February 25, 2025 • 42 mins
In this week's episode of Señora Sex Ed, Diosa and Mala are joined by Virginia and Laura Jimenez, two members of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice. Virginia shares her experience receiving abortion care at two distinct times in her life: once at 17-years-old and later at 48-years-old. She hopes to normalize stories of abortions, no matter the reason. For the later half of this episode, Laura Jimenez provides the history of the Reproductive Justice movement and its four tenets.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever heard of reproductive justice? Yeah, that's like abortions, right.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Well yeah, but there's so much more to it.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Dehmate Pico. Okay, I'm listening.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
S Hi, Senora.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Welcome to Senora sex Ed Senora Sex Said is not
your Mommy sex Talk. This show is la platica like
you've never heard it before. With each episode, we're breaking
the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in LATINX communities.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Latinas have been hyper sexualized in popular culture, but notoriously
denied sex education. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between
Latinas from gen X to Gen Z, covering everything from
puberty and body image to representation in film, television, and music.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Just a reminder that in this show, a Senora is
a woman with a lot of life experiences and stories
to share. Maybe she's in her thirties, maybe she's in
her forties or fifties or older. Maybe she's trans, maybe
she sits.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
We are your hosts and producers, Viosa and Mala.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Lokatra Radio.
Since twenty sixteen, we've covered all kinds of topics, ranging
from politics, to mental health, current events, and of course sex.
We still have so much to learn, though, and we
hope you listen to each episode with the Senoras and
Senoritas in Your Life, Chapter twenty eight, abortion is Healthcare.
(01:56):
In today's episode, we sit down with virgin She is
the daughter of Mexican parents who grew up in the
barrios of northeast Los Angeles. She is a mother, daughter, sister,
and wife who believes in the power of stories to
heal and to liberate. Virginia shares her experience accessing abortion
(02:20):
care at the age of seventeen and later at forty eight.
She also shares what sexual education looked like in the
nineteen seventies and how she got involved with California Latinas
for Reproductive Justice. Here's our interview with Virginia.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
It's a wonderful. It's just an honor to be here
and be able to talk about these important issues. Quite
often we don't share in public.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
On Senora Sex said, we love to start by asking
what did conversations around sex and sexuality look like for
you growing up.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Well, I think it's important to note my birth year,
So I was born in nineteen sixty two, which was
you know, pre Roe v. Wade. And I was born
to a mother who she wasn't conventional, but she did
have some values about sex and sex before marriage, and
(03:21):
she thought it was really taboo. So she wanted to
educate me about what sex was and menstruation. But I
think she wanted to she really emphasized that sex was
something that occurred in the marriage relationship, and so we
didn't really have conversations about relationships, or about passion, or
(03:44):
about sexuality, or about even pleasure. That I didn't learn until,
I would say, even way in my forties, because those
conversations just were taboo, and so I didn't really feel
comfort with my body until you know, I was or
I already had children, and I started to hang out
(04:06):
with young people who had a different perspective. So people
who were born more in the seventies and eighties had
a more open worldview and a more nuanced understanding about
their sexuality. So I learned a lot from them.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
What were some of the things that you learned from them.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
About masturbation, about self pleasure, about how it's possible to
self pleasure, which is something I didn't really grow up
learning about I thought that that had to come from
the outside, from external, from another person, and not something
that I could do for myself. So that's what they
taught me.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Do you remember when you learned like about pleasure and masturbation.
Was there a specific person, a specific moment that comes
to mind?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Absolutely. I don't want to name this person, but I
was in a reading group with a bunch of like
twenty something women. I was like the grandmother of the group,
and they had real open conversations about masturbation, about vibrators,
(05:16):
about self pleasure. And this was probably ten ten years ago,
and it had a huge impact on me after that.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Based on your experience growing up and the information your
mother gave you, and maybe any sex that you learned
in school or from friends, did you approach your first
sexual experience with an understanding that pleasure with something that
you deserved and should receive.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Not at all. No, I didn't really. I wasn't really
interested in sex until maybe in my early twenties. Although
I did have my search sexual experience when I was seventeen,
but it was be from peer pressure. It was because
everybody was having sex and I felt like I had to,
(06:07):
Like Mark, that box. But it's not like I was
having these you know, sensations that I wanted to or
or really a strong desire to. So I can't say
that it was a pot I really cared about the person,
but I can't say that it was pleasurable. And that
didn't come until I was a bit older and I
(06:29):
started to learn a little bit more about asking for
what I needed and what I wanted. So that came
with time and came with you know, each relationship and
each experience. But that that, I mean, I just can't
emphasize enough, you know, the self part of it, because
(06:50):
we don't think. We grow up thinking that it has
to come from someone else has to give us something
and we have to give them something, and we don't.
We don't learn that there are things we can do
for ourselves that are really important and worthy and valuable
and satisfying.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Can you just describe what you have here in front
of us, and like where it came from.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
So my mother, she's a huge fan of Anne Landers,
and so she gave us I have two sisters, so
these were used by my oldest sister and me, and
then my younger sister. She gave advice about all sorts
of issues and problems people were having, and my mom
really looked to her because she was wise enough to
(07:38):
know she didn't want to replicate what her mother had
taught her, and so she looked to who was popular
at the time to give advice. And so she gave
me something called teenage Sex and ten Ways to Cool It.
And I just realized that she was preaching abstinence, you know,
and looking back at this, it was published in nineteen
(08:00):
sixty five, and looking back at it, I can see
that she was trying to teach me how to control
myself and how not to feel, you know, all my
emotions and all my desires. And my mother saved these booklets.
When I helped her clean out her garage. She we
came upon these, and I decided to keep them because
(08:21):
they're such a marker of a time period that honestly,
I thought had passed. But now I feel like, you know,
people want to take us back to this period where
we are, where our sexuality is repressed.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
We hope you're enjoying this conversation. Stay tuned. There's more
to come.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And we're back. We hope you enjoyed the break and
are ready to listen to the rest.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So how did you get involved with working with c LRJ,
the California Latinus for Reproductive Justice and what does your
work look like now with them.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
I got involved with the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice
when I was working on the documentary film No Mas Bevez.
We were looking for an organizational partner who could inform
us about the topics we were addressing and perhaps use
the film for the work that they were doing to
promote bodily autonomy. We were also interested in looking at
(09:27):
because the film looks at the unwanted for sterilizations of
Mexican women at the La County Hospital in the nineteen seventies,
and we were looking to put this history, this tragic history,
in the reproductive justice framework that cier l r J
advocates for. So the idea that you want to protect
women's right to terminate a pregnancy at the same time
(09:48):
protect their right to have as many children as they
want to and to have them in a safe and
healthy environment amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And Nomas Bevez was a big deal when it came out,
and I think it was very groundbreaking diving into that
history that unless you maybe like study Chicano Studies or
you're from La May. You may have never heard about
the sterilization program that took place here in California. What
(10:15):
was your role in the documentary and how did it
come to be.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
I learned about that case even though I grew up
in La born and raised in Los Angeles. I learned
about the case when I was a graduate student and
I was working with doctor Vicki Deuis, who is a
Chicano historian, and she taught that history. So I wanted
to learn more about it because I was so appalled
and angered that the county hospital is two miles from
(10:42):
where I live, and I had not learned about all
the activism around this. I was definitely appalled about the
abuse and the violation, but also about not learning of
the heroism that the women who challenged the hospital engaged
in their heroism, their activism, their bravery, and then the
(11:05):
chic got a feminists who were a part of it.
Was really a dynamic history. But I wasn't satisfied with
just writing about it. I was really wanted. I really
wanted to bring this history to a wider public, and
just by luck, I live very close to the director
Rene Tajimapenya and just by luck, we both had two
(11:26):
young babies we were taking care of, so we met
because of our kids and we would organize play dates
and then talk about our work and what we hope
to do once our kids were a little bit older.
So she said, this would make an amazing documentary, and
that's how I got involved in making the film.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I love that that's such a great detail that it
was like working mothers and how y'all connected in that way.
How does your personal story connect to CLRJ and your
role there.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
One of the questions we asked whenever we get together
with our board members or with staff for our retreats
is like, how did you come to RJ? What's your
understanding of RJ? And a lot of us come to
these issues not from a theoretical perspective, but actually from
experiencing something. And in my case, I learned about abortion
(12:26):
in when my best friend from high school got pregnant
and she definitely did not want to have children. She
was only fifteen and her mother was very much a
fundamentalist Christian and she was so terrified that her mother
would just I don't know what she was afraid of.
Because it was really nice, but she didn't want to
(12:49):
hurt her mother, I guess, And so we had a
network of women who just helped us figure out how
she could get pregnant, I mean, how she could terminate
that pregnancy. We had a network of women who could
figure out where she could get the money, who would
give her a ride, who would pick her up where
she would go, and it was so beautiful and so easy,
(13:12):
and it was just something that taught me about community
and about how we don't always need our mothers to
help us out in situations like that, and that there's
other people who are going to help us. And then
so that changed my perspective. I was probably anti abortion
(13:32):
before then because I believed that the rhetoric about murder
that is a person, and I had to educate myself
and re educate myself about it. I had an abortion
when I was seventeen, and then I had another abortion
when I was forty eight, So both times I just
didn't want to have a child.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And at the top of the interview, you described that
your first sexual sperience as coming about because of peer pressure.
So I'm wondering, like the did you feel pressure to
have the abortion to keep it where they're outside influences
in that decision as well.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
You know, it's really interesting because we talked about our
sexual experiences, but we never talked about controlling our like
finding a way to control to use birth control, finding
birth control. Nobody was having that conversation. You know, we
were talking. They were talking about positions and where to
do it, and you know, all of these all of
this information, but not like how do you prevent a pregnancy?
(14:38):
And so I got pregnant pretty quickly after the first
time I had sex, and I, I guess for the
same reasons my friend had an abortion. I was terrified
of my parents and what they would say, and I
didn't want to embarrass myself. I didn't want to embarrass them.
And I also did not want to be a mother.
At that time, I was not headed to college. I
(15:01):
had just graduated from high school. I didn't know what
I was going to do with my life, and I
wasn't really in love with my boyfriend in that way
to make that kind of commitment like let's have a
kid and it's I didn't feel that, and I didn't
feel pressure to have a baby. No, And I think
my friend's experience taught me that you can go on
(15:23):
and have a happy life after an abortion. It's possible.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I love that. I love that you said that. What
was your experience the same wherein you knew who to
call and there was like a community and network of
women mobilizing. Did you also have that same experience.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Exact same experience, except I went with my boyfriend took me.
He was driving, he had a car, so he went
with me. But I did go to the same place
where we got public assistance, so I didn't have to,
you know, get money from my parents or use my
health insurance. And I believe I went to the ex
(16:02):
exact same clinic that she went to where she had hers.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
How was it similar or different in when you had
it later in life?
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Oh gosh, my doctor told me, she said, when we
were preparing when I found out I was pregnant, I
knew right away I didn't want to keep it, and
my doctor said, okay, well you can go here, but
I just want you to know that there are probably
going to be protesters out in front. And that didn't
happen in the seventies. There were no protesters, There were
(16:31):
no people screaming at you. And this is you know,
I had my abortion in Glendale, and that's not an
I mean, it's Glendale's kind of conservative, I guess, but
it's not. It's California. It's not a place where there
are a lot of anti abortion people. There's a lot
of people who are who advocate for the right to
(16:53):
terminate a pregnancy. And there were people yelling, and there
were people with large posters of fetuses, bloody fetuses, And
it was really a painful experience because my parents took me.
My husband was living, he was working in Oregon, he
was working in a different state, and I didn't really
(17:14):
want to share it with a lot of people. I
was a little embarrassed, you know, getting pregnant at forty eight,
knowing what I know, you know, being educated, knowing about
birth control. I was a little embarrassed. And so my
parents took me, and they were very uncomfortable because they
(17:35):
they don't know where they stand on the issue, because
of their Catholicism. And it wasn't a pleasant experience. It
wasn't like going to a place where someone's going to
take care of you and nurture you and hold your
hand and comfort you. It was very clinical, and then
they they made an error. They didn't clean me out completely,
(17:55):
so it was just a really bad experience. I honestly
had a better experien when I was seventeen than I
did when I was forty eight.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
This is really fascinating. So both from personal experience, first
person observation, and all the work that you've done in
the space, do you think we've made progress in this area?
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I feel like we are. Because of the anti movement,
doctors are afraid to perform this service, and what I
learned with the film is that medical schools do not
teach their students how to perform an abortion. They have
(18:37):
to ask for it or advocate it. It's not something
that's on the curriculum, So you don't have enough people
actually providing the service, and there's so much stigma around
it that it's almost I feel like I feel like
that abortion I had was kind of similar to a
back alley abortion because it was not in a very
(19:04):
it was in a kind of a rundown facility. And
even though I have really good insurance, I feel like
we're not celebrating this as part of our reproductive health
or part of our If you have a vagina, part
of the health for those people who have a vagina,
it's not part of our It's not seen as something
(19:27):
that's just a part of who we are, like getting
a mammogram.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Do you think that some of the shame attached to
abortion is coming from these external factors as opposed to
like a true, genuine internal feeling.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
The shame that I had, or just.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
In general when people feel that about getting this procedure done.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Yeah, because we don't have enough. I feel like we
don't have enough advocates. And I can understand why people
have been killed for performing abortions. People are going to
jail now for performing abortions. So I can see how
people or doctors, medical professionals are not out there advocating
for this and publicizing that they do it. But we
(20:12):
really need that, We really need to destigmatize how we
see it, and we need to make it safe for
people to have this service. I know that the film
in the film in the mas Babs, we feature the
whistle blowing doctor, doctor Bernard Rosenfeldt, who alerted the public
to what was taking place at the La County Hospital.
(20:35):
He's still I'm not sure if he can legally now,
but he was performing abortions when we were when we
interviewed him, So he's like one of the few doctors
who was still doing that because it can be dangerous
in some places, and now it's illegal.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
My follow up question for you is about this decision
that you made at forty eight, because there's I think
this image that we have of who receives an abortion,
maybe a young girl, a teenager, but I think the
statistic shows that it's also women who are already mothers.
And so I'm wondering how you came to that decision.
(21:12):
And you said you told your parents, and so that's
very different from than your story when you were seventeen, right,
So just wondering how you can reflect on that and
how you look back on that experience now.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Well, being forty eight, I didn't think it was possible
to get pregnant, Honestly. I wasn't being very careful, and
it's not like my husband was living he was living
part time in Oregon, so it's not like we were
having a lot of sex, and so it was real
shock to become pregnant. And then I was already having
(21:49):
pelvic floor issues from my second child, and then I
had a third child, so I was really worried if
my body could handle it, Like, what's going to happen?
You know, I put on a lot of weight when
I get pregnant, I put on fifty pounds. It's like,
what's going to happen to my pelvic floor? And also
I had a fifteen year old and a twelve year
(22:11):
old and a seven year old at the time, and
those were really heavy years because I was, you know,
kind of a single mom at points with my husband away.
I just couldn't see myself having another child. And then
I also thought, well, what if it's not viable, Like
what if I lose it at four months or five months?
(22:34):
I don't want to go through that experience. So there
were so many reasons why it wasn't financial we could
have afforded to have another kid. It was because of
my age, and because of my kids, and because of
my body. But also I think it's really important. I
would really like for us to normalize not having to
(22:55):
justify why we make that decision. This is a great conversation,
so I'm really happy to share. But I feel like
for some people it should just be enough that they
just didn't want to have a kid.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
You know, oh, absolutely absolutely, And I think for us
it is important to normalize that you can have an
abortion later in life, that it's not just the young
teenager that maybe didn't know to use birth control, but
actually it can happen at any age, right, And I
think that there's not enough stories of those diverse experiences.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I don't know anyone who got pregnant fort that just
seemed so it's good to talk about it, and it's
good to share that it is possible, so you should
use your precautions if you don't want to be pregnant.
And in the waiting room where I had the abortion
later in life, it was packed. There were probably would
(23:52):
say forty people in there from all ages, very young too.
I thought I was going to be the oldest person,
and I wasn't. There were some people that were, well
they might have been my age, and you know, looked
a little older. So I thought that was really interesting
as well. It's such a needed service.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, and I love the point that you make about
you know, we can give all these reasons for why
we need this abortion, or we could just say I
just don't want to. We don't need to justify and
in some ways isn't that very basic? I just don't
want to, Like the most important reason of all. Money
can change, things can change in life, you can move
(24:31):
things around, But just not wanting to should be the
ultimate reason exactly.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
You talked about the stigma, right, and how that maybe
prevents people from seeking care. How did you feel supported
by maybe your community or your family, your parents when
you decided to exercise your right to choose.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Well, this was before I was hanging out with a
twenty something year.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Old Oh okay, bring us back there please.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
If I would have had those young people as friends,
I think it would have been a different experience because
people my age were shocked that I was pregnant. So
I told a couple of people and they didn't really
respond in the way that I would have appreciated because
(25:29):
of their surprise and because of the I think they
were thinking, Oh, I'm so glad that hasn't happened to me,
like that would be, you know. So that was kind
of the energy that I got, and so I didn't
really feel like I had the support that I really wanted.
And I also didn't want to go very public with
it because I didn't have any close friends at that
(25:55):
time that I wanted to share with. And then later
on a few years later, I learned about abortion doulas,
and I thought, if I would have known about an
abortion doula, I would have definitely asked for that kind
of support because I really needed that, like emotionally, spiritually.
(26:15):
I had no doubt that I was making the right decision,
so I didn't don't have any regrets, but that kind
of care that you need after such a procedure like that,
and then to know that they didn't do it properly
and I had to go back again for a second one,
it was it was very traumatic.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I feel like there's this idea that when you have
when you give birth, you know you want your village
around you. And then there's sort of like two different
schools of thought on abortion, like it either like devastates
you or like it doesn't bother you at all, But
it seems like there's some in between also, right with
that procedure that you're speaking to that, well, No, in
(26:59):
that circumstance, there also was like a need for support.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Yeah, because it's it's it's removing of of your body
tissue in a way, that is very clinical and very unemotional,
but it's it's it's connected to you, and when you
(27:23):
let go of that, it's I think it's it's hard
for it not to be emotional. Even when I was seventeen,
I had emotional feelings, but I had my boyfriend and
I was young, and there were there were a lot
of distractions after when I had my abortion. Later in life,
(27:45):
I had to go back and be a mother. I
had to cook, I had to take my kids to school.
I had a lot of obligations that didn't allow me
to really sit with the feelings or to distract myself
with something fun and joyful. Not that my kids weren't joyful,
but those were hard years too, fifteen and twelve, those boys,
(28:08):
those were difficult years. There's a lot of tension in
the house. So I don't remember it being a positive
moment in my life.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
And with both procedures at seventeen and at forty eight,
your boyfriend at the time and your husband were they supportive.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
My boyfriend when I was seventeen, he you know, that's
the first thing he said, you have to have an abortion,
And that kind of made me think, well, I'm going
to make this decision myself if I want to keep
I mean, I knew in my mind I didn't want
to have a child, but I wanted it to be
my decision. And then he was very supportive, taking me
(28:47):
and helping me afterwards and hanging out with me. And
then my husband was very supportive. He's like, what would
you like to do and let me decide, you know,
what we should do. And then but he wasn't. He
was not in Los Angeles at the time, so my
parents took me and and then he was just I
(29:11):
don't know. When he came home, he was supportive, but
it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't the kind of support
that I think I needed, like like from like I
would have received from from a mother who was understanding,
or a sister who I could talk to who had
was understanding in that way, or a friend.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And for those listening, you know, what sort of advice
might you have for them, whether that's how to be
supportive of someone else who's thinking about going through this
procedure or those who they themselves might need to get
this procedure done.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
I would say, for sure, not to pity the individual,
also not to shame them, not to judge them for
what happened, or for getting pregnant, for having an unwanted pregnancy.
I think offering food, offering a walk, offering to drive them,
(30:14):
offering to pick them up. I think those ways are
really important. And just being a good listener, you know,
a good listener validating someone's experience without judging Thinca is
the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
After the break, we're joined by Laudajimenez, Executive director at
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice. She's led California Latinas for
Reproductive Justice since twenty eleven and brings to this work
the passion and commitment of close to thirty years of
activism in the reproductive justice movement.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice was founded by a group
of Latinas who were advocates and attorneys involved in advocating
for reproductive health and reproductive rights. At the time, the
mainstream reproductive rights movement was not taking Latinas into account.
Reproductive justice is a term that's used interchangeably with reproductive
(31:24):
health and rights. But what does reproductive justice mean? What
are its origins? Here's Lauda.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I think often when we talk about reproductive justice. People
just think we have changed the term and it's interchangeable
with reproductive rights or reproductive health. So reproductive justice is
a framework that was It was a term that was
coined by twelve black women in nineteen ninety four, during
the time that there was an attempt, the first attempt
(31:54):
to do healthcare reform in the US under the Clintons,
and at that time they were just they had put
the term together, saying that it would be reproductive health
and rights plus social justice equals reproductive justice. And what
that meant was that many of the folks that I
learned from my elders, my teachers, had been involved in
(32:14):
what's known as second wave feminism underneath sort of mainstream
white feminists organizing, and a lot of that was Equal
Rights Amendment, a lot of that was pro choice abortion
rights work. And what women of color at that time
were saying was that we are supportive of abortion. Because
(32:37):
what they were hearing was, well, we don't really talk
to you all because you all don't like you Latinas
don't support abortion rights. What was said back was that's
not true. We do actually support people being able to
make choices about their own bodies and reproduction. But we
also can't talk about abortion without talking about poverty, without
talking about environmental justice, without talking about incarceration, immigration law,
(33:03):
the foster care system, and many many other intersecting frameworks.
And in fact, when the framework was really fleshed out
in the late nineties and early two thousands, the work
of the theory of intersectionality that was created by Kimberly Crenshaw,
who's a black legal scholar and other sort of black
(33:23):
feminist thought was heavily injected into what is reproductive justice.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Reproductive justice is more than just access to abortion care.
Lauda explains the four tenants to reproductive justice.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
That is, the right to not have children, which encompasses
the right to abortion, the right to contraception, making sure
that there's sex ed in schools, comprehensive sexuality education in schools.
Second tenant being the right to have children. So we
also need to recognize that for many people, many marginalized
(33:58):
or colonized people in this country, the right to have
children has not always been free of interference by the
state or any or systems right institutions that we live under. So,
for example, sterilization abuse was something that was happening to
many groups in this country. The third tenant is the
right to parent the children that we have in safe,
(34:19):
violence free environments. And the fourth tenant is the right
to bodily autonomy and gender identity, So making sure that
we are being really clear that we have sovereignty over
our bodies and we also have the right to determine
and share with other people what our gender identity is
and expect that to be respected and supported.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
The LATINX community is specifically targeted by misinformation and disinformation.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Specifically when we talk about crisis pregnancy centers, which are
fake reproductive health centers. A great we did. There was
a great legislative effort in California in the twenty I
can't remember fifteen sixteen, and that was a Reproductive Fact Act.
It was led by our partners at Black Women for
Wellness and it basically was requiring pregnancy centers, these crisis
(35:13):
pregnancy centers to have a signage that said we are
there is no medical stuff on the premises. It also
disallowed them from lying to their patients. So one of
the tactics that they use sometimes because they are run
by the anti abortion forces and organizations, One of the
(35:35):
things they will do is they'll offer the free ultra
sound and all that good stuff, and then they'll say, Stephanie,
your pregnancy is only six weeks, so you have some
time to think about what you're going to do. Or Stephanie,
your pregnancy is at sixteen weeks, so actually you know,
there's there's no more options for you, or you know,
whatever they will lie.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
The state of California ensures the legal right to an abortion,
but this does not guarantee access to abortion care.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
You know, the leaders of the governor and the legislature
likes to talk about California being a beacon for reproductive rights,
and to some degree, yes, and then I think it's
important to also say, but also and also just because
we have laws on the books that protect people's rights
(36:24):
to whatever medical care that they need, does not mean
they can actually access that care. And so this is
really important when we talk about Latina communities because we know,
for example that I think about a third of Latina
communities in California are living in remote or rural areas.
So we're aware that people in Central Valley, like we
(36:48):
knew from before, we work with our partners that access
reproductive justice that runs a hotline and a practical support program.
They would call us in LA and say, we've got
somebody coming in from Central Valley to LA. They need
to get to UCLA, they need to be there overnight,
and they would be asking for people to come in
for support, so for people to pick them up from
(37:09):
the train station, take them to the clinic, maybe get
them food, maybe house them, maybe watch their children. You know,
there's all these different ways that you can practically support people,
but there are so many barriers that can be in
the way for people who are seeking that reproductive health
care that they need.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Lauda emphasizes that when pregnant people do not have access
to safe abortion services, that the consequences can be deadly.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
When people don't want to be pregnant, they will find
the way to not be pregnant, and so it's important
for us to make sure that people have the options
that they that they need right and we're seeing this
unfortunately played out in other states right now, where even
it's not folks necessarily that are getting unsafe abortions, it's
the people who are having, you know, the ectopic pregnancies
(37:57):
or other fetal anomalies that are actually dangerous to the
pregnant person and their own lives are being put at risk.
The United States government has decided that, you know, that
is not as important as the potential of a fetus
becoming a child and being born. And that's that's the question.
We have to grapple with.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
The statistics around abortions and who gets them may disrupt
any pre existing ideas you have of who actually gets abortions.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
The majority of people who get abortions are people who
already have children, and I think, you know, we're kind
of what I think is important to know is like
Catholic women have abortions rates that are equal to other religions.
Latinas have abortions in rates that are comparable to other
(38:48):
ethnic groups. And so it's we have to really correct
our thinking about it, you know. And for the longest time,
the raid is basically fifty percent of all pregnancies around
planned or mistimed. Right, I have two children. One of
them was mistimed. I was married. I was married, I
(39:09):
was over thirty, and you know, it was what happened, right,
I wanted to have another child and so we had one.
But if it had been another time, another situation, maybe
I wouldn't have. And that's just the reality of how
things work. And I think around this conversation, there's so
much that's not said too, which is that people don't
(39:31):
want to talk about people's sexual activity. They don't want to,
they don't want to really get to, you know, get
into that piece. And it's like, but that we have,
but we have to, like.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
We have to talk about it. I learned so much
from our conversation with Virginia, and I think the greatest
takeaway from her story is that women do not have
to justify why they get abortions. Whether you feel your
too young to have a baby, or you're too old
(40:02):
to have a baby, or you've already had a lot
of babies, or you just don't want to have a baby,
that any reason is truly a good reason to pursue
an abortion if you feel that you need that. It
is a medical service. It is medical care that is
a necessity, a life saving necessity for so many people.
And I really appreciated Virginia's take on that that not
(40:26):
wanting to have a baby is a good enough reason
to not have a baby.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
What I learned from Lauda is the legacy and history
of reproductive justice, not only in California but across the country.
I also really enjoyed learning about the four tenants to
reproductive justice, which is the right not to have children,
the right to have children, the rights of parent children
(40:51):
in a safe and violent free community, and finally the
fourth tenant, the right to bodily autonomy and gender identity.
I think I think now more than ever, it's especially
important to think about reproductive justice in our local community
and also personally and how we enact that for ourselves
(41:12):
and for each others. Choo Senora Sex Said is a
co production between Locata Productions and Michael Dura Podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
This show is executive produced by Mala Munos and theos FM.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Also executive produced by Jasell.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Bances, produced by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Creative direction by Mala Munios.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Story editing by THEOSAFM.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Music direction by Grisol Lomeli, and.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Music produced by Brian Gazo Logal Lumlia
Have you ever heard of reproductive justice? Yeah, that's like abortions, right.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Well yeah, but there's so much more to it.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Dehmate Pico. Okay, I'm listening.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
S Hi, Senora.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Welcome to Senora sex Ed Senora Sex Said is not
your Mommy sex Talk. This show is la platica like
you've never heard it before. With each episode, we're breaking
the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in LATINX communities.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Latinas have been hyper sexualized in popular culture, but notoriously
denied sex education. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between
Latinas from gen X to Gen Z, covering everything from
puberty and body image to representation in film, television, and music.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Just a reminder that in this show, a Senora is
a woman with a lot of life experiences and stories
to share. Maybe she's in her thirties, maybe she's in
her forties or fifties or older. Maybe she's trans, maybe
she sits.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
We are your hosts and producers, Viosa and Mala.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Lokatra Radio.
Since twenty sixteen, we've covered all kinds of topics, ranging
from politics, to mental health, current events, and of course sex.
We still have so much to learn, though, and we
hope you listen to each episode with the Senoras and
Senoritas in Your Life, Chapter twenty eight, abortion is Healthcare.
(01:56):
In today's episode, we sit down with virgin She is
the daughter of Mexican parents who grew up in the
barrios of northeast Los Angeles. She is a mother, daughter, sister,
and wife who believes in the power of stories to
heal and to liberate. Virginia shares her experience accessing abortion
(02:20):
care at the age of seventeen and later at forty eight.
She also shares what sexual education looked like in the
nineteen seventies and how she got involved with California Latinas
for Reproductive Justice. Here's our interview with Virginia.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
It's a wonderful. It's just an honor to be here
and be able to talk about these important issues. Quite
often we don't share in public.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
On Senora Sex said, we love to start by asking
what did conversations around sex and sexuality look like for
you growing up.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Well, I think it's important to note my birth year,
So I was born in nineteen sixty two, which was
you know, pre Roe v. Wade. And I was born
to a mother who she wasn't conventional, but she did
have some values about sex and sex before marriage, and
(03:21):
she thought it was really taboo. So she wanted to
educate me about what sex was and menstruation. But I
think she wanted to she really emphasized that sex was
something that occurred in the marriage relationship, and so we
didn't really have conversations about relationships, or about passion, or
(03:44):
about sexuality, or about even pleasure. That I didn't learn until,
I would say, even way in my forties, because those
conversations just were taboo, and so I didn't really feel
comfort with my body until you know, I was or
I already had children, and I started to hang out
(04:06):
with young people who had a different perspective. So people
who were born more in the seventies and eighties had
a more open worldview and a more nuanced understanding about
their sexuality. So I learned a lot from them.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
What were some of the things that you learned from them.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
About masturbation, about self pleasure, about how it's possible to
self pleasure, which is something I didn't really grow up
learning about I thought that that had to come from
the outside, from external, from another person, and not something
that I could do for myself. So that's what they
taught me.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Do you remember when you learned like about pleasure and masturbation.
Was there a specific person, a specific moment that comes
to mind?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Absolutely. I don't want to name this person, but I
was in a reading group with a bunch of like
twenty something women. I was like the grandmother of the group,
and they had real open conversations about masturbation, about vibrators,
(05:16):
about self pleasure. And this was probably ten ten years ago,
and it had a huge impact on me after that.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Based on your experience growing up and the information your
mother gave you, and maybe any sex that you learned
in school or from friends, did you approach your first
sexual experience with an understanding that pleasure with something that
you deserved and should receive.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Not at all. No, I didn't really. I wasn't really
interested in sex until maybe in my early twenties. Although
I did have my search sexual experience when I was seventeen,
but it was be from peer pressure. It was because
everybody was having sex and I felt like I had to,
(06:07):
Like Mark, that box. But it's not like I was
having these you know, sensations that I wanted to or
or really a strong desire to. So I can't say
that it was a pot I really cared about the person,
but I can't say that it was pleasurable. And that
didn't come until I was a bit older and I
(06:29):
started to learn a little bit more about asking for
what I needed and what I wanted. So that came
with time and came with you know, each relationship and
each experience. But that that, I mean, I just can't
emphasize enough, you know, the self part of it, because
(06:50):
we don't think. We grow up thinking that it has
to come from someone else has to give us something
and we have to give them something, and we don't.
We don't learn that there are things we can do
for ourselves that are really important and worthy and valuable
and satisfying.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Can you just describe what you have here in front
of us, and like where it came from.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
So my mother, she's a huge fan of Anne Landers,
and so she gave us I have two sisters, so
these were used by my oldest sister and me, and
then my younger sister. She gave advice about all sorts
of issues and problems people were having, and my mom
really looked to her because she was wise enough to
(07:38):
know she didn't want to replicate what her mother had
taught her, and so she looked to who was popular
at the time to give advice. And so she gave
me something called teenage Sex and ten Ways to Cool It.
And I just realized that she was preaching abstinence, you know,
and looking back at this, it was published in nineteen
(08:00):
sixty five, and looking back at it, I can see
that she was trying to teach me how to control
myself and how not to feel, you know, all my
emotions and all my desires. And my mother saved these booklets.
When I helped her clean out her garage. She we
came upon these, and I decided to keep them because
(08:21):
they're such a marker of a time period that honestly,
I thought had passed. But now I feel like, you know,
people want to take us back to this period where
we are, where our sexuality is repressed.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
We hope you're enjoying this conversation. Stay tuned. There's more
to come.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And we're back. We hope you enjoyed the break and
are ready to listen to the rest.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So how did you get involved with working with c LRJ,
the California Latinus for Reproductive Justice and what does your
work look like now with them.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
I got involved with the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice
when I was working on the documentary film No Mas Bevez.
We were looking for an organizational partner who could inform
us about the topics we were addressing and perhaps use
the film for the work that they were doing to
promote bodily autonomy. We were also interested in looking at
(09:27):
because the film looks at the unwanted for sterilizations of
Mexican women at the La County Hospital in the nineteen seventies,
and we were looking to put this history, this tragic history,
in the reproductive justice framework that cier l r J
advocates for. So the idea that you want to protect
women's right to terminate a pregnancy at the same time
(09:48):
protect their right to have as many children as they
want to and to have them in a safe and
healthy environment amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And Nomas Bevez was a big deal when it came out,
and I think it was very groundbreaking diving into that
history that unless you maybe like study Chicano Studies or
you're from La May. You may have never heard about
the sterilization program that took place here in California. What
(10:15):
was your role in the documentary and how did it
come to be.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
I learned about that case even though I grew up
in La born and raised in Los Angeles. I learned
about the case when I was a graduate student and
I was working with doctor Vicki Deuis, who is a
Chicano historian, and she taught that history. So I wanted
to learn more about it because I was so appalled
and angered that the county hospital is two miles from
(10:42):
where I live, and I had not learned about all
the activism around this. I was definitely appalled about the
abuse and the violation, but also about not learning of
the heroism that the women who challenged the hospital engaged
in their heroism, their activism, their bravery, and then the
(11:05):
chic got a feminists who were a part of it.
Was really a dynamic history. But I wasn't satisfied with
just writing about it. I was really wanted. I really
wanted to bring this history to a wider public, and
just by luck, I live very close to the director
Rene Tajimapenya and just by luck, we both had two
(11:26):
young babies we were taking care of, so we met
because of our kids and we would organize play dates
and then talk about our work and what we hope
to do once our kids were a little bit older.
So she said, this would make an amazing documentary, and
that's how I got involved in making the film.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I love that that's such a great detail that it
was like working mothers and how y'all connected in that way.
How does your personal story connect to CLRJ and your
role there.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
One of the questions we asked whenever we get together
with our board members or with staff for our retreats
is like, how did you come to RJ? What's your
understanding of RJ? And a lot of us come to
these issues not from a theoretical perspective, but actually from
experiencing something. And in my case, I learned about abortion
(12:26):
in when my best friend from high school got pregnant
and she definitely did not want to have children. She
was only fifteen and her mother was very much a
fundamentalist Christian and she was so terrified that her mother
would just I don't know what she was afraid of.
Because it was really nice, but she didn't want to
(12:49):
hurt her mother, I guess, And so we had a
network of women who just helped us figure out how
she could get pregnant, I mean, how she could terminate
that pregnancy. We had a network of women who could
figure out where she could get the money, who would
give her a ride, who would pick her up where
she would go, and it was so beautiful and so easy,
(13:12):
and it was just something that taught me about community
and about how we don't always need our mothers to
help us out in situations like that, and that there's
other people who are going to help us. And then
so that changed my perspective. I was probably anti abortion
(13:32):
before then because I believed that the rhetoric about murder
that is a person, and I had to educate myself
and re educate myself about it. I had an abortion
when I was seventeen, and then I had another abortion
when I was forty eight, So both times I just
didn't want to have a child.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And at the top of the interview, you described that
your first sexual sperience as coming about because of peer pressure.
So I'm wondering, like the did you feel pressure to
have the abortion to keep it where they're outside influences
in that decision as well.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
You know, it's really interesting because we talked about our
sexual experiences, but we never talked about controlling our like
finding a way to control to use birth control, finding
birth control. Nobody was having that conversation. You know, we
were talking. They were talking about positions and where to
do it, and you know, all of these all of
this information, but not like how do you prevent a pregnancy?
(14:38):
And so I got pregnant pretty quickly after the first
time I had sex, and I, I guess for the
same reasons my friend had an abortion. I was terrified
of my parents and what they would say, and I
didn't want to embarrass myself. I didn't want to embarrass them.
And I also did not want to be a mother.
At that time, I was not headed to college. I
(15:01):
had just graduated from high school. I didn't know what
I was going to do with my life, and I
wasn't really in love with my boyfriend in that way
to make that kind of commitment like let's have a
kid and it's I didn't feel that, and I didn't
feel pressure to have a baby. No, And I think
my friend's experience taught me that you can go on
(15:23):
and have a happy life after an abortion. It's possible.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I love that. I love that you said that. What
was your experience the same wherein you knew who to
call and there was like a community and network of
women mobilizing. Did you also have that same experience.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Exact same experience, except I went with my boyfriend took me.
He was driving, he had a car, so he went
with me. But I did go to the same place
where we got public assistance, so I didn't have to,
you know, get money from my parents or use my
health insurance. And I believe I went to the ex
(16:02):
exact same clinic that she went to where she had hers.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
How was it similar or different in when you had
it later in life?
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Oh gosh, my doctor told me, she said, when we
were preparing when I found out I was pregnant, I
knew right away I didn't want to keep it, and
my doctor said, okay, well you can go here, but
I just want you to know that there are probably
going to be protesters out in front. And that didn't
happen in the seventies. There were no protesters, There were
(16:31):
no people screaming at you. And this is you know,
I had my abortion in Glendale, and that's not an
I mean, it's Glendale's kind of conservative, I guess, but
it's not. It's California. It's not a place where there
are a lot of anti abortion people. There's a lot
of people who are who advocate for the right to
(16:53):
terminate a pregnancy. And there were people yelling, and there
were people with large posters of fetuses, bloody fetuses, And
it was really a painful experience because my parents took me.
My husband was living, he was working in Oregon, he
was working in a different state, and I didn't really
(17:14):
want to share it with a lot of people. I
was a little embarrassed, you know, getting pregnant at forty eight,
knowing what I know, you know, being educated, knowing about
birth control. I was a little embarrassed. And so my
parents took me, and they were very uncomfortable because they
(17:35):
they don't know where they stand on the issue, because
of their Catholicism. And it wasn't a pleasant experience. It
wasn't like going to a place where someone's going to
take care of you and nurture you and hold your
hand and comfort you. It was very clinical, and then
they they made an error. They didn't clean me out completely,
(17:55):
so it was just a really bad experience. I honestly
had a better experien when I was seventeen than I
did when I was forty eight.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
This is really fascinating. So both from personal experience, first
person observation, and all the work that you've done in
the space, do you think we've made progress in this area?
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I feel like we are. Because of the anti movement,
doctors are afraid to perform this service, and what I
learned with the film is that medical schools do not
teach their students how to perform an abortion. They have
(18:37):
to ask for it or advocate it. It's not something
that's on the curriculum, So you don't have enough people
actually providing the service, and there's so much stigma around
it that it's almost I feel like I feel like
that abortion I had was kind of similar to a
back alley abortion because it was not in a very
(19:04):
it was in a kind of a rundown facility. And
even though I have really good insurance, I feel like
we're not celebrating this as part of our reproductive health
or part of our If you have a vagina, part
of the health for those people who have a vagina,
it's not part of our It's not seen as something
(19:27):
that's just a part of who we are, like getting
a mammogram.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Do you think that some of the shame attached to
abortion is coming from these external factors as opposed to
like a true, genuine internal feeling.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
The shame that I had, or just.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
In general when people feel that about getting this procedure done.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Yeah, because we don't have enough. I feel like we
don't have enough advocates. And I can understand why people
have been killed for performing abortions. People are going to
jail now for performing abortions. So I can see how
people or doctors, medical professionals are not out there advocating
for this and publicizing that they do it. But we
(20:12):
really need that, We really need to destigmatize how we
see it, and we need to make it safe for
people to have this service. I know that the film
in the film in the mas Babs, we feature the
whistle blowing doctor, doctor Bernard Rosenfeldt, who alerted the public
to what was taking place at the La County Hospital.
(20:35):
He's still I'm not sure if he can legally now,
but he was performing abortions when we were when we
interviewed him, So he's like one of the few doctors
who was still doing that because it can be dangerous
in some places, and now it's illegal.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
My follow up question for you is about this decision
that you made at forty eight, because there's I think
this image that we have of who receives an abortion,
maybe a young girl, a teenager, but I think the
statistic shows that it's also women who are already mothers.
And so I'm wondering how you came to that decision.
(21:12):
And you said you told your parents, and so that's
very different from than your story when you were seventeen, right,
So just wondering how you can reflect on that and
how you look back on that experience now.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Well, being forty eight, I didn't think it was possible
to get pregnant, Honestly. I wasn't being very careful, and
it's not like my husband was living he was living
part time in Oregon, so it's not like we were
having a lot of sex, and so it was real
shock to become pregnant. And then I was already having
(21:49):
pelvic floor issues from my second child, and then I
had a third child, so I was really worried if
my body could handle it, Like, what's going to happen?
You know, I put on a lot of weight when
I get pregnant, I put on fifty pounds. It's like,
what's going to happen to my pelvic floor? And also
I had a fifteen year old and a twelve year
(22:11):
old and a seven year old at the time, and
those were really heavy years because I was, you know,
kind of a single mom at points with my husband away.
I just couldn't see myself having another child. And then
I also thought, well, what if it's not viable, Like
what if I lose it at four months or five months?
(22:34):
I don't want to go through that experience. So there
were so many reasons why it wasn't financial we could
have afforded to have another kid. It was because of
my age, and because of my kids, and because of
my body. But also I think it's really important. I
would really like for us to normalize not having to
(22:55):
justify why we make that decision. This is a great conversation,
so I'm really happy to share. But I feel like
for some people it should just be enough that they
just didn't want to have a kid.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
You know, oh, absolutely absolutely, And I think for us
it is important to normalize that you can have an
abortion later in life, that it's not just the young
teenager that maybe didn't know to use birth control, but
actually it can happen at any age, right, And I
think that there's not enough stories of those diverse experiences.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I don't know anyone who got pregnant fort that just
seemed so it's good to talk about it, and it's
good to share that it is possible, so you should
use your precautions if you don't want to be pregnant.
And in the waiting room where I had the abortion
later in life, it was packed. There were probably would
(23:52):
say forty people in there from all ages, very young too.
I thought I was going to be the oldest person,
and I wasn't. There were some people that were, well
they might have been my age, and you know, looked
a little older. So I thought that was really interesting
as well. It's such a needed service.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, and I love the point that you make about
you know, we can give all these reasons for why
we need this abortion, or we could just say I
just don't want to. We don't need to justify and
in some ways isn't that very basic? I just don't
want to, Like the most important reason of all. Money
can change, things can change in life, you can move
(24:31):
things around, But just not wanting to should be the
ultimate reason exactly.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
You talked about the stigma, right, and how that maybe
prevents people from seeking care. How did you feel supported
by maybe your community or your family, your parents when
you decided to exercise your right to choose.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Well, this was before I was hanging out with a
twenty something year.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Old Oh okay, bring us back there please.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
If I would have had those young people as friends,
I think it would have been a different experience because
people my age were shocked that I was pregnant. So
I told a couple of people and they didn't really
respond in the way that I would have appreciated because
(25:29):
of their surprise and because of the I think they
were thinking, Oh, I'm so glad that hasn't happened to me,
like that would be, you know. So that was kind
of the energy that I got, and so I didn't
really feel like I had the support that I really wanted.
And I also didn't want to go very public with
it because I didn't have any close friends at that
(25:55):
time that I wanted to share with. And then later
on a few years later, I learned about abortion doulas,
and I thought, if I would have known about an
abortion doula, I would have definitely asked for that kind
of support because I really needed that, like emotionally, spiritually.
(26:15):
I had no doubt that I was making the right decision,
so I didn't don't have any regrets, but that kind
of care that you need after such a procedure like that,
and then to know that they didn't do it properly
and I had to go back again for a second one,
it was it was very traumatic.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I feel like there's this idea that when you have
when you give birth, you know you want your village
around you. And then there's sort of like two different
schools of thought on abortion, like it either like devastates
you or like it doesn't bother you at all, But
it seems like there's some in between also, right with
that procedure that you're speaking to that, well, No, in
(26:59):
that circumstance, there also was like a need for support.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Yeah, because it's it's it's removing of of your body
tissue in a way, that is very clinical and very unemotional,
but it's it's it's connected to you, and when you
(27:23):
let go of that, it's I think it's it's hard
for it not to be emotional. Even when I was seventeen,
I had emotional feelings, but I had my boyfriend and
I was young, and there were there were a lot
of distractions after when I had my abortion. Later in life,
(27:45):
I had to go back and be a mother. I
had to cook, I had to take my kids to school.
I had a lot of obligations that didn't allow me
to really sit with the feelings or to distract myself
with something fun and joyful. Not that my kids weren't joyful,
but those were hard years too, fifteen and twelve, those boys,
(28:08):
those were difficult years. There's a lot of tension in
the house. So I don't remember it being a positive
moment in my life.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
And with both procedures at seventeen and at forty eight,
your boyfriend at the time and your husband were they supportive.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
My boyfriend when I was seventeen, he you know, that's
the first thing he said, you have to have an abortion,
And that kind of made me think, well, I'm going
to make this decision myself if I want to keep
I mean, I knew in my mind I didn't want
to have a child, but I wanted it to be
my decision. And then he was very supportive, taking me
(28:47):
and helping me afterwards and hanging out with me. And
then my husband was very supportive. He's like, what would
you like to do and let me decide, you know,
what we should do. And then but he wasn't. He
was not in Los Angeles at the time, so my
parents took me and and then he was just I
(29:11):
don't know. When he came home, he was supportive, but
it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't the kind of support
that I think I needed, like like from like I
would have received from from a mother who was understanding,
or a sister who I could talk to who had
was understanding in that way, or a friend.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And for those listening, you know, what sort of advice
might you have for them, whether that's how to be
supportive of someone else who's thinking about going through this
procedure or those who they themselves might need to get
this procedure done.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
I would say, for sure, not to pity the individual,
also not to shame them, not to judge them for
what happened, or for getting pregnant, for having an unwanted pregnancy.
I think offering food, offering a walk, offering to drive them,
(30:14):
offering to pick them up. I think those ways are
really important. And just being a good listener, you know,
a good listener validating someone's experience without judging Thinca is
the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
After the break, we're joined by Laudajimenez, Executive director at
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice. She's led California Latinas for
Reproductive Justice since twenty eleven and brings to this work
the passion and commitment of close to thirty years of
activism in the reproductive justice movement.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice was founded by a group
of Latinas who were advocates and attorneys involved in advocating
for reproductive health and reproductive rights. At the time, the
mainstream reproductive rights movement was not taking Latinas into account.
Reproductive justice is a term that's used interchangeably with reproductive
(31:24):
health and rights. But what does reproductive justice mean? What
are its origins? Here's Lauda.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I think often when we talk about reproductive justice. People
just think we have changed the term and it's interchangeable
with reproductive rights or reproductive health. So reproductive justice is
a framework that was It was a term that was
coined by twelve black women in nineteen ninety four, during
the time that there was an attempt, the first attempt
(31:54):
to do healthcare reform in the US under the Clintons,
and at that time they were just they had put
the term together, saying that it would be reproductive health
and rights plus social justice equals reproductive justice. And what
that meant was that many of the folks that I
learned from my elders, my teachers, had been involved in
(32:14):
what's known as second wave feminism underneath sort of mainstream
white feminists organizing, and a lot of that was Equal
Rights Amendment, a lot of that was pro choice abortion
rights work. And what women of color at that time
were saying was that we are supportive of abortion. Because
(32:37):
what they were hearing was, well, we don't really talk
to you all because you all don't like you Latinas
don't support abortion rights. What was said back was that's
not true. We do actually support people being able to
make choices about their own bodies and reproduction. But we
also can't talk about abortion without talking about poverty, without
talking about environmental justice, without talking about incarceration, immigration law,
(33:03):
the foster care system, and many many other intersecting frameworks.
And in fact, when the framework was really fleshed out
in the late nineties and early two thousands, the work
of the theory of intersectionality that was created by Kimberly Crenshaw,
who's a black legal scholar and other sort of black
(33:23):
feminist thought was heavily injected into what is reproductive justice.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Reproductive justice is more than just access to abortion care.
Lauda explains the four tenants to reproductive justice.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
That is, the right to not have children, which encompasses
the right to abortion, the right to contraception, making sure
that there's sex ed in schools, comprehensive sexuality education in schools.
Second tenant being the right to have children. So we
also need to recognize that for many people, many marginalized
(33:58):
or colonized people in this country, the right to have
children has not always been free of interference by the
state or any or systems right institutions that we live under. So,
for example, sterilization abuse was something that was happening to
many groups in this country. The third tenant is the
right to parent the children that we have in safe,
(34:19):
violence free environments. And the fourth tenant is the right
to bodily autonomy and gender identity, So making sure that
we are being really clear that we have sovereignty over
our bodies and we also have the right to determine
and share with other people what our gender identity is
and expect that to be respected and supported.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
The LATINX community is specifically targeted by misinformation and disinformation.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Specifically when we talk about crisis pregnancy centers, which are
fake reproductive health centers. A great we did. There was
a great legislative effort in California in the twenty I
can't remember fifteen sixteen, and that was a Reproductive Fact Act.
It was led by our partners at Black Women for
Wellness and it basically was requiring pregnancy centers, these crisis
(35:13):
pregnancy centers to have a signage that said we are
there is no medical stuff on the premises. It also
disallowed them from lying to their patients. So one of
the tactics that they use sometimes because they are run
by the anti abortion forces and organizations, One of the
(35:35):
things they will do is they'll offer the free ultra
sound and all that good stuff, and then they'll say, Stephanie,
your pregnancy is only six weeks, so you have some
time to think about what you're going to do. Or Stephanie,
your pregnancy is at sixteen weeks, so actually you know,
there's there's no more options for you, or you know,
whatever they will lie.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
The state of California ensures the legal right to an abortion,
but this does not guarantee access to abortion care.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
You know, the leaders of the governor and the legislature
likes to talk about California being a beacon for reproductive rights,
and to some degree, yes, and then I think it's
important to also say, but also and also just because
we have laws on the books that protect people's rights
(36:24):
to whatever medical care that they need, does not mean
they can actually access that care. And so this is
really important when we talk about Latina communities because we know,
for example that I think about a third of Latina
communities in California are living in remote or rural areas.
So we're aware that people in Central Valley, like we
(36:48):
knew from before, we work with our partners that access
reproductive justice that runs a hotline and a practical support program.
They would call us in LA and say, we've got
somebody coming in from Central Valley to LA. They need
to get to UCLA, they need to be there overnight,
and they would be asking for people to come in
for support, so for people to pick them up from
(37:09):
the train station, take them to the clinic, maybe get
them food, maybe house them, maybe watch their children. You know,
there's all these different ways that you can practically support people,
but there are so many barriers that can be in
the way for people who are seeking that reproductive health
care that they need.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Lauda emphasizes that when pregnant people do not have access
to safe abortion services, that the consequences can be deadly.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
When people don't want to be pregnant, they will find
the way to not be pregnant, and so it's important
for us to make sure that people have the options
that they that they need right and we're seeing this
unfortunately played out in other states right now, where even
it's not folks necessarily that are getting unsafe abortions, it's
the people who are having, you know, the ectopic pregnancies
(37:57):
or other fetal anomalies that are actually dangerous to the
pregnant person and their own lives are being put at risk.
The United States government has decided that, you know, that
is not as important as the potential of a fetus
becoming a child and being born. And that's that's the question.
We have to grapple with.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
The statistics around abortions and who gets them may disrupt
any pre existing ideas you have of who actually gets abortions.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
The majority of people who get abortions are people who
already have children, and I think, you know, we're kind
of what I think is important to know is like
Catholic women have abortions rates that are equal to other religions.
Latinas have abortions in rates that are comparable to other
(38:48):
ethnic groups. And so it's we have to really correct
our thinking about it, you know. And for the longest time,
the raid is basically fifty percent of all pregnancies around
planned or mistimed. Right, I have two children. One of
them was mistimed. I was married. I was married, I
(39:09):
was over thirty, and you know, it was what happened, right,
I wanted to have another child and so we had one.
But if it had been another time, another situation, maybe
I wouldn't have. And that's just the reality of how
things work. And I think around this conversation, there's so
much that's not said too, which is that people don't
(39:31):
want to talk about people's sexual activity. They don't want to,
they don't want to really get to, you know, get
into that piece. And it's like, but that we have,
but we have to, like.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
We have to talk about it. I learned so much
from our conversation with Virginia, and I think the greatest
takeaway from her story is that women do not have
to justify why they get abortions. Whether you feel your
too young to have a baby, or you're too old
(40:02):
to have a baby, or you've already had a lot
of babies, or you just don't want to have a baby,
that any reason is truly a good reason to pursue
an abortion if you feel that you need that. It
is a medical service. It is medical care that is
a necessity, a life saving necessity for so many people.
And I really appreciated Virginia's take on that that not
(40:26):
wanting to have a baby is a good enough reason
to not have a baby.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
What I learned from Lauda is the legacy and history
of reproductive justice, not only in California but across the country.
I also really enjoyed learning about the four tenants to
reproductive justice, which is the right not to have children,
the right to have children, the rights of parent children
(40:51):
in a safe and violent free community, and finally the
fourth tenant, the right to bodily autonomy and gender identity.
I think I think now more than ever, it's especially
important to think about reproductive justice in our local community
and also personally and how we enact that for ourselves
(41:12):
and for each others. Choo Senora Sex Said is a
co production between Locata Productions and Michael Dura Podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
This show is executive produced by Mala Munos and theos FM.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Also executive produced by Jasell.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Bances, produced by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Creative direction by Mala Munios.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Story editing by THEOSAFM.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Music direction by Grisol Lomeli, and.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Music produced by Brian Gazo Logal Lumlia
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