was January six,
(55:55):
and he got me back to his apartment, took care
of me for a day, and then dropped me back
off at my dorm and I think just thought, boom
boom and wash his hands with me. I never told
my parents. They knew something was wrong, but I just
I still lived in that they'll be bad, they'll down
(56:18):
me kind of thing. A couple of months later, he
sent me a letter on this stationary letterhead from his
law firm, demanding that I pay him back for the abortion.
And at that point I just I didn't know where
to turn. I just felt lost. And I went to
(56:41):
our campus pastor, who it was fantastic and said, you
know what would help you the most right now? And
I said, I think telling my parents. And I drove
to my parents that night and they were fantastic, and
they they, yeah, it's loved me. And you know, I
(57:01):
asked him at that point, what would you have wanted
me to do? And my mom, who I had never
thought in a million years would say this, said exactly
what you did. You have a life ahead of you.
So that was sort of the beginning of my I
think owning it, acknowledging and owning it. The school the
(57:25):
attorney made a deal with him basically, I said, I'll
give him the money, but and he could never contact me,
sort of an agreement, so I had no contact with
him after that. Um, yeah, I think. You know, there's
(57:47):
long periods of time where you are you don't think
about it at all. I have an eighteen year old
daughter now, so then now I think about it because
she's completely riled up about the last few days and
couldn't be prouder for starters. But I think young women
that I've known along the way, I would never I
(58:10):
would never encourage it, But at the same time, I
would never discourage I think it's such an individual thing,
so for any of us to make a blanket statement
of right or wrong, none of us have that right
to do that, or to say one way or another
for each person. I think, at the end of the day,
(58:32):
the shame I think I probably did have shame, which
I think was completely unfounded. What I did was completely legal.
There was nothing illegal about what I did. But then
why why don't I talk about it more freely? And
I hate that there's that stigma for anybody to not
(58:55):
be able to say I did this, because at the
end of the day, I've never thought of it as
I killed a human. I've never thought of it that way.
Is I don't believe that whole life beginning at conception,
but at the end of the day, it was a
very life giving part of my life. And I think
(59:22):
for so many women, like how can you not say
it was to have that second chance and to be
able to go live your best life. I think it's
that was probably my first experience of never assume what's
going on in someone else's life. I think, um it
(59:47):
has made me a much more compassionate person, especially in
my ministry roles of who are we to judge? And
I think that's a huge part of it. Right, we're
(01:00:09):
almost at the end of this series and wanted to
hear what you think. You can call this number one
eight four four for seven nine seven eight eight three
and leave us a message about how you're feeling, or
perhaps actions you're taking, or even things you've learned or
want to share about abortion. Your message might be included
(01:00:32):
in a future episode. Again, that number is one eight
four four for seven nine seven eight eight three. Abortion
The Body Politic is executive produced by me Katie Couric
and was created by small team led by our intrepid
(01:00:53):
supervising producer Lauren Hansen. Editing and sound designed by Derrick Clements,
research by Knee No Perlman, Production and editing help for
this episode from Mary do translation help from Carlo Martinez
and Marcy Deepina, and a special thanks to case Um
producers Courtney Litz and Adriana Fasio,
I'm Katie Couric, and this is Abortion the Body Politic,
Part five. What has just occurred in the United States
is unprecedented. Globally, we have never seen retrogression on this
scale in terms of the taking away of a constitutional
right to abortion that has existed for fifty years. Today,
(00:21):
we're looking outside of the US to find out what
the viight for reproductive rights looks like in other countries
and how the United States now compares. The United States
is now in a situation which really is an outlier
in sense of the global picture. I'm Lea Hocter and
(00:45):
I work at the Center for Reproductive Rights. I'm the
Senior Regional Director for Europe at the Center, and I
lead the Center's work to make legaland policy change on
reproductive rights across Europe. Only three countries and now very
unfortunately the United States, so that makes it for have
actually moved backwards. El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland have rolled
(01:10):
back entitlements to abortion, but never on this scale. They
have done so from restrictive contexts, so they have had
laws in place that we're already generally globally regarded as
restrictive and have then scaled back those entitlments. But the
United States, what has happened in terms of the Supreme
Court's decision um, what that decision has done is taken
(01:32):
away a very robust constitutional protection for abortion rights and
completely decimated that. Globally, the trend is very clear. There
is an overwhelming movement and has been for many, many
decades across the world in all regions, towards the removal
(01:54):
of bands and highly restrictive laws on abortion, and towards
the legalization of abortion, the treatment of it as essential healthcare,
the decriminalization and the removal of barriers in law and policy.
And this is the overwhelming trend. It has been the
trend in Europe for eighty years. It has been squarely
the global trend um for at least the last thirty years.
(02:16):
I mean in the last thirty years alone, fifty five
or you know, over fifty five I think actually fifty
nine countries globally have moved towards removing bands on abortion,
legalizing abortion, and expanding access, expanding entitlements to abortion. We've
seen major systemic change in Latin America as a result
(02:39):
of the green wave. In Argentina, Columbia and Mexico, in
the European region. We've seen systemic change in Ireland, in Cyprus,
in Belgium, in Iceland. Even just in the last few weeks,
major jurisdictions Germany, France, the Netherlands all removing barriers from
to abortion from their laws Spain. Legislation is now pending
(03:01):
in Spain that will really introduce a range of very
important reforms that will increase protection for abortion rights. And
these are just a handful of examples. We've also seen
major change in African countries in Kenya, um in South Africa,
and in in Asia and Nepal, in India and South Korea,
and in range of other countries. It's not actually impossible
(03:24):
for me to list every single country in the world
that has made progressive change, because there are so many.
Some countries are now taking protective measures in direct response
to the Supreme courts reversal of Row. In the days
since the decision from the United States Supreme Court, we
are now hearing lawmakers in France, in Belgium, in Sweden
(03:48):
and Denmark discussing in a very conquerent way the reforms
they will undertake to introduce constitutional rights protection for abortion
rights in their national constitutions. We've seen Land announced that
it will undertake reforms of its laws to improve them,
to bring them into line with World Health Organization UM guidance.
(04:09):
So while for people in the United States the situation
is very troubling and very grave, what we are actually
seeing on foot of this decision in this region in
Europe is a galvanization by decision makers across the region
who care about reproductive rights to actually begin to stand
up for those rights and do something in terms of
(04:29):
their own national laws and policies to shore up that protection.
With the US now facing a long road ahead, it's
about time we turn our attention to what activists around
the world have been building. What can the US and
abortion advocates learn from the systemic change rippling across other continents.
(04:51):
We reached out to someone on the front lines of
reproductive rights in Latin America, one of the organizers of
the so called Green wave. The green wave is resistant,
is power, is hope. That's what the green wave is.
So I am Powerla Like Jen, I am a human
rights attorney reproductive rights activists all over Latin America, and
(05:15):
i am the executive director at the Women's Equality Center.
It started in Argentina when UM the LA campaign National,
the National Campaign for Legal and Free Abortion was created
in two thousand three. It all started with a symbol.
There was this handkerchief. The handkerchief was a green handkerchief.
(05:38):
The handkerchief came inspired by the Ulama. There were the
women in Argentina that were marching UM to find the
kids that their children that were disappeared during the dictor chip.
And they will march every Thursday and they will wear
these white handkerchiefs around their their heads as a symbol
of who they were. And every Thursday day at three
(06:00):
o'clock you will see the Martian even as today they
are still Martian. At this point, it's not to try
to seek their children, but their grandchildren. So it was
a movement of resistance, right, this idea that women can
come together and resists together, and like companions, all decided
instead of using white, they were using green because abortion
(06:25):
is healthcare and green is associated with the color of health.
And it started very simple, just with this idea of
you will put the handkerchief in your race, in your purse,
and and it was a not when you were on
the street of letting know somebody what you were standing for,
and I mean that you were standing for women's rights.
It means that you were standing for health I mean
(06:46):
that you were standing for abortion as a health care.
That you were standing for equality, you were standing for
democracy and all the sudden UH. Through the work of
many years, this small symbol too covered the entire Latin
American region and it has take covered the entire work.
(07:10):
It also has created changes. In the last two years,
Latin America has jumped from being one of the regions
with the most restricted abortion laws to be in a region.
There has changed its abortion laws in three countries, Argentina.
There is also the land of the current Pope just
(07:31):
changed its law in December twenty twenty recogniztion autonomy as
a as a right and UH and also making sure
that help the abortion was included in health services and
were provided free in hospitals for anybody who needed. Then
we had Mexico, through the decision of the Supreme Court.
(07:51):
He decided that in order to make it equal for everybody,
no women could be criminalized because of abortion access and
the states had the duty to change their laws. And
since that decision, nine states had changed their laws. And
then very resently we had my home country Columbia. The
true decision of the UH Constitutional Court recognized the women
(08:13):
should have autonomy to decide when and where UH interrupt
apprentices if they wish so between the first twenty four
weeks of of pregnancy and and that just is something
that we never thought that would happen in Mexico. Is
it's still a very religious country. Goluby is still a
very religious country and conservative in many ways. But what
(08:34):
we are seeing is the resistance of this movement and
the hope that this movement brings is changing laws in
the meantime here in the US for women who need
abortion care right now and live in states that ban
(08:54):
or heavily restricted traveling even outside the country, maybe their best.
But I think that there are two things that are
important to remember when we talk about abortion in the
context of traveling outside the United States. The first one
is abortionist health care, and Americans have been traveling to
Latin America for healthcare for a very long time. Then
(09:19):
tal procedures, some of the best dentists are done in
Mexico and Colombia. They are training the United States. They
go back there is much cheaper, they have all these facilities.
The tourism of health is something in exist because the
United States doesn't have a strong health care system. They
they are already are examples and you're seeking healthcare in
(09:40):
other countries. So now we are just starting abortion just
one of those services that you're going to be sicking
that is of the same quality and of the same
level that you will receive and is sometimes better than
many of the states here, like the systems that you
will have. But the other thing that is happening is
that the women who are in the border in Mexico
(10:00):
um trying to provide these services. There is an amazing
leader in Mexico, Peronica Cruise from Lallibres, who have created
this whole network of people who are willing to just
provide abortion to anybody who crosses the border or even
sometimes they across the border um to to provide help.
(10:22):
They didn't do it because it was a request for
anybody from the United States. They came together so the
Texas law and say, what are we going to do
about it? It's our border, they are our sisters. There
are our Latino systems on the other side. What are
we going to do about it? Because as Beronica says,
(10:45):
the law sometimes is wrong, and when the law is wrong,
you need to find a way to fix it. The
United States, in this case, it's just completely going backwards.
It is regressing and humanity cannot allow that. We spoke
to Veronica Cruise with the help of a translator from
(11:08):
her office in Guana Wato, Mexico. Veronica started her organization
Las Libres two decades ago. Las Libre. Las Libres is
a feminist organization that was born twenty two years ago,
and we were born in the right time to fight
for safe abortion in a state which was the most
(11:33):
restrictive for abortion rights at the time in the country
of Mexico. So, twenty two years ago, local legislators wanted
to put women victims of rape in jail after having abortions,
and and we decided to make a huge fight to
guarantee that not only would those women be released, but
(11:56):
also to have the law change so so can we
We did a great job of ensuring safe, free and
legal abortions for girls and women who were victims of rape.
From there, we started to guarantee that all women would
(12:16):
have that right to a safe and legal abortion if
they decided to do so, and and so we built
this model of safe abortions at home without medical supervision
under the protocol of the World Health Organization, and today
we've built networks across the country to ensure that. Coincidentally,
(12:42):
a week after s b A became law in Texas,
the Mexican Supreme Court decriminalized abortion. We thought it was
a good idea to help the women in Texas right
(13:02):
because in Mexican territory, the Texas lob does not apply
to them. And although our locations border each other, if
you just crossed the street, we are in Texas. So
in certain border cities, we decided to form a cross
border network to support and accompany women from Texas who
(13:25):
are seeking free, safe and legal abortions. So then more
women began to arrive from other states from the United States,
and well after the summer, women from all around the
country started coming to Mexico for help. We've already developed
(13:47):
several logistical ways over the past few months to ensure
the safety of abortion and to ensure that women and
people in the United States who are seeking them can
do so safely. The first are the women who can
cross to Mexico, those who have the ability to cross.
They can come and they can buy their mr Po
(14:08):
style pills at any pharmacy in Mexico, and they can
return home with their prescription and they can have a
virtual accompaniment to accompany them through the procedure. And then
there are other women who are crossing into Mexico, and
we have safe spaces that we arrange for them for
(14:30):
those women who want to do everything in Mexico. And
then there are others and and these are actually the majority.
These are women who write to us and we send
the pills to be hand delivered to them from here,
and then we accompany them through the process. Virtually, there
are women who are looking for our services, and there
(14:53):
are also people who want to help. And so we're
developing the model that we developed in Mexico twenty years ago,
building social solidarity, a society that accompanies the decision of
women and a guarantee of abortions, with the insurance of
the safety of women so that they do not have
(15:16):
to have abortions and restrictive and unsafe settings. We are
prepared because we know that we can be an option
that more and more women are are learning about this
possibility and they can get care through our services and
that they have us as an alternative. So so we
(15:38):
are prepared with more medicine and more hands and heads
to go along with it. But but honestly, we don't
want to solve America's problem. American society has to solve
this problem because it's not a woman's problem. It's it's
a problem of a society that allow women's rights to
(16:01):
a legal and safe abortion to be restricted. So if
we really hope that American society is prepared to deal
with this problem. When we come back the story of
one woman's border crossing abortion, this isn't the first time
(16:30):
that American women have turned to Mexico for help. In
the nineteen sixties, in particular, many women traveled to Mexico
for abortion care they were unable to get in the
United States. Women like Marcia Carlin. My name is Marcia Carlin.
I'm seventy seven and I had my abortion when I
(16:52):
was twenty one, before robi Raide was passed in nineteen
sixty six. When Marcia founders pregnant and did not want
to be she first went to an O. B. G.
Y N in San Francisco to a Dr. Loewenstein, but
he refused to do the procedure. Dr Loewenstein didn't know
(17:13):
of anybody, any doctor in the United States at that
time who would give me an abortion, so he gave
us the phone number in Tijuana for this doctor. And
it turned out the police had had a had made
him leave Tijuana. He'd run out of Tijuana because the
(17:34):
police were after him, so he was now in Warez,
so we knew we had to somehow get to Mexico.
He told us to check in at the el, pass
the hotel, and then take a taxi to a street
border in Warez and then um, a guy would pick
(17:55):
us up in her I think it was a red Chevrolet,
and were supposed to act like we knew him. And
we waited and waited on that street corner, and finally
he came by and he opened the door real fast
and said get in. So we got in, and he
drove around and around and around for at least twenty minutes,
(18:16):
drove around the back streets of Warez and probably trying
so we wouldn't know where he was going. Ended up
in a residential neighborhood in a small house and said,
coming here, the doctor's in there, and he brought me
in and a woman said sit here and wait for
the doctors. So after a while she brought me back
(18:38):
to a bedroom where there was a metal table and
she said, lie on the table. It was stirts and
the doctor came in and he was going to give
me gas, and he said I want you and I
put the gas on. Not to move, don't move at all.
But he gave me gas then, so I started having
(19:01):
wild dreams, and all of a sudden, all I remember
is he pulled the yanked the gas mask off and
said you moved. I was. It's hard to explain how
scary that was because I didn't know what he was
doing to my body and my uterus. And so he said,
(19:22):
I'm then I have to finish the operation without the gas.
And I said that's fine with me because I was
scared to death. I wasn't gonna move then, and so
he did very quickly finished what he was doing. I
guess he was scraping my uterus and and he said,
you're going to get cramps, and I did that serious fans. Anyway,
(19:47):
we left and got in the car, the red Chevrolet,
and he drove us back again and we got a
taxi back to El Paso, and then we got up
plane back to San Francisco, and then I saw Dr
Loewenstein that evening, I think for the next morning, and
he said everything looked fine. But a couple of days later,
(20:11):
I think it was two days later, I started to hemorrhage.
I'd never hemorrhage before. It's it's that in itself. It's
a very scary feeling. There's just blood gushing out of
your your vagina. My friends were very worried about me,
and so they said, call Dr. Lowency. We're gonna take
(20:34):
you back to the hospital in San Francisco. So they
drove me back. I was curled up in the backseat
of the car. I remember this distinctly, and just so anxious.
First I didn't know what was happening in my body,
and then I thought I was messing up his car
with all this blood. No, even though I tried not
(20:54):
to mess it up. So we got back and Dr
Loewenstein had talked to me and he said come right in.
And what he did that he put me out that
night and just so i'd sleep, and then first thing
in the morning he operated. I think he did a
DNC to finish the operation. He told me how scared,
(21:20):
how not he wasn't scared, but how worried he was
that I could have died from the hemorrhaging. And he
y'all also came around, gave me a hug, actually said,
stand if I want to give you a hug. And
he said, I'm so glad you will be able to
have children. And I hadn't even realized that that could be.
(21:41):
I was worried about I don't know. I was just
frightened more than anything. And he said he will be
able to have the children. I'm quite sure I was
able to have two kids. So a few years later,
when it was the right time, Dr Loewensteinen in San
(22:02):
Francisco had asked me to write up to type up
the experience, so I typed it up before I hemorrhaged.
I typed it up when I got back and gave
it to him because he wanted to know more to
help other women. I sent you a copy of the
They're right up, which I finally found. I hadn't seen
it since I gave it to him. That was great,
(22:25):
two kind of verify everything I had remembered in my mind.
I was most surprised that it ended before I hemorrhaged.
I didn't remember that that it ended like everything was fine,
but it wasn't. It was not fine. I just thank
the Lord at the end that everything worked out. Okay,
(22:46):
it's very lucky, as very very lucky. It's really hard.
It's even hard to know, like who were the people
across the border for morsons. It's very hard to know
how many. UM, I guess it is in the thousands
of My name is Lena Maria Murillo and I'm a historian.
UM I'm an assistant professor at the University of Iowa
(23:08):
and the Department of Gender, Women in Sexuality Studies, History
and Latin and Latino Latin Next six. Through her work,
Lena has uncovered evidence of just how long American women
have been traveling to Mexico for abortion care. This is
a problem with trying to find the history of things
(23:30):
that are underground and illegal, right, It's always hard to
find this sort of like moment when it started. But
through oral histories, UM I was able to document UM
one abortion clinic in into other bodies UH in the
nineteen late nineteen forties, and um the person I spoke
(23:52):
to like worked at his clinic she was a young
woman worked at at the Davalos clinic. She hired is
another young woman, uh, and he teaches her how to
do the procedure. Now she's at a doctor she's she's
just an assistant, but she teaches her, and then he
teaches his son mad and then it's like kind of
(24:13):
radio silence from that, like that oral history intribue that
I did in nineteen forties until the nineteen sixties, when
a person by the name of Patricia McGinnis, along with
um Rowena Gerner, and Lanta Fallon out of the Bay Area,
begin to really advocate very loudly for a repeal of
the abortion laws in California. Patricia McGinnis in San Francisco.
(24:39):
Um she's working class women from Oklahoma, and she's a
medical technician, historian Leslie Reagan, and she she that's like
the first person to start talking to just ordinary people
and collects petitions to reform the abortion law and make
it easier, uh, to get therapeutic abortions. And then she
(25:03):
starts talking because she had had abortions herself, she had
performed her own abortion, she had had illegal abortions, she
had illegal abortion in Mexico. And so they created this
big um not we want big pubettic quotes organization UM
called the Society Humane Abortions and then the Association to
Repeal Abortion Laws. And through those two organizations UM, they
(25:25):
begin to create a list of abortion providers in the
US Mexico border region, what's called the list of Providers
in Mexico and some in Japan and England. They go
and they to Mexico and they meet the specialists, and
they they inspect the clinics, and they set up this
(25:46):
whole thing where UM there they heart like the public
Health inspectors. And really it was Rowena Girner who was
like that. She was the one who was on top
of making sure that everybody was doing things properly. And
they ask anyone who gets this information they provide, you know,
a big packet of information of where to go, how
(26:07):
to prepare, what to expect, how much it will cost.
And they asked them to fill out, um uh something
about the procedure and to bring back information, you know,
about the quality of the procedure, was it safe, did
it appear to be um you know, sanitary, How do
(26:28):
they behave? How much did they charge you? So so
they also created you know, like a consumer pressure group
because they kept information and they would take people off
the list as they got bad information. So that's one
really important group that was sending people out of the
country UM for safe abortions, and that they are trying
(26:48):
to regulate the practitioners. What's fascinating is that she ends
up and listening those two people that I just mentioned
UM who is the son of Antonio that who had
the clinic of the nineteen fourties, and this other other
person who's the father taught her and they're like number
one on her list. She's like, I love these people.
They know what they're doing, they're amazing, they do great work.
(27:13):
And and sure enough, like as I've looked through the
UM through their files, some people were like it was fine, right,
like they didn't want to say too much. This was fine,
not a big deal. And other people went to great
links to kind of tell every detail of what the
experience had been like. And UM of the woman provider,
people had the most incredible experiences with her. She operated
(27:38):
completely underground UM out of a small house, you know,
as an all women, all women crew. UM. She was
assisted by her sister and then they had like two
other women assistants, and um, they would feed the people
that would come um and get abortions. And you know,
one woman wrote like they did my makeup when I left.
I lived prettier after my abortion and I did when
(28:00):
I got here. UM. I mean just you know, I'm
interpreting it as like really thoughtful sort of feminist, feminist
grounded care right. And so the demand for abortion goes up,
especially in the nineteen sixties when you've got like women's
liberation right is at the forefront of all this um
(28:24):
and and so people are demanding greater access to abortion care.
And so they go to northern mechical to to get
that abortion care. I want to guess tomate thousands of
people um went and and got successfully access abortion care
from reputable providers in northern Micheo. Goal. We wouldn't have
(28:45):
organizations like the Society for Humane Abortions or the Clergy
Consultation Service reform people to make a goal if these
were not good providers. A young woman dies and be
it as an egg rest on a budged abortion, and
that creates this massive like, well, what the heck is
(29:06):
going on in Mexico. We thought we had done what
we could in de Fuana. But now like this has
spread all across northern Mexico's border. The narrative that these
awful abortion mills and quad is and making we're killing
American them right was the sort of big story, and
it was bringing disrepute to places like like I'll Passo right,
(29:29):
where people in a Passo Americans and I'll Passo work
ashamed embarrassed by their Mexican compatriots who were engaging in
this unlawful activity. And they interviewed this one doctor, you
know pass So and he says, uh, you know, we
can't do anything about our Mexican neighbors. They're just lawless
(29:50):
like this at the same time that people are racializing,
May he go out this you know, Um Sarah Weddington
who goes on to r U Rovi Wade, you know,
she had an aboard Mackey Golf. She was in Austin
at the time, getting her degree in in law, becoming
an attorney. Um butt u t Austin and she's like,
you know, here I am in this dusty, dirty, backwards
(30:11):
Mexican Mexican town going to get an abortion right, like
the trope of the like back Alley butcher for people
in in the borderlands was mee goal like Mickey Go
was where these butchers lived and this is where they
did their butchery, even though there's so much information about
non butchers right, like actual providers were doing incredible work,
(30:34):
but it was they were an easy fall guy for
demanding rights in the US. And that's part of the
work that I that I'm writing about and talking about
is the way that this, like the racialist tropes worked
in the favor of like US feminist activists to be
able to say, yeah, we're leaning on some of these
folks to do the like dirty work of providing access
to abortion, and I put dirty working quotes so that
(30:56):
we can protect doctors in the US, but we'll also
use them escapegoat to say, like, we don't want women
traveling to backwards on sanitary Mehico to get abortions. We
want safe, legal abortions in the US. There are doctors
who could have performed abortions in the US, and some
(31:17):
of them did but for fear of losing their license
or fear of being accosted being known as the abortion
provider in their community. They're like, now, but I know
somebody who can help you in Mexico because we don't
care about our colleagues and Mahkoes about the way that
they're seeing or understood in their communities. As the United
(31:40):
States embarks on this new era of abortion criminalization, Lena says,
if we're willing to pay attention, there is a lot
we can learn just by taking a global perspective. One
of the lessons that run the past for me is
really thinking about the rb drariness of borders and how
(32:02):
they have to not make people care, and how people
constantly thwart them anyway. They're all means to control people.
The thought that, like all all social justice and survival understanding,
is going to emanate from the United States is absolutely incorrect.
We should be thinking about how weird going to join
(32:25):
international global coalitions for social justice in racial justice, not
as the not as the ones that are bringing the knowledge,
but the ones that are here to learn right. And
so that to me is like a critical fundamental part
of what we can learn from history. That we have
(32:45):
benefited from care from other countries and other providers in
the past, and we will likely lead them again, and
that racialist tropes and ideologies have no there's no room
for for that at this particular juncture, once again there's
(33:06):
pala a villain. The United States has been living in
a war. They was beautiful and it was privileged in
terms of autonomy for many. Still it wasn't the reality
for many or stays for a while, but at least
in general and the role protection had a lot of
power and um. In Latin America we have been in
(33:27):
the opposite for many years and we have been able
to survive. Somehow we know from a legal point of
view how to make some legal laws better when they're
still very restricted. Some of them have been through international standards,
the World Health Organizations, the UN standards. So so I
think the activists need to look to those standards that
(33:48):
we have been trying to create for twenty or thirty
years as symbols of how you make laws. There are
still very restrictive, a lot more flexible until you change everything.
But then also from examples of excess, we have had
success for the last um two years, and even in
very restricted environments like All Salvador, where there is a
(34:08):
total abortion and women in All Salvador have been criminalized
for upset, for emergencies, for miscarriages and Stilberts, which is
something that we are going to see in the United
States as well, and unfortunately dies a reality that we
have also just celebrate the freedom of sixty five women
that we were able to get out of prison. And
I think this is an opportunity for the United States
(34:30):
to say and for the activists, Okay, we haven't seen
this new reality yet, but there are others who have.
Let's bring it on board and common and I am
started seeing a lot of that already happening, but I
think it needs to be more consistence, more effectively, and
more um and more openness right for that when we
(34:52):
come back. What a progress these Catholic countries have made,
says about our own complicated relationship with religion. Votes in
(35:13):
favor of the proposals who vote will lead to the
dismantling of one of the strictest anti abortion regimes in
the world. Just south of the border, in one of
the most Catholic countries in the world, women's rights activists
have scored a major victory. This is a huge step
(35:33):
for a widely Catholic country. Much has been made of
the fact that several of the countries that have liberalized
abortion laws in the past couple of years are largely Catholic.
The Catholics can be anything but anti abortion seems to
be a shock, but Catholics and people from all faith
have been in the fight for reproductive rights all along.
(35:58):
I am Jamie Manson and I'm president of Catholics for Choice.
The dominant narrative UM that most people buy into is
that all Catholics are opposed to abortion, and all Catholics think, Um,
life begins at conception. Uh. And so that is like
the number one myth that we have to bust in
our work, because in fact, abortion is very popular among
(36:21):
Catholics in the United States, more popular actually than the
general US population. Sixty percent of Catholics did not want
to see Roe versus Wade struck down on Friday. Um.
I've seen different number. More recent numbers say sixty of
Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all our most cases. Uh.
And I think one of the most surprising numbers is
(36:43):
that one in four abortion patients in this country is Catholic,
meaning that not only did Catholic support abortion, they're having
abortions at the same rate as everyone else in this country.
So abortion is part of the life of the church.
Catholic for Choice has a decades long legacy of working
in Latin America helping liberalize abortion laws there. But now
(37:08):
it's the US that needs the help. We're going to
bring in our sisters in Latin America who are from
the Catholic for Choice UM organizations there to come and
tell us what we need to know about how to
live under a repressive anti abortion regime. How did you survive,
how did you create networks? How did you avoid the law? Um?
(37:31):
You know, and it is just a stunning moment for
us that the people that we helped we are turning
to to help us navigate us to be our visionaries,
to be our profits UM in the Road ahead. Catholics
Are Choice actually really predates ROW, not formally, but UM.
The women who ended up founding the organization were already
organizing before ROW and then really in earnest formalized after
(37:56):
the road decision. So the organization is UM just about
fifty years old now, and its purpose was really to
to ask for several things. One is for conversation about
abortion within the walls of the church, because there is
no room even at the most liberal Catholic university where
there are other conversations about controversial things, you cannot talk
(38:16):
about abortion. So wanting to you know, to be able
to have dialogue about the issue was it was a
very big, big campaign of theirs um and then to
embolden the voices of Catholics who already are pro choice.
And for those Catholics who don't know where they fall
um in in in what camp? To educate them, you know,
not to tell them what to think, but give them
(38:38):
the resources there the Church won't give them, uh, to
discern what for them is a morally complex issue. In
my opinion, for the bishops, this is not about babies,
This is not about life. This is really about controlling
women's freedom. Because there is a fundamental idea in Catholicism
of gender binary uh they call it gender complimentarity. That
(39:03):
God ordained men for a very specific role, having that
they're supposed to be leaders and take authority, and women
are meant to be servants and nurturers and care for
the family, and our most essential vocation is motherhood. According
to this theology, Um Pope chump Pulled the second had
a special phrase for women. He said, we had a
(39:23):
feminine genius, and what that really means is our uterus
is our ability to just state was our genius? And
so this is this is so pervasive, um, and I
think this is the prime mover for these men. Again,
these are ostensibly celibate, all male leadership. This is the
most radical patriarchy in the world. There's a billion Catholics.
(39:44):
They have presents in every country in the globe, in
the globe, and they also have enormous power at the
U N for that matter. And so they are terrified
of women's power and women's freedom. And um, that is
what you know, A portion is really all about. When
you can control your own fertility, you have access to
(40:06):
freedom and power. And this is the opposite of what
this hierarchy wants. It they it scares a life out
of them. Remember, they do not ordain women. Why on
earth would they want women to have access to freedom
and power. And also, all of these ideas that we're
hearing life begins a conception, personhood, these are all Catholic theology.
(40:26):
These are all Catholic theological ideas that suddenly Evangelicals believe in.
Suddenly Mormons believe in churches that never believed to this Suddenly,
when it became politically expedient where they could have a
you know, an unholy alliance. Uh. These three, these three
churches Catholicism, Mormonism and Evangelicalism, they saw the political power
and cloud they would get that they got this prime
(40:48):
seat at the Republican table. Uh, it changed everything for them.
And so but again, but these are these are you know,
to me, very fringe Catholic ideas because most Catholics don't
believe them. That are being codified into civil law. I
mean it is the grossest infringement on religious freedom, I
(41:10):
think in the history of this nation, because we have
a lot of people of faith like Jews, who not
only support abortion rights, it's required in some circumstances, and
so we are really infringing on religious freedom of others.
In a survey done of Jews in the United States
support abortion access. We go back to this value of
(41:32):
piqua nefesh, this value that means the the importance, the
value of saving a life. My name is Rabbi Kelly Levy.
I am the associate Rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, Texas,
and I work with a vibrant, inclusive, social justice oriented
(41:53):
congregation as their associate rabbi, but as a major part
of the clergy team. This is where Judaism diverges from Christianity.
In Judaism, we don't believe that life begins at conception.
We believe that life begins at first viable breath. So
as soon as a child is able to exit the
(42:15):
womb and is able to take a first breath and
is viable to take that first breath, that is when
that life truly begins. So in Judaism, when it comes
to abortion and it comes to the pregnant person, that
individual is the life that is prioritized. And so when
(42:35):
it comes to pekuah nafeesh, the the value of saving
of life, of preserving a life, that is the life
that we prioritize. So in a situation where you have
a pregnant person who has either had a terrible traumatizing
experience that caused them to become pregnant, or they find
(42:57):
themselves pregnant and know that they cannot men to lee
or physically carry this child, or they know that they
cannot care for this child after the child is born,
or they know that they won't be able to endure
forty plus weeks of this pregnancy. That is part of
that preserving of the life of that soul. It's not
(43:18):
about the fetus, who, according to Jewish tradition, does not
have the status as a living person. The Christian theology
has often taken over the conversation around faith and abortion
because so many Jews are are accepting and basically requiring
(43:43):
and demanding abortion access. It's not traditionally been something that
we've organized around. That's changed in the in recent years.
The National Council of Jewish Women has a scholar in
residence named Rabbi Dania Ruttenberg, who focuses entirely on abortion
access and actually organizing Jews around this particular effort. One
(44:03):
of the things that the Jewish world has started to
change as far as the way we approach this subject
is it's actually a violation of our religious freedom to
not have access to abortion, because we fully support abortion
access and the rights of reproductive justice, and it is
(44:25):
actually it's actually deterring our ability to practice our faith
because if you go back and look at our text,
it says there are certain situations where you absolutely must
provide an abortion. And this goes back thousands of years
and by not allowing us that opportunity that right, we
are not actually allowed to practice our religion to its fullness.
(44:49):
I grew up in a very conservative, white Evangelical church,
so I'm very familiar with a theological framework that's very
cut and dry, that things are this or they're not.
That God is this or God isn't. I'm Reverend Katie's,
I'm an ordained Baptist minister, and I'm the CEO of
the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice or our c r C,
(45:12):
as we fondly call it. There's a certain comfort and
having a sense of security that if I simply follow
these rules, then my life will be wonderful. And I
subscribe to that for a long time until I had
experiences that disrupted that framework and showed me that I
(45:32):
actually didn't have the kind of certainty that I thought
that I did, and that required me to do a
lot of soul searching around what does it mean to
be a faithful person with a different kind of theological
framework that allows for nuance and complexity. So I think
it's just as much about how we approach those conversations
(45:54):
as it is the content. And I really try in
my work not to fall into debate. What ends up
happening is if we don't talk about the real people
who are being impacted, it becomes an abstract, ideological conversation.
It's so wrong when we lose the focus on on
(46:15):
the real human beings in front of us. The way
that we talk about abortion, even on the pro choice side,
can often be really stigmatizing. We often talk about only
the most extreme cases where a person's bodily autonomy has
been violated, or we talk about it as if it's
(46:36):
always a difficult decision for people, and that those things
are true, but they don't encompass the full spectrum of
people's experiences. And I think talking about how abortion can
be such a positive thing for people. It can be
life saving for one and lots of different ways, but
(46:57):
also it can be a catalyst for really important changes
in a person's life. Abortion is a blessing. Access to
abortion is a blessing. The ability to make a reproductive
decision is a right and a blessing. So as I'm
talking to folks who maybe are struggling, I think storytelling
(47:17):
is really essential, and not just storytelling of other people,
but really asking folks, what is your reproductive story. What
is your family's reproductive story? It does not take much
digging below the surface to hear painful stories of reproductive
loss regarding infertility or pregnancy loss, or just someone who
(47:39):
was never able to create the family that they wanted.
There are stories of adoption that are traumatic. Everybody has
a story around this, and I think that that can
be a way to create that heart connection is allowing
people to tell whatever their story is. There just isn't
space for people to share these things, and I think
the first step in healing ourselves and our communities as
(48:02):
just holding space for people to share. Another faith based
organization focused on reproductive rights is called Sacred. I am
Reverend connetitition Way. I am the faith Advocacy coordinator for
Sister Song, the Woman of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. I
(48:22):
am also the national co chair for Sacred. We are
encouraging brave conversations UM, not just among faith leaders, but
faithful people to give voice to those who actually already
believe in reproductive rights, health and justice, but feel afraid
(48:42):
of what voicing that may cause. UM. So, I feel
like what Sacred really is trying to do is give
people the language UM to stand firm in their faith
around this subject. My lived experience, UM is what brought
me to this work, and that's why I do it. UM.
(49:05):
I understand what it's like to be told that your
very existence is a sin. If I don't understand anything else,
theological interpretation is that is just that it is UH
open to interpretation by the lens of those who read it.
But the one thing that we are pretty much all
(49:27):
clear about in terms of our traditions of love is
that we are supposed to love one another, and we
are supposed to be compassionate to one another, and we're
not supposed to judge one another. If I don't know
anything else, that much I do know and so UM,
I will always approach uh any subject from that lens
(49:50):
of how can I be compassionate in this moment while
someone is navigating, UM what is best for their lives?
UM and so? And I know that is a direct
result of having to navigate UM being queer and black
and Caribbean and a woman in a world that said
(50:13):
that most of those things were unacceptable. Being introduced to
and embracing the framework of reproductive justice really does expand
the possibility of understanding the moral good of abortion. We
it reproductive justice. Do believe in the human right for
(50:35):
everyone to have a child, to not have a child,
the parent the children that they have, in safe, sustainable communities,
free from interpersonal and stink state sanctioned violence, and to
have bodily autonomy. And if you believe in that, if
you believe in those tenants, then you understand that bodily autonomy,
(50:56):
which is what we're talking about when we're talking about
making reproductive choices, for our eyes, is just as morally
sound as having a child, not having a child, and
raising the children that you have. It can't be separated out,
it can't be made other um and the only people
who benefit from it being made other are those who
(51:17):
seek to divide for political expediency. And as Jamie Manson shared,
the reproductive justice framework has also been helpful for the
work Catholics for Choice does in their communities. For a
lot of Catholics who have a very rich understanding of
social justice because it's in our tradition and they were
(51:38):
raised in it, that is very eye opening as well
when we really put it in that context that abortion
is a decision that affects the entire trajectory of a
woman's life is not just about bodily autonomy. It's about
you know, every everything, you know, the every It's so
consequential for every aspect, and it intersects with almost every
issue of social justice that a lot of Catholics care
(51:59):
about out So when you put it in that context,
my goodness, UM, you see the lights go on, um
and you see people realizing, okay, like this, you know,
like I am, I do support abortion access um, And
I found my place in this movement again. Reverend Katie's
a I think that part of being a person of
(52:22):
faith is the practice of hope. And I say a
practice because it's not a feeling all of the time,
it's a discipline. And I've been talking about hope as
being something that we hold in community and not just individually.
And I think what's so important about holding hope in
community is that the vision needs to be informed by
(52:43):
the people who are being most impacted by the injustice.
And I also think that what the reproductive justice framework
has done for me is really identify the larger what
we call white Christian nationalist political agenda that has never
been used about abortion, has really been about the control
(53:03):
of bodies and maintaining power over our bodies. And so
I'm really grateful to the ways that that framework expanded
my own understanding. That is not enough to only focusing
on any one particular issue, but to really see it
within this broader framework of just what it means to
be a human being and who wants to flourish. We'll
(53:25):
be right back. My name is Sue, and I am
a forty nine year old woman from Wisconsin, and I've
spent my career in ministry in various different capacities. I
(53:46):
am now a single mother of four children. I'm divorced,
and yeah, it's probably about it. So I was twenty one.
I was in graduate school at a seminary, and I
was young from my class because I had didnt high
(54:07):
school three years. I became involved with a fellow classmate
who was there as a second career. He had been
an attorney. He was thirty six years old, UM and
going through a divorce, and I we I thought I
was madly in love. He claimed he was madly in love.
(54:28):
And we talked about marriage from the very beginning of
our relationship and kids. UM big part because he told
me that he was getting divorced because his wife didn't
want children and he really wanted kids, So that was
a huge part of that um. Probably about eight months
(54:48):
inter relationship, it got a little rocky and found out,
probably I was right around Thanksgiving, that I was pregnant,
and his immediate response was, well, you don't you have
to do And I was floored by that. I thought, well,
(55:11):
we've been talking about getting married, we'll get married, and
what is you know, where did that come from. I
was just blindsided by that. Immediately started saying, you know,
if your parents find out, they will just disown you.
They will never let you live that down. So there
was just this immediate separating me from my family, from
(55:35):
my friends, from my loved ones. And we went to
a planned parenthood and had that's where I had my
initial pregnancy tests where they confirmed that, and so I
had the abortion. It was a Saturday morning, was January six,
(55:55):
and he got me back to his apartment, took care
of me for a day, and then dropped me back
off at my dorm and I think just thought, boom
boom and wash his hands with me. I never told
my parents. They knew something was wrong, but I just
I still lived in that they'll be bad, they'll down
(56:18):
me kind of thing. A couple of months later, he
sent me a letter on this stationary letterhead from his
law firm, demanding that I pay him back for the abortion.
And at that point I just I didn't know where
to turn. I just felt lost. And I went to
(56:41):
our campus pastor, who it was fantastic and said, you
know what would help you the most right now? And
I said, I think telling my parents. And I drove
to my parents that night and they were fantastic, and
they they, yeah, it's loved me. And you know, I
(57:01):
asked him at that point, what would you have wanted
me to do? And my mom, who I had never
thought in a million years would say this, said exactly
what you did. You have a life ahead of you.
So that was sort of the beginning of my I
think owning it, acknowledging and owning it. The school the
(57:25):
attorney made a deal with him basically, I said, I'll
give him the money, but and he could never contact me,
sort of an agreement, so I had no contact with
him after that. Um, yeah, I think. You know, there's
(57:47):
long periods of time where you are you don't think
about it at all. I have an eighteen year old
daughter now, so then now I think about it because
she's completely riled up about the last few days and
couldn't be prouder for starters. But I think young women
that I've known along the way, I would never I
(58:10):
would never encourage it, But at the same time, I
would never discourage I think it's such an individual thing,
so for any of us to make a blanket statement
of right or wrong, none of us have that right
to do that, or to say one way or another
for each person. I think, at the end of the day,
(58:32):
the shame I think I probably did have shame, which
I think was completely unfounded. What I did was completely legal.
There was nothing illegal about what I did. But then
why why don't I talk about it more freely? And
I hate that there's that stigma for anybody to not
(58:55):
be able to say I did this, because at the
end of the day, I've never thought of it as
I killed a human. I've never thought of it that way.
Is I don't believe that whole life beginning at conception,
but at the end of the day, it was a
very life giving part of my life. And I think
(59:22):
for so many women, like how can you not say
it was to have that second chance and to be
able to go live your best life. I think it's
that was probably my first experience of never assume what's
going on in someone else's life. I think, um it
(59:47):
has made me a much more compassionate person, especially in
my ministry roles of who are we to judge? And
I think that's a huge part of it. Right, we're
(01:00:09):
almost at the end of this series and wanted to
hear what you think. You can call this number one
eight four four for seven nine seven eight eight three
and leave us a message about how you're feeling, or
perhaps actions you're taking, or even things you've learned or
want to share about abortion. Your message might be included
(01:00:32):
in a future episode. Again, that number is one eight
four four for seven nine seven eight eight three. Abortion
The Body Politic is executive produced by me Katie Couric
and was created by small team led by our intrepid
(01:00:53):
supervising producer Lauren Hansen. Editing and sound designed by Derrick Clements,
research by Knee No Perlman, Production and editing help for
this episode from Mary do translation help from Carlo Martinez
and Marcy Deepina, and a special thanks to case Um
producers Courtney Litz and Adriana Fasio,
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