June 30, 2022 • 59 mins
In Part 4 of Abortion: The Body Politic, Katie examines how abortion is explored and reflected in popular culture and Hollywood. Because whether we realize it or not, the movies we have loved and the TV shows we watch represent the collective imagination of our culture at particular moments in time. And for much of the past 50 years, that collective imagination was riddled with problematic abortion tropes that perpetuates stereotypes about the procedure and the people who seek it out. But the good news is that in the past decade, more showrunners and filmmakers — and even studios — telling more abortion stories and even taking some risks. Katie takes listeners to the front row of a new comedy show about abortion, aptly named, “Oh God A Show About Abortion,” from comedian Alison Leiby. Filmmakers Gillian Robespierre (“Obvious Child,” 2014), Rachel Lee Goldenberg (“Unpregnant,” 2020), and Dawn Porter (“Trapped,” 2016) share the origin stories of their narrative-busting movies and what more Hollywood and creatives need to do in the long fight toward reproductive rights.
More information on this episode’s guests and resources:
TV Shows, movies and more:
- Stream Unpregnant on HBO Max
- Oh God, A Show About Abortion, by Alison Leiby
- Unpregnant, by Jenni Hendriks and Ted Caplan
- Stream Trapped on Prime
- Watch The Racial Politics of Abortion on YouTube
- Planned Parenthood’s Secret Weapon (Washington Post)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Katie Curic, and this is abortion the body Politic,
Part four at the Supreme Court today an historic upheaval.
Brow is dead. The Conservative Court world six to three
Friday to uphold a Republican backed Mississippi law that bands
abortion after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, and five of those
(00:22):
justices went even further, voting to overturn Roe versus Wade itself.
And the question of abortion has been returned to the states.
After the Supreme Court took away the federal rights an abortion.
On June, abortion rights supporters flooded city streets from Seattle
to Boston and right here in New York City about it. Already,
(00:48):
a delusive litigation is underway. Thirteen states have abortion bands
in place, designed to be triggered and take effect immediately
after row Fell as if this recording. At least six states,
including Missouri, have begun to enforce their trigger bands to
prohibit abortion entirely, but the anti abortion wins are not
(01:11):
all immediate. A judge has granted a restraining order blocking
Utah's abortion band from being enforced. At least two states
have temporarily blocked enforcement of their trigger law bands on abortion.
In the first three parts of this series, we traced
how we got to this point, because the Supreme Court
(01:32):
decision didn't happen in a vacuum, and in fact, the
dismantling of Row is still one moment in the long
arc of reproductive rights in this country. There's still a
way to go, and part of that journey is understanding
how we tell stories about abortion in the first place.
Today we're examining how abortion has been explored and reflected
(01:55):
in popular culture and Hollywood, whether we realize it or not.
The movies we have loved and the TV shows we
watch represent the collective imagination of our culture at any
particular moment in time. Filmmaker Gillian Ropespierre directed the ten
brom com Obvious Child, which is still held up eight
(02:17):
years later as a movie that got abortion right. We
happened to talk to Gillian on the day Roe v.
Wade was overturned before we talk about the role of
storytelling and conveying messages about abortion. Gillian, what was your
reaction when you heard the news? Yeah, Um, I'm an
(02:40):
easy cry, so I feel like I'm getting just you know,
we knew it was coming. It wasn't that a total surprise. Um.
But I was sitting in room with my writing partner
this morning, and she's a woman, and uh, we stopped.
We just looked at each other and started crying. UM,
and we couldn't. You don't finish our work. But I'm
(03:03):
glad we had each other. Um. And it's devasity, it's
good it. It feels like after the tears came just
like anger and pain. Um. But also I'm fueled by
I'll show you that's sort of why I even made
this movie in the first place. So I do feel
(03:23):
like after the tears and and I will work with
the anger to to continue to figure out how to
protest and how to get out of this mook. I'm
trus what you think Hollywood's responsibility is and what it
can do to to change hearts and minds and inform
(03:46):
people about the importance of reproductive rights. Yeah, you know,
I think just to bring it back to sort of
the story of how I made Obvious Child and how
I got it made. I made it outside of the
studio system. I didn't ask for that permission. But um,
(04:06):
the reason why we made it is because it almost
felt like a dare all these films that that came
out in the mid two thousands about um, young women
having unplanned pregnancies, and they never even mentioned the word abortion.
Um and and it was a nerving to to watch
(04:28):
those films, and it made it a silent enemy. And
I just my whole life, I've kept on waiting for
a film where um they made that they gave abortion
a happy ending. You know, I love Dirty Dancing and
I love Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and those are
movies that I watched as a child, and Dirty Dancing,
(04:50):
uh kind of was a scary depiction. You know, it
was true to the time. But I'm a little kid
in the eighties and I was terrified. Uh there was
blo she almost died. Um In Fast Times, it was
you know, she Jennifer Jason Lee's character had no reservations
about making that choice, which I thought was cool. But
(05:11):
my young brain only took away from that movie that
losing your virginity hurts, and guys suck and it's cool
to have an older brother. Um. But when I had
my abortion, I couldn't help but think of all of
these movies, these awful depictions, and yeah, I was scared,
and did I think I was did across my mind
(05:33):
that I could die. Yeah, but that was not you know,
the reality is I had a very nice abortion. I
wasn't met with anti choice protesters or mean doctors or
unsupportive parents are partner. It was not traumatizing, and I
was relief. Um And and all of those movies, uh,
(06:00):
you know, kind of scared me. What about Knocked Up
in Juno for example? Where did you see the narrative
of those movies? Not kind of fulfilling your view of abortion? Right? Well,
I'm also a huge fan of rom coms. I love them,
(06:23):
and I feel like those movies were the ones that
were daring me to try to make a rom colm
with an abortion that had an happy ending, Like I
dare you, idiot, try it. You're going to fail because
because no one wants to see that movie. And so
that's sort of what spurred Obvious Child was to try
to make a film where the abortion is the catalyst
(06:45):
for abudding romance and and to show that in a
movie with an abortion can be both funny and poignant
and entertaining. Um and it could you know, show positive. Yeah,
no stigma or shame is involved this. You know. Donna,
our main character had an abortion, without feeling guilty or traumatized,
(07:08):
and that was similar to my experience. Can you tell
me a little briefly for people who haven't seen it,
who probably will head to to YouTube to see it now,
But can you tell me a little more about the plot,
just so we can give people an idea? Yes, so um.
It's about a young woman in her twenties named Donna
(07:30):
Stern played by the amazing Jenny Slate and Donna Stern
is a born and raised New Yorker who's a stand
up comedian and her boyfriend dumps her and she has
a one night stand with the very handsome and tender
Jake Lacey. Uh. She realizes she had is pregnant and
(07:54):
she decides to have an abortion, and the movie sort
of shows her reeling from the pain of a breakup
and trying to figure out will she or won't She
tell Jake Lacey's character it's never, um, will she won't
she have the abortion? Maybe you want to tell him, no, why,
(08:19):
why you don't owe him anything? You don't even know
this guy. Maybe he just deserts to know that like
this happened, that I'm not a psycho and I'm going
to get an abortion um, and it's framed in a
you know, romantic comedy inspired by uh, you know, all
of the films from from my childhood that I devoured
and you know, the girl always gets the guy, but
(08:42):
now she also has her future. Unfortunately, I feel like,
you know, because we we missed, we we were we
couldn't tell everyone's story, and obviously, child we can only
tell one woman's story. And Donna came from privilege, and
you know, had all this support. She lived in New York,
so she at access, and so you know, the hopes
(09:02):
were that other stories could sort of burst from this.
I really thought that there is going to be this
giant change in in movies in the depiction of of
unplanned pregnancy and abortion. And I think there were you know,
there's some great films m Eliza Hitman, who's a pal
(09:26):
of mine, never, rarely sometimes always. I just watched I'm
Pregnant yesterday for the first time, and I thought that
was really great film. You know, there's so many stories
to be told. What now for Hollywood? Do you think
this will create a whole new um interest in films
about reproductive rights? I sure hope. So it feels like
(09:51):
we're too late, But I sure hope so, because um,
we have to continue to make art and tell us
to worries that don't silence our experiences because I think, um,
I think silence is the greatest weapon. But I also
uh don't think Hollywood in the studio system is built
(10:13):
to take risks. I UM, I personally don't think telling
these stories are risky. I think we've seen in a
lot of films that these stories work well. You know,
that can be both entertaining and also important. My name's
page and I was twenty nine when I had my abortion.
(10:36):
My abortion story begins with mating my boyfriend Charlie. In
the summer. We started dating and absolutely fell over hill,
head over heels in love um and practiced very safe sex,
ironic lay and we felt pregnant about two months in.
(11:01):
It was interesting because when I read the pregnancy result,
I felt excitement as my first feeling. I told him
right away and he was excited and so very um
you know, a nice emotion at the start that ended
up really challenging the decision making process. Um. And really
(11:27):
I had very little to go off. I couldn't talk
to my friends about it or my family. I had
never known anyone who had ever gotten an abortion. All
I had to go off was what I had understood
of it from popular culture references, and for me growing up,
that was the movie Dirty Dancing, where it was essentially
(11:47):
a girl living on the streets who gets butchered in
a garage. I've you said, he wasn't real empty the
guy had dirty knife. In the folding cable I could
hear was screaming in the hallway, or Juno, who she
gets shamed out of it. Your baby probably has a
beating heart, you know, it can feel pain. And he
(12:09):
dos fingernails, finger nails really and one day, you know,
we go pick up groceries. I'd be like, okay, now
we can do it. And then in the next aisle
he would say my job don't pay enough. I don't
see how he can do it. And then the next
style I would say, well, maybe I can go back
(12:30):
to Australia, and then the next stile was what we
can't give up every It was just so volatile in
terms of decision making, because what I learned from movies
is that if you can do it, you should do it.
I have a personality where if something makes me scared,
I'll try to run really almost lean into it, you know,
whether it's moving overseas or pursuing a career that I
(12:54):
don't think I'm ready for X of imposter syndrome or
whatever else, or running the New York City Marathon. And
what my therapist actually shared, what she said, you know, yes,
but you were your time to prepare or to get
comfortable with the choice. And she said, you didn't turn
away from this because you were scared. You turned away
(13:15):
from this was because it wasn't a choice. Um, it
wasn't your choice. I chose to go the medicine route
because I wanted to avoid a procedure um and you know,
going under, whether it's a general anesthetic or a local anesthetic.
And this to me felt like I could do in
(13:35):
the privacy of my home. It would still have the
same results. Um, it just seemed like more appropriate choice
for where I was, at least in the pregnancy. I
think even though I had clear direction, it's still such
an overwhelming moment that I had times where I was like, wait,
did I write that down correctly? Have I taken an
(13:56):
hour to early hour too late? Because you just felt
like you've got a lot of weight on this moment
um and then taking the tablets. It was like very
very very bad cramps. And it lasts some time, um,
and you are kind of alone. You're alone while it happens,
(14:18):
and when you're going back and forth to the bathroom,
and so it can feel a little bit lonely, but
you kind of get to a point where like, I
just need to get through and I want it done now.
I'm happy with my choice. I'm glad what I decided
to do. And it put a lot of things on
my radar, having children and having a family, potentially marriage
(14:40):
and what that really means to me. And so there's
gifts that have come out of it, and it's made
me really really UM. I can't ignore what's happening in
America and I'm a part of it. And I don't
want anyone to feel some of the bad feelings that
I experienced. And if I can be there for someone,
(15:03):
even strangers, I would want them to message me because
I don't. No one's alone. It's actually shocking how not
alone we are and how many people take this option.
After the break a comedy show about abortion, Hi, how
(15:30):
are you do you think? It's like a tin fabulous.
At the end of April, I went to see a
comedy show. It was at the historic Cherry Lane Theater
in a quaint little pocket of Manhattan's West Village. The
night we went, the show was still in previews, but
that didn't matter. It was a packed house. Hi everyone,
if you're here for Alison, leave me. The line starts
(15:50):
right here. Please have your baggy Gregy ready and off
stand your ticket. Thank you so much. It was called
Oh God, a show about abortion. The comedian is Alice
and leave. Thank you for being here, Thank you for
coming to what my dad calls my special show. Now.
My parents are super supportive. My mom texted me kill
(16:13):
it tonight. That was like, already did so why there's
a show I had an abortion three years ago. Thank you. Um,
I'm still trying to lose the no baby weights. I'm
gonna challenge. I'm not surprised that I needed an abortion.
I am surprised I needed one when I was old
(16:35):
enough to run for presidents That after the show, I
headed to the green room so Allison and I could
talk shop. I mean, oh God, how did you decide
to do a show about abortion? I really I it
kind of happened organically. I mean, obviously the experience happened
to me. It was not planned, but as a stand
(16:57):
up on somebody who just like writes about what happens
and what I see in the world and things I
think are funny, and I was like going through that experience,
and I was like, there's funny stuff here that isn't
the normal stand up abortion content. I feel like when
people get up and talk about abortion and stand up,
it's usually theoretical or someone liners. I feel like people
don't tell the whole story because like no one really
(17:19):
wants to sit in it that long, because it makes
people uncomfortable even though it shouldn't. So I wrote a
couple of jokes bombed so hard every time I told them,
like the first like five times, just getting up and
doing a ten or fifteen minutes set and in the
middle like trying to slip in this abortion material, and
like you could just you could feel people men crossing
their arms, just like really closing down. And it's like
(17:41):
it's because I wasn't confident and yet I was still
you know, new jokes are always kind of weaker just
because you're not ready to say them yet. And the
way that you do when they're done, also popping them
in the middle of a routine. That's sort of hard
thing to right. But I eventually got to a point
where that wasn't that hard because I like the jokes
that like, I had the confidence where people were like,
(18:03):
she's bringing this up and then being like we can,
She's going to guide us through this, like this is
not going to be awful. And so I kind of
started getting the material together and I had like five minutes,
and then I had ten minutes, and then I kept
being like, oh, this and this, and and I all
of a sudden I had like fifteen or twenty minutes
that worked, and I was like, well, if I could
do twenty, I could probably do an hour. I mean
(18:26):
that kind of insane ego logic where I'm yeah, I
can do anything, right. I went to Planned Parenthood in
Soho in New York City, the fancy downtown neighborhood, because
I'm a fancy bitch um, and I was nervous that
there would be protesters, just because in TV and film
and the news, I've always seen tons of protesters in
front of abortion clinics. I'm like, I don't like wire
hangers in my closet. I don't want them in front
(18:47):
of my healthcare clinics. Okay, But I went and there
were not like all, you know, there weren't all of
the crazy things that you would expect. There were just
like four old Catholic people standing across the street silently,
like it just looks like that painted American gothic twice,
but like less scary because they didn't even have a pitchfork.
Thank god. There is a much more intimidating force outside
(19:11):
of the Plan Parenthood and SOHO in New York that
is threatening women who are seeking abortions, and that is
across the street from Plan Parenthood there is a luxury
maternity wear store called Hatch. What who own is that?
Mike Pets Like, how did you determine what else you
wanted to talk about? Because you talk obviously about growing up,
(19:33):
and it really becomes kind of a full social commentary
on your life in a way. I guess the most
natural way to tell this story is to like step
back and look at it from the bigger picture of like,
how do I feel about sex and abortion? And I started?
The thing that's changed the most since I started writing
it is like, what is this serious thing I'm saying?
(19:56):
And and what is the what is the come? Like?
What am I trying to tell people by telling them
about abortion? And it really because it happened to me
when I was so much older. The motherhood conversation with
myself was so real in a way that at five,
I probably wouldn't have thought about that, and it would
and and it it impacts you know what people think
(20:18):
your choices are less like if you're and need an abortion,
no one's like and now she'll never be a mother,
Like she's made her choice. No, you have a whole
life of your fertility in front of you. But when
you're older, it kind of is this definitive decision. Women's
identity and motherhood are like so collapsed in our culture
(20:38):
that it's actually everything you do, every decision you make,
everything you do is kind of connected to this idea
and this identity. And that's terrible. But what's hard about
managing these fears about fertility is that, like there is
no kitchen timer on men's fertility, women's fertility is very set.
(20:58):
If you're a woman, you're and with all the eggs
you're ever going to have forever and if you're pregnant
with a daughter, all the eggs she's ever going to
have are already inside of you, which explains a lot
of our love of big purses, you know, just like
dig around. You're like, all right, phone, pea's wallet, Kleenex,
a Clementine from two and a half weeks ago, my eggs,
her eggs. All right, let's go out. We're ready. Men
(21:23):
create sperm throughout their lives. Men are creating sperm at
the rate that everline is creating unflattering pants constantly. Like okay,
to put it in context, Richard gear is seventy, his
wife is thirty six. We don't have time to get
into all of the problems with that relationship. But when
(21:44):
they have sex, she is the one that's worried that
she's not going to be able to be a parent
because she's too old. She is the one who is
worried the thirty six year old, not the seventy year old,
which is crazy because in every other context, he's the
one you're worried about walking downstairs eatings. What words we
culturally decided we don't say anymore. Why did you decide?
(22:08):
I mean, especially now, it's so prescient that this was
an important piece of work for you to do and
an important issue for you to tackle comedically. I just
feel like abortion gets such like a heavy hand in
pop culture so often, and it is always treated as
this like trauma, and I think it is for many
(22:29):
women who experience it, but it's not for everyone who
experiences it, and it doesn't have to be necessarily. I
think a lot of the trauma is imposed by by
society because of the the morality that is imposed on
women who choose to terminate a pregnancy, yes, and also
(22:49):
the women who have to jump through way more hoops
to do it. I mentioned in the show, But like,
of course I'm an incredibly incredibly privileged woman in the
circumstance I had resource, says, I was in New York City, Like,
I did not have to drive hundreds of miles or
spend money I didn't have, Like it really was a
lot easier for me, yeah, or not more or not
(23:10):
be able to have an abortion all right, because you
just didn't have access and you had no choice exactly,
and so like, so much of that trauma is based
on the politics of abortion. But also I think that
there's just a lot of people with a narrative that
looks like mine, and I hadn't seen it reflected in
stand up. Very often when women talk about their bodies
(23:31):
on stage, it's inherently politicized. I've heard so many men
tell me so many things about their bodies into a
microphone and it never once gets a reaction of like,
but like when women do it all the time, it does.
And so I've heard like here and there people talk
about abortion a little in passing, just to be like
starting that conversation, and I was like, I think I
(23:53):
could tell the whole thing. Like I think laying out
every detail makes it seem so much more mundane because
you're like, oh, and then you do this, and then
you do this, and you had to get there like this,
and that, Like it makes it a task or like
an errand um when presented procedure, like removing a skin
(24:14):
tag or getting a colonoscopy, or like any of the
things that like we easily can joke about and depict
as not politicized and not traumas. And so I thought
I could do this. Probably I've said abortion more in
the last two years that I've said cumulatively in my
entire life, and it does get easier, and even just
(24:38):
talking about it like this or about the show with
a friend, like I'm finding that like there's just ease
to it, and like that's all that's my only goal
for well, my goal is like for it to be
funny first and foremost, and number two just be like,
can't we just talk about this more? Can't we all
just say this more? I had the incredible experience of
many times when I first started working out the show
(25:00):
in much smaller spaces where I was like, got off
stage and I was like, well, now I'm in the
crowd and we're all just hanging out because there's twelve
of us here, um many women who would come up
to me and just be like I had one too,
and just instantly like feel like from seeing it, like
the ability to share that in a way that I
don't know how often they share that. It doesn't seem
(25:20):
like very often usually, And I'm like, well, if that's
what the show does, then that's like all I could
possibly wanted to do is for people to feel able
to tell someone me, a total stranger or like someone
in their life about an experience they had and not
feel bad about it. More on abortions, betrayal, and popular
culture right after this. So what kind of an impact
(25:48):
can film and TV have on shifting attitudes when it
comes to heated social issues. You can look to gay
rights for one example of the power of representation. I
remember waking up and realizing we were in bed naked
with each other, right because that happened? But what about abortion?
(26:12):
For more than a decade, a team of researchers out
of San Francisco have been trying to find out. My
name is Gretchen Sistem. I'm a sociologist at the University
of California, San Francisco in the Department of eccentric Skin,
Ecology and Reproductive Science UM, and I'm the lead investigator
for the Abortion on Screen program that studies how abortion
(26:35):
and reproductive decision making are portrayed in American film and television.
We started the program back in and the idea that
time was to to start looking more at culture change
and and and considering how abortion was part of our
pop cultural conversations. One of the earliest depictions that we
(26:57):
found as a silent film from nineteen sixteen called Where
Are My Children? UM. It was made by filmmaker Lois
Webber UM, who was herself a rarity at the time
as as a woman filmmaker in the nineteen tens. The
plot line is a bit convoluted, but it's it's effectively
(27:17):
about a district attorney who's prosecuting a physician UM who's
been performing abortions and has a patient die. And in
the process of this investigation, the district attorney discovers that
his wife has been kind of helping people find this provider,
and then he also discovers that his wife has had
abortions herself UM, which has led to her inability to
(27:41):
get pregnant. It's not a sort of revolutionary depiction by
any means. It just was the first one, right. It's
very it's very stigmatizing. It talks about abortions being very dangerous,
which it could often be at the time UM, but
it also relied on UM a lot of racist and
eugenicis ideas about both birth count role and an abortion.
The first abortion story that we saw on television was
(28:05):
UM the legal show The Defenders. The Defenders aired on
April two. The episode is about the trial of an
abortion provider, Mr Preston. In the past eight years, over
twenty thousand expected mothers have come into my office each
(28:28):
one of the morning an abortion twenty thousand. It's like
deeply stigmatizing, right. It sort of presents abortion as as
the choice of very desperate women. Um, the provider is
very clear that, like, he doesn't do abortions for some women,
for women who are, you know, too promiscuous and just
(28:51):
don't want to deal with the consequences of their actions.
On what the basis did you design to operate? More
than half of them were married, Harry fused all them.
Why there was nothing preventing them from having children? I mean,
this defender's episode is absolutely a product of its time.
It makes a strong case for legality. Right, you're supposed
to feel for this doctor, You're supposed to see him
(29:14):
as a moral character, But you're supposed to feel comfortable
with abortion, not because it's something that women need and
deserve as a right to control their own bodies, but
because there's this paternalistic system of lawyers and doctors making
these decisions, not really women making these decisions. By two,
(29:38):
you have MOD, and MOD was actually an anomaly. I
don't actually think MOD was reflective of its time. And like,
if you look at the other stories that were being
told around mod mod is exceptional. It was one of
the first stories that focused on the woman making the
decision and having the abortion. You don't have to think
that way anymore. It's legal now. She's right, it's legal
(30:00):
the New York stage, but to give that a thought,
and her daughter kind of makes a joke like, well,
it's just like going to the dentist now. And then
she Maud turns around and trying to convince her husband
now to get a vasectomy. She's like, I hear, it's
just like going to the dentist together in a sectomy. Um.
But Maud does end up getting getting her abortion, and
(30:20):
there was a lot of protests at the time. By
the early eighties, it's a lot of this, like both sides.
One example that I think is really excellent UM excellent
in that it is very reflective of the moment that
in which it aired was Cagney and Lacy, which aired
(30:40):
in and Cagney and Lacy were too police officers in
New York City. This particular episode one inve UM was
about character comes to the pre saying because she's trying
(31:01):
to access an abortion and um, she's scared of getting
through the line of protesters outside of the clinic, and
Cagney and Lacey um kind of escort her there and
get her through the engage with the protesters. You actually
never find out if this woman gets her abortion. Excuse me, ma'am,
I'm an officer of the law. This lady's going inside
(31:22):
and stop and think about what you are doing before.
So it's not about the woman getting the abortion in
a meaningful way, it's very much about her story. Creating
this conversation between Cagney and Lazy. I was raised Catholic.
This is hard one for me. Oh, I see you doing.
(31:43):
Women like Mrs Herrera are wrong. I don't have a
right to make their own decisions. I didn't say that,
But there are other choices besides abortion. So what you're
seeing here is a lot of what was happening in
the eighties. One protesters right, Like, we're seeing this ramping
up of a really active anti abortion movement that's blocking
clinic entrances, that's making the people seeking services uncomfortable. You
(32:05):
see this like both sides, right, we have to be
fair and balanced and how we're we're talking about this
the most prototypical nineties story that I liked it On
is the TV film UM, If These Walls Could Talk,
If These Walls Could Talk, A sort of three A
story about three vignettes. The first one is a story
(32:29):
about illegal abortion. Stars Demi Moore. Her character is a widow,
a recent, very recent widow. She has been in part
of her grief having an affair with her late husband's brother,
and she finds out she's pregnant. It's clear that it
(32:52):
could not be her husband's child. Um, she seeks an
illegal abortion. Anybody else here, no where's your kitchen. She
has the abortion on her kitchen table, and she dies hospital.
(33:14):
The next story is about a mother with teenage children
who finds out that she is pregnant and she considers
getting an abortion. Um. She doesn't really want to be pregnant,
her children are older, she doesn't really want to start
over with the baby. I just want you to understand
how important school is to me. Come on, honey, I
know that, No, you don't. If you did, you know
(33:36):
that my quitting school isn't the answer to everything. Um.
She really goes back and forth and weighs her choices.
I just wanted to let you know what I decided.
I'm going to have the baby. And this was really
typical of what we saw in the nineties, which we
call the averted abortion. Now this one was wasn't like
(34:01):
typical of an averted story necessarily because a lot of
these stories were a character gets pregnant, considers having an abortion,
decides not to get one, and then has a miscarriage
or then finds out that the pregnancy test was a
false positive. Right, So in those cases, the character doesn't
have to deal with the consequences of choosing to continue
the pregnancy. There's no miscarriage in that particular story. But
(34:24):
because of the structure of the film, with like sort
of this one vignette that fades out, this next vignette
that fades and you moved to an entirely different story. Basically,
as soon as she decides to continue the pregnancy, that
story is over and then you have the third fvignette
is about an abortion provider who's put by Share and
with Um with clinic violence and the provider being killed
(34:46):
by the boyfriend of a patient that she is um
that she's treating at the time. Can I I ask
you a question, m It's all that you have to
do is why do you, why do you still do this?
Because I remember what it was like when it was
illegal for women to make this decision. I don't ever
want to see those days come again. And also when
(35:06):
a woman comes to me and says that she doesn't
know what she would have done without my health, I
know I'm doing the right job. And so you see
her like literally after being shot, like laying on the
floor of the clinics, the doctors. But what we really
(35:27):
see in the nineties is totally consistent with this like
Bill Clintonian idea that was prevalent at the time, which
is abortion is between a woman and her doctor, and
we're striving for safe, legal and rare. When you look
at like, why is the screenwriter including an abortion and
the story in the nineties, it was because the decision
(35:50):
is dramatic, The decision is hard. The decision is going
to bring a character to a crisis point for a relationship,
for a count, you know, like a put them on
a different half. Right, the decision itself is what the
story was about. Um And again, this is this is
where we were in our politics, this is where we
were in our cultural narratives. Is what we see on
(36:10):
the screen when we come Back filmmakers on why they
want to tell new abortion stories. The good news is
filmmakers are breaking free of those old abortion tropes because
(36:32):
of new streaming technology. There's frankly, just a lot more
movies and TV out there, and more content means more
abortion stories, and those stories are starting to take some chances.
Here's Gretchen's co researcher, Steph Harold. So today you don't
often see a character who's kind of going back and
forth like, well, I have the abortion, why not? What
(36:53):
am I gonna do? I need to ask everyone around me? Um?
For example, we see just in the last couple of years,
we've had shows like Shrill on Hulu where a character
like as soon as she gets pregnant, she knows that
she wants to have an abortion right and ultimately the
the abortion actually helps her see more clearly other things
in her life. I got myself into this huge fucking mess,
(37:19):
but I made a decision only for me, for myself,
and I got myself out of it. The abortion has
become less about um um like drama in someone's life
about the decision, and more about oh, this is a
moment where a character is investing in themselves um and
(37:39):
is realizing what, you know, what's going on in their
life that they want to change or want to do differently.
There have been a couple of movies that have come
out in the last couple of years I'm thinking of
um never rarely sometimes always I'm Pregnant, that have tried
that have shown they're kind of like abortion road trip movies,
like one is very serious and one is like a
Buddy Coming. But they show these young teenagers who need
(38:04):
to travel long distances to get the abortion that they
need because they can't in their state because there are
these laws that make it so they need to share
with their parents and they don't want to. It shows
that they have to travel, they have to figure out
how they're going to know miss school and how that
will be explained, they need to get the money to
pay for the abortion, um and lots of various hijinks
and sue along the way. Both of the movies some
(38:27):
you know, like greatly serious, some hilarious. So I think
those have done a good job at helping audiences to
see and really make visible those kinds of experiences. Okay,
I know We're not like close anymore, true, and I'm
probably the last person that you want to help accurate.
But you have a car there it is. Trust me,
(38:48):
if if I could just go somewhere in town or
to St. Louis, even I wouldn't even here. I'm Rachelie
Goldenberg and I am the director and co writer of Pregnant.
The earliest abortion media memory that I have is dirty dancing.
You know, when I first thought, I didn't even realize
(39:09):
that it was an abortion storyline. And then as I
got older, you know, realized it and had actually heard
the writer, heard eleanor Bursting talk about this and say
that what she did was if you want to put
abortion in a story, you need to make sure that
it's essential to the plots that it cannot be cut out.
If it's a new storyline and see storyline, it's gonna
get cut out. But if you make something essential for
(39:29):
your a storyline happen around it, then you get to
hold onto it. And so uh so we did with
I'm Pregnant. Is it's very much the a storyline. Unpregnant
is based on the y A novel of the same
name by authors Jenny Hendricks and Ted Kaplan. Rachel's movie
came out in seventeen year old overachiever Veronica gets pregnant
(39:51):
and needs an abortion, and because of Missouri's restrictive laws,
she must drive a thousand miles to get one, and
she enlists the help of her wild ex bests friend
Bailey and Chaos and sues, Well, it's one of those
things because my when my writing partner and I were
reading the book and we said, can that be write
(40:11):
a thousand miles? And we so we did, researched all
the surrounding states. It just felt inconceivable that would literally
be a thousand miles. And then yeahs is the closest,
closest access that Ronica could have. As a quick side
note amidst all the bad news about abortion in this country,
I'm happy to report there is at least one improvement
(40:35):
that would have dramatically cut down for Ronica's trip. As
of mere days ago June one, Illinois no longer requires
that minors seeking abortions get parental consent. You know, the
the intention of the book was, you know, to to
sort of show how difficult this journey is and to
(40:55):
de stigmatized abortion, and so taking that mission but finding
other ways to do that. In the film, was my mission.
So for example, the the scene with the abortion itself
where we go into the clinic, that was one of
those things where it wasn't quite written in that detail
or you weren't in the moment to moment with Veronica
in the book for that. But I took a tour
(41:17):
of a Los Angeles plan parenthood and they walked me
through all the steps and I because my abortion was
was a pill and so I hadn't been through the
surgical process, and I was like, oh my god, I
didn't know any of this. We need to show people
all of this. You know, they're shocking things like finding
out that in under ten minutes you're in and out
of the surgery room. It's actually not that complicated a procedure.
(41:40):
So that sort of thing felt really important to me
to bring bring to the table. But then, you know,
the spirit of things that were in the book are
ways that we just you know, the things that we
brought to the film as well, like just not uh
not having Veronica uh make a pro and con list.
You know, she knew what she wanted to do. She
was clear on her decision. And the problem and in
(42:00):
the in the film is how do I get it,
how do I get access? What was fascinating that I
didn't anticipate when I started the process with Unpregnant was
how I would become a vessel for people's stories. I'm interviewing,
you know, two different casting directors, and they both are
telling me about their auctions, and I'm, you know, hearing
(42:20):
sort of all the different perspectives. And that actually was
hugely informative in the process for the film, because I
am so familiar with my own experience, but to hear
other people's stories and really help broaden my understanding my
own perspective was helpful for the film because when we
did occasionally get the notes about should she make a
(42:41):
pro and calm list or how difficult should you know,
should this be for her? I could really draw from
my own experience and defend how confident she was in
her decision and how and how she moves on. And
you know, the most difficult part for her afterwards is
talking to her mom about it, not the fact that
she did it. Not sure I'll ever understand. I'm sorry,
(43:04):
I know. Is I love you, sweet people, so much
more than all of that. Okay, She's like probably a
lot of people in America who who have an understanding
of abortion is something that's bad. But then if there's
someone in their life that that that it touches, then
(43:25):
all of a sudden, they're not going to cut that
person out of their life. You know, most parents love
their kids more than they hate their choices. There's a
perception that it's a hot button issue and people are
on one side or the other, but the truth is
that it's it's usually much more gray, And to me,
that's an opportunity because it feels like there's a move,
there's a lot of space to bring people over to acceptance.
(43:47):
I am actually uh working on the next abortion project
that's in a totally different space right now. Um that's
not quite ready to be talked about, but it's um yeah,
it's a totally different tone and totally different um subject matter.
And so looking more critically at the history um of abortion,
you know, it's one of those things where it's like,
is it anyone's responsibility? No, no one has to do anything,
(44:11):
but this is a right that we're losing. It's like
it's fucking diret right now. It's crazy. And so you know,
anything that anyone can do in whatever space they're in.
It's all important, and it's all necessary, and well, you
don't have to do anything. It's almost like as much
as anyone's doing isn't enough right now, we all have
to be doing everything. Um so it's it feels, yes,
(44:34):
very urgent. I think like film can help you understand,
understand things are complicated, understand things that are foreign to
you or to your experience. And so I hope that
more people will be valuing film and making things that
are sober and well considered and well researched, because in
the you know, we have a truth problem, and and
(44:58):
I think the only way to to address that it's
to be really rigorous in our storytelling and not just
appeal to people's heartstrings, but to do the hard work
of you know, following A to B and allowing people
to see for themselves what's really happening if they will look.
My name is Dawn Porter, and I'm a filmmaker. I
(45:21):
primarily make documentary films. Don Porter is part of a
larger cohort of documentarians who are tackling the reality of abortion.
Her film, called Trapped, looks at targeted regulation of abortion
providers or trapped laws. It felt like for people like
me who were like pro choice on paper, that we
(45:44):
kind of needed to see what was really happening UM,
And what was really happening is people who did not
have access to birth control, who did not have medical
insurance UM, who were on public assistance, were caught in
a system where they were hoping to not get pregnant
(46:05):
and hoping not to make this decision. And there were
no faces to go along with what was happening in
the clinics. And I thought people have this mistaken idea
that it's irresponsible party girls, that people didn't give a
lot of thought to the idea of abortion, and nothing
(46:25):
could be further from the truth. There was nobody whooping
and hollering and celebrating UM. The biggest reaction when we
would ask people who were recovering and who agreed to
talk to us was relief. I'm so glad that that.
I'm so relieved, you know, they were with a doctor
who kept them safe, that they you know, the actual
(46:48):
procedure also takes five minutes. Five minutes. It is a
clump of cells UM in most cases, and the overwhelming
number of cases, I was shocked by that, and I
thought people need to kind of see what it actually is,
because there's so much rhetoric that happens that we are
(47:08):
influenced by, even if we are a pro choice, that
we kind of needed. I wanted to bring medicine back
into it, but also some humanity, you know. I think
one of the most powerful influences of film is the
ability to um generate some empathy. Um. But also I
(47:31):
think it was really helpful to destigmatize abortion. And at
every single screening, without fail um, somebody stood up and said,
I want to tell my abortion story for the first time,
and many many people cried, and I think they were
crying from relief that a lot of women had a
(47:51):
lot of shame that they were somehow to blame for
their abortion stories. When it comes to the greater landscape
of abortion stories on screen, Don says, there's still a
ways to go. I think that that there are some um,
you know, there's some efforts in some awareness, and I
think Planned Parenthood Karen's Bruk in particular, is part of
(48:15):
her job is to help advise creators about what really
happens in abortion situations. So I think that there are
some bright spots, But um, I don't think it's really um. Still,
I don't think it's realistic. I don't think we talked
enough about the economics of abortion. I don't think we
(48:38):
talked about the number of minority women who are making
this choice. I really don't see those stories on TV.
You see a young, attractive like girl who gets pregnant
and is, you know, shouting her femininity. Um, but I
think that that is um. That's not a full representation
(48:59):
of what's actually happening. Again, here's step Harold. I need
to see characters who are ordering pills online, having their
abortions themselves at home, surrounded by their loved ones, having
their friend there with them, googling because their friend did
this last month, instead of a legal abortion being this
kind of um dark thing that happened in the past.
(49:22):
We need to see how characters are going to navigate
this moment where abortion is illegal again, but now we
have the technology to get the abortion pills ourselves, right,
and what it means for them to do that medically safely,
but have it be legally risky, which is what it
is in real life. Right. Um. We need to see
characters grapple with Now, if I'm caught, what will happen
(49:44):
because we know that, you know, people across the country
are already being criminalized for for managing their own abortions.
And then I think it's just having an entire TV
series that focus on abortion right, abortion clinics or abortion funds,
abortion travel networks. If there's so much Mitch storytelling possibility there, um,
(50:04):
instead of having it be you know, you're one really
promiscuous character, it gets pregnant and has an abortion, and
that's it. That's a wonderful story to tell, but it
can't be the only one that we see. We need
to see better representation of all kinds of people who
have abortions on television and film. Right. We need more
TV shows and films period that focus on characters of color.
(50:26):
But we also need to see those characters having their
abortions and supporting their friends and family having abortions. UM.
That I think that is crucially important, UM for representation. Right.
It helps everybody who's going through their abortions now feel
us alone. UM, it helps um normalize abortion and abortion experiences. Obviously,
representation doesn't fix everything, but it's a small step towards
(50:49):
people feeling not alone, people feeling secure and safe. In
their decision. My name is Jack, my pronouns are they.
Then there's We're in sexual education and wellness, and I'm
based out of Los Angeles. It's so weird. It's been
ten years now. I had an abortion when I was twenty.
I was in college and I was in a relationship
(51:11):
with my high school sweetheart. We grew up in Miami
together and we both ended up going to college in Orlando.
It was not a good relationship, unfortunately. It was very
toxic and it was very back and forth. And what
had happened was is the condom broke. I did go
ahead and take a Plan B, but that only really
stopped too from ovulating. And apparently I'm just fertile. So
(51:34):
I believe at about a month I want to say,
like three or four weeks goes by. I had my
twentieth birthday. I'm thinking everything should be fine, but I
never start my cycle. So I grew up a pregnancy test,
try it to be on it, and it immediately comes
back positive. You know, at the time, I had fairly
freshly come out as a non binary person. I think
(51:56):
at the time I was identifying specifically as a gender
and that I've always experienced dysphoria from having a womb.
It's not really been so much of an external experience
for me, Like I love, I'm cool with the way
I look, I'm cool with all that. But for some reason,
just the concept of having a womb and the concept
of being pregnant is absolutely mortifying to me. So I
(52:19):
communicated with the partner I had at the time, and
we both were very much team abortion. We called I'm
nervous as hell. I make an appointment for the first
one that was available for saying in the morning, like
eight in the morning. I believe as soon as I
could get one was about a week out too, which
was not fun because I'm sitting for a week going
(52:40):
still pregnant, not not too stoked on that, you know.
I remember walking in seeing protesters they had something there
was there was a signage that was specifically um like
targeting or marketing father saying like it's your baby too.
And when I go in, the person in the whoever
the receptionist was, was just the sweetest person in the
(53:02):
world is immediately smiling at me, and a lot of
my anxiety kind of went down after meeting them, and
they were playing maide in Manhattan in the lobby. Oh
Lord almost sund on your faith right there, and I'm
Puerto Rican. So I was like, wait, this, lets you
a sign JL. Yes, JL soothed my fears about this
abortion situation. I chose to have a medication abortion specifically
(53:24):
versus a surgical one because well, one, it was cheaper
by about a hundred dollars and this was not something
that I had pocket money for. Um. And the second
big reason for me is I was really uncomfortable with
the concept of having someone just in my crotch. UM.
I did not want to be exposed to strangers in
(53:47):
that way. I felt really uncomfortable with that. So I
thought that this would be a better a better option
because I could take I could take these pills, I
could go home. You take one at the clinic and
then you take the rest home like Unfortunately, that same year,
something passed in Florida right before I went to get
my abortion, where you had to get a transvaginal ultrasound
(54:07):
that is an internal ultrasound. That is not the cute
see in the movies. A little bit of Jillian your
telling me, no, they put something inside you. And that
is kind of what I was trying to avoid that
kind of situation was exactly what I was trying to
stare away from by choosing medication abortion. But unfortunately they
wanted to, I guess, make sure that I was pregnant,
(54:29):
even though I was pretty damn sure I was pregnant. Um,
and then when I went back for a follow up
in two weeks, I had to do that again. Um. Yeah,
at the time, this is this happened in two thousand eleven.
I want to stay around there. You know, at the time,
there weren't a lot of conversations about trans people in
(54:55):
medical spaces, especially in healthcare situations. You know, there's no
you'll see it now, especially now that I live in
Los Angeles, you know, and you fill out your forms,
there's a space for a preferred name, there's a space
for your pronouns. I feel like now we're beginning to
recognize that not everybody who has a uterus or needs,
you know, this kind of reproductive health care is going
(55:15):
to identify as a woman. So fantastic, but again, ten
years ago, not not a thing. So I had to
go into this thing by myself and have conversations with
you know, very sweet staff. Really, I really appreciate how
much they were trying to help me, But it was
really difficult to go in for service where every two
seconds you're being miss gendered and you're being talked to
(55:39):
and about as if you are of an identity that
you're not. Being miss gendered is very much an act
of violence, and it's very upsetting to have to be
in that space where you're already vulnerable something I don't
like being, and then I have to navigate that. I
didn't tell very many people about it either. I live
(56:00):
with my older sister at the time too, and I
never mentioned it. You know, clearly I was unwell, but
I didn't talk about it. I didn't even tell my
family till years later. For me, the experience was something
that I just it was in the way. It was
just something I needed to get done, um so I
could continue my life. I've never felt guilty about it.
I've never felt um, you know, ashamed of having had
(56:23):
an abortion. It was just it's a thing. It happened.
I had my feelings, and I'm moving on. I did
a fellowship UH and an internship with Planned Parenthood specifically,
and I volunteered with Nayral and other other organizations, other
reproductive rights UM organizations, and the experiences weren't weren't great.
I feel like even though that these people, you know,
(56:44):
we're definitely trying to fight for the same endgame where
you know, obviously abortion accesses is fully there. The way
that I was spoken to, especially then, was not acceptable.
You know, it was always very much you know, we
have to make sure women have access to this first,
and then we'll cover nuances like you know, transgender not
conforming people accessing abortion, or people of color neating abortion.
(57:05):
The narrative was always very much around sis gendered white women,
and I just I was always put off by that
because it just doesn't that's not how this works. It's
never it's never been successful to just aim to support
one group and then it trickles down. That's it's never worked.
So I don't know where that idea came from. So
when I was finally presented with an opportunity to be
in a cohort where the majority of the people there
(57:28):
are people of color, and eventually, you know, I was
the only trans person at first, but eventually not Now
there are other trans people talking about similar experiences. When
I first heard that there was another trans person who
was going to be joining me testify. I cried because
I had not I've never met or spoken to any
(57:49):
other trans person that's had an abortion. I know where,
I know we're there, I know we're out here. It's
just it's a completely different experience. We can actually interact
with that person when other people actually, um, you know,
you've come to me other trans folks and then gender
not conforming folks come to me with you know, you
made me feel like like I'm okay, like I'm gonna
be fine. You know, we're out here. This is normal.
(58:12):
My heart I can't. It kills me, but it's good.
It's good. High listeners for all of you who have
been with us these last four episodes, Thank you so
much for listening. Two quick things. One, if you're interested,
Alison Leave's comedy show Oh God to show about abortion
(58:35):
got extended. Find more about how to see it in
l A or New York at oh God show dot com. Also,
how are you all doing considering all that's happened. I'd
love to hear from you. You can call this number
one eight four four four seven nine seven eight eight
three and leave me a message about what you're thinking.
(58:57):
Or maybe the actions you're taking, or even things you
have learned want to share about abortion. Your message might
be included in a future episode, and we really will
appreciate hearing from you. All that number again one eight
four four four seven nine seven eight eight three. Abortion
(59:18):
The Body Politic is executive produced by me Katie Curic
and was created by small team led by our intreptid
supervising producer Lauren Hansen, editing and sound designed by Derrick
Clements researched by Nina Perlman. Production and editing help for
this episode from Julia Weaver and Mary do and a
(59:40):
special thanks to k c M producers Courtney Litz and
Adriana Fasio
I'm Katie Curic, and this is abortion the body Politic,
Part four at the Supreme Court today an historic upheaval.
Brow is dead. The Conservative Court world six to three
Friday to uphold a Republican backed Mississippi law that bands
abortion after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, and five of those
(00:22):
justices went even further, voting to overturn Roe versus Wade itself.
And the question of abortion has been returned to the states.
After the Supreme Court took away the federal rights an abortion.
On June, abortion rights supporters flooded city streets from Seattle
to Boston and right here in New York City about it. Already,
(00:48):
a delusive litigation is underway. Thirteen states have abortion bands
in place, designed to be triggered and take effect immediately
after row Fell as if this recording. At least six states,
including Missouri, have begun to enforce their trigger bands to
prohibit abortion entirely, but the anti abortion wins are not
(01:11):
all immediate. A judge has granted a restraining order blocking
Utah's abortion band from being enforced. At least two states
have temporarily blocked enforcement of their trigger law bands on abortion.
In the first three parts of this series, we traced
how we got to this point, because the Supreme Court
(01:32):
decision didn't happen in a vacuum, and in fact, the
dismantling of Row is still one moment in the long
arc of reproductive rights in this country. There's still a
way to go, and part of that journey is understanding
how we tell stories about abortion in the first place.
Today we're examining how abortion has been explored and reflected
(01:55):
in popular culture and Hollywood, whether we realize it or not.
The movies we have loved and the TV shows we
watch represent the collective imagination of our culture at any
particular moment in time. Filmmaker Gillian Ropespierre directed the ten
brom com Obvious Child, which is still held up eight
(02:17):
years later as a movie that got abortion right. We
happened to talk to Gillian on the day Roe v.
Wade was overturned before we talk about the role of
storytelling and conveying messages about abortion. Gillian, what was your
reaction when you heard the news? Yeah, Um, I'm an
(02:40):
easy cry, so I feel like I'm getting just you know,
we knew it was coming. It wasn't that a total surprise. Um.
But I was sitting in room with my writing partner
this morning, and she's a woman, and uh, we stopped.
We just looked at each other and started crying. UM,
and we couldn't. You don't finish our work. But I'm
(03:03):
glad we had each other. Um. And it's devasity, it's
good it. It feels like after the tears came just
like anger and pain. Um. But also I'm fueled by
I'll show you that's sort of why I even made
this movie in the first place. So I do feel
(03:23):
like after the tears and and I will work with
the anger to to continue to figure out how to
protest and how to get out of this mook. I'm
trus what you think Hollywood's responsibility is and what it
can do to to change hearts and minds and inform
(03:46):
people about the importance of reproductive rights. Yeah, you know,
I think just to bring it back to sort of
the story of how I made Obvious Child and how
I got it made. I made it outside of the
studio system. I didn't ask for that permission. But um,
(04:06):
the reason why we made it is because it almost
felt like a dare all these films that that came
out in the mid two thousands about um, young women
having unplanned pregnancies, and they never even mentioned the word abortion.
Um and and it was a nerving to to watch
(04:28):
those films, and it made it a silent enemy. And
I just my whole life, I've kept on waiting for
a film where um they made that they gave abortion
a happy ending. You know, I love Dirty Dancing and
I love Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and those are
movies that I watched as a child, and Dirty Dancing,
(04:50):
uh kind of was a scary depiction. You know, it
was true to the time. But I'm a little kid
in the eighties and I was terrified. Uh there was
blo she almost died. Um In Fast Times, it was
you know, she Jennifer Jason Lee's character had no reservations
about making that choice, which I thought was cool. But
(05:11):
my young brain only took away from that movie that
losing your virginity hurts, and guys suck and it's cool
to have an older brother. Um. But when I had
my abortion, I couldn't help but think of all of
these movies, these awful depictions, and yeah, I was scared,
and did I think I was did across my mind
(05:33):
that I could die. Yeah, but that was not you know,
the reality is I had a very nice abortion. I
wasn't met with anti choice protesters or mean doctors or
unsupportive parents are partner. It was not traumatizing, and I
was relief. Um And and all of those movies, uh,
(06:00):
you know, kind of scared me. What about Knocked Up
in Juno for example? Where did you see the narrative
of those movies? Not kind of fulfilling your view of abortion? Right? Well,
I'm also a huge fan of rom coms. I love them,
(06:23):
and I feel like those movies were the ones that
were daring me to try to make a rom colm
with an abortion that had an happy ending, Like I
dare you, idiot, try it. You're going to fail because
because no one wants to see that movie. And so
that's sort of what spurred Obvious Child was to try
to make a film where the abortion is the catalyst
(06:45):
for abudding romance and and to show that in a
movie with an abortion can be both funny and poignant
and entertaining. Um and it could you know, show positive. Yeah,
no stigma or shame is involved this. You know. Donna,
our main character had an abortion, without feeling guilty or traumatized,
(07:08):
and that was similar to my experience. Can you tell
me a little briefly for people who haven't seen it,
who probably will head to to YouTube to see it now,
But can you tell me a little more about the plot,
just so we can give people an idea? Yes, so um.
It's about a young woman in her twenties named Donna
(07:30):
Stern played by the amazing Jenny Slate and Donna Stern
is a born and raised New Yorker who's a stand
up comedian and her boyfriend dumps her and she has
a one night stand with the very handsome and tender
Jake Lacey. Uh. She realizes she had is pregnant and
(07:54):
she decides to have an abortion, and the movie sort
of shows her reeling from the pain of a breakup
and trying to figure out will she or won't She
tell Jake Lacey's character it's never, um, will she won't
she have the abortion? Maybe you want to tell him, no, why,
(08:19):
why you don't owe him anything? You don't even know
this guy. Maybe he just deserts to know that like
this happened, that I'm not a psycho and I'm going
to get an abortion um, and it's framed in a
you know, romantic comedy inspired by uh, you know, all
of the films from from my childhood that I devoured
and you know, the girl always gets the guy, but
(08:42):
now she also has her future. Unfortunately, I feel like,
you know, because we we missed, we we were we
couldn't tell everyone's story, and obviously, child we can only
tell one woman's story. And Donna came from privilege, and
you know, had all this support. She lived in New York,
so she at access, and so you know, the hopes
(09:02):
were that other stories could sort of burst from this.
I really thought that there is going to be this
giant change in in movies in the depiction of of
unplanned pregnancy and abortion. And I think there were you know,
there's some great films m Eliza Hitman, who's a pal
(09:26):
of mine, never, rarely sometimes always. I just watched I'm
Pregnant yesterday for the first time, and I thought that
was really great film. You know, there's so many stories
to be told. What now for Hollywood? Do you think
this will create a whole new um interest in films
about reproductive rights? I sure hope. So it feels like
(09:51):
we're too late, But I sure hope so, because um,
we have to continue to make art and tell us
to worries that don't silence our experiences because I think, um,
I think silence is the greatest weapon. But I also
uh don't think Hollywood in the studio system is built
(10:13):
to take risks. I UM, I personally don't think telling
these stories are risky. I think we've seen in a
lot of films that these stories work well. You know,
that can be both entertaining and also important. My name's
page and I was twenty nine when I had my abortion.
(10:36):
My abortion story begins with mating my boyfriend Charlie. In
the summer. We started dating and absolutely fell over hill,
head over heels in love um and practiced very safe sex,
ironic lay and we felt pregnant about two months in.
(11:01):
It was interesting because when I read the pregnancy result,
I felt excitement as my first feeling. I told him
right away and he was excited and so very um
you know, a nice emotion at the start that ended
up really challenging the decision making process. Um. And really
(11:27):
I had very little to go off. I couldn't talk
to my friends about it or my family. I had
never known anyone who had ever gotten an abortion. All
I had to go off was what I had understood
of it from popular culture references, and for me growing up,
that was the movie Dirty Dancing, where it was essentially
(11:47):
a girl living on the streets who gets butchered in
a garage. I've you said, he wasn't real empty the
guy had dirty knife. In the folding cable I could
hear was screaming in the hallway, or Juno, who she
gets shamed out of it. Your baby probably has a
beating heart, you know, it can feel pain. And he
(12:09):
dos fingernails, finger nails really and one day, you know,
we go pick up groceries. I'd be like, okay, now
we can do it. And then in the next aisle
he would say my job don't pay enough. I don't
see how he can do it. And then the next
style I would say, well, maybe I can go back
(12:30):
to Australia, and then the next stile was what we
can't give up every It was just so volatile in
terms of decision making, because what I learned from movies
is that if you can do it, you should do it.
I have a personality where if something makes me scared,
I'll try to run really almost lean into it, you know,
whether it's moving overseas or pursuing a career that I
(12:54):
don't think I'm ready for X of imposter syndrome or
whatever else, or running the New York City Marathon. And
what my therapist actually shared, what she said, you know, yes,
but you were your time to prepare or to get
comfortable with the choice. And she said, you didn't turn
away from this because you were scared. You turned away
(13:15):
from this was because it wasn't a choice. Um, it
wasn't your choice. I chose to go the medicine route
because I wanted to avoid a procedure um and you know,
going under, whether it's a general anesthetic or a local anesthetic.
And this to me felt like I could do in
(13:35):
the privacy of my home. It would still have the
same results. Um, it just seemed like more appropriate choice
for where I was, at least in the pregnancy. I
think even though I had clear direction, it's still such
an overwhelming moment that I had times where I was like, wait,
did I write that down correctly? Have I taken an
(13:56):
hour to early hour too late? Because you just felt
like you've got a lot of weight on this moment
um and then taking the tablets. It was like very
very very bad cramps. And it lasts some time, um,
and you are kind of alone. You're alone while it happens,
(14:18):
and when you're going back and forth to the bathroom,
and so it can feel a little bit lonely, but
you kind of get to a point where like, I
just need to get through and I want it done now.
I'm happy with my choice. I'm glad what I decided
to do. And it put a lot of things on
my radar, having children and having a family, potentially marriage
(14:40):
and what that really means to me. And so there's
gifts that have come out of it, and it's made
me really really UM. I can't ignore what's happening in
America and I'm a part of it. And I don't
want anyone to feel some of the bad feelings that
I experienced. And if I can be there for someone,
(15:03):
even strangers, I would want them to message me because
I don't. No one's alone. It's actually shocking how not
alone we are and how many people take this option.
After the break a comedy show about abortion, Hi, how
(15:30):
are you do you think? It's like a tin fabulous.
At the end of April, I went to see a
comedy show. It was at the historic Cherry Lane Theater
in a quaint little pocket of Manhattan's West Village. The
night we went, the show was still in previews, but
that didn't matter. It was a packed house. Hi everyone,
if you're here for Alison, leave me. The line starts
(15:50):
right here. Please have your baggy Gregy ready and off
stand your ticket. Thank you so much. It was called
Oh God, a show about abortion. The comedian is Alice
and leave. Thank you for being here, Thank you for
coming to what my dad calls my special show. Now.
My parents are super supportive. My mom texted me kill
(16:13):
it tonight. That was like, already did so why there's
a show I had an abortion three years ago. Thank you. Um,
I'm still trying to lose the no baby weights. I'm
gonna challenge. I'm not surprised that I needed an abortion.
I am surprised I needed one when I was old
(16:35):
enough to run for presidents That after the show, I
headed to the green room so Allison and I could
talk shop. I mean, oh God, how did you decide
to do a show about abortion? I really I it
kind of happened organically. I mean, obviously the experience happened
to me. It was not planned, but as a stand
(16:57):
up on somebody who just like writes about what happens
and what I see in the world and things I
think are funny, and I was like going through that experience,
and I was like, there's funny stuff here that isn't
the normal stand up abortion content. I feel like when
people get up and talk about abortion and stand up,
it's usually theoretical or someone liners. I feel like people
don't tell the whole story because like no one really
(17:19):
wants to sit in it that long, because it makes
people uncomfortable even though it shouldn't. So I wrote a
couple of jokes bombed so hard every time I told them,
like the first like five times, just getting up and
doing a ten or fifteen minutes set and in the
middle like trying to slip in this abortion material, and
like you could just you could feel people men crossing
their arms, just like really closing down. And it's like
(17:41):
it's because I wasn't confident and yet I was still
you know, new jokes are always kind of weaker just
because you're not ready to say them yet. And the
way that you do when they're done, also popping them
in the middle of a routine. That's sort of hard
thing to right. But I eventually got to a point
where that wasn't that hard because I like the jokes
that like, I had the confidence where people were like,
(18:03):
she's bringing this up and then being like we can,
She's going to guide us through this, like this is
not going to be awful. And so I kind of
started getting the material together and I had like five minutes,
and then I had ten minutes, and then I kept
being like, oh, this and this, and and I all
of a sudden I had like fifteen or twenty minutes
that worked, and I was like, well, if I could
do twenty, I could probably do an hour. I mean
(18:26):
that kind of insane ego logic where I'm yeah, I
can do anything, right. I went to Planned Parenthood in
Soho in New York City, the fancy downtown neighborhood, because
I'm a fancy bitch um, and I was nervous that
there would be protesters, just because in TV and film
and the news, I've always seen tons of protesters in
front of abortion clinics. I'm like, I don't like wire
hangers in my closet. I don't want them in front
(18:47):
of my healthcare clinics. Okay, But I went and there
were not like all, you know, there weren't all of
the crazy things that you would expect. There were just
like four old Catholic people standing across the street silently,
like it just looks like that painted American gothic twice,
but like less scary because they didn't even have a pitchfork.
Thank god. There is a much more intimidating force outside
(19:11):
of the Plan Parenthood and SOHO in New York that
is threatening women who are seeking abortions, and that is
across the street from Plan Parenthood there is a luxury
maternity wear store called Hatch. What who own is that?
Mike Pets Like, how did you determine what else you
wanted to talk about? Because you talk obviously about growing up,
(19:33):
and it really becomes kind of a full social commentary
on your life in a way. I guess the most
natural way to tell this story is to like step
back and look at it from the bigger picture of like,
how do I feel about sex and abortion? And I started?
The thing that's changed the most since I started writing
it is like, what is this serious thing I'm saying?
(19:56):
And and what is the what is the come? Like?
What am I trying to tell people by telling them
about abortion? And it really because it happened to me
when I was so much older. The motherhood conversation with
myself was so real in a way that at five,
I probably wouldn't have thought about that, and it would
and and it it impacts you know what people think
(20:18):
your choices are less like if you're and need an abortion,
no one's like and now she'll never be a mother,
Like she's made her choice. No, you have a whole
life of your fertility in front of you. But when
you're older, it kind of is this definitive decision. Women's
identity and motherhood are like so collapsed in our culture
(20:38):
that it's actually everything you do, every decision you make,
everything you do is kind of connected to this idea
and this identity. And that's terrible. But what's hard about
managing these fears about fertility is that, like there is
no kitchen timer on men's fertility, women's fertility is very set.
(20:58):
If you're a woman, you're and with all the eggs
you're ever going to have forever and if you're pregnant
with a daughter, all the eggs she's ever going to
have are already inside of you, which explains a lot
of our love of big purses, you know, just like
dig around. You're like, all right, phone, pea's wallet, Kleenex,
a Clementine from two and a half weeks ago, my eggs,
her eggs. All right, let's go out. We're ready. Men
(21:23):
create sperm throughout their lives. Men are creating sperm at
the rate that everline is creating unflattering pants constantly. Like okay,
to put it in context, Richard gear is seventy, his
wife is thirty six. We don't have time to get
into all of the problems with that relationship. But when
(21:44):
they have sex, she is the one that's worried that
she's not going to be able to be a parent
because she's too old. She is the one who is
worried the thirty six year old, not the seventy year old,
which is crazy because in every other context, he's the
one you're worried about walking downstairs eatings. What words we
culturally decided we don't say anymore. Why did you decide?
(22:08):
I mean, especially now, it's so prescient that this was
an important piece of work for you to do and
an important issue for you to tackle comedically. I just
feel like abortion gets such like a heavy hand in
pop culture so often, and it is always treated as
this like trauma, and I think it is for many
(22:29):
women who experience it, but it's not for everyone who
experiences it, and it doesn't have to be necessarily. I
think a lot of the trauma is imposed by by
society because of the the morality that is imposed on
women who choose to terminate a pregnancy, yes, and also
(22:49):
the women who have to jump through way more hoops
to do it. I mentioned in the show, But like,
of course I'm an incredibly incredibly privileged woman in the
circumstance I had resource, says, I was in New York City, Like,
I did not have to drive hundreds of miles or
spend money I didn't have, Like it really was a
lot easier for me, yeah, or not more or not
(23:10):
be able to have an abortion all right, because you
just didn't have access and you had no choice exactly,
and so like, so much of that trauma is based
on the politics of abortion. But also I think that
there's just a lot of people with a narrative that
looks like mine, and I hadn't seen it reflected in
stand up. Very often when women talk about their bodies
(23:31):
on stage, it's inherently politicized. I've heard so many men
tell me so many things about their bodies into a
microphone and it never once gets a reaction of like,
but like when women do it all the time, it does.
And so I've heard like here and there people talk
about abortion a little in passing, just to be like
starting that conversation, and I was like, I think I
(23:53):
could tell the whole thing. Like I think laying out
every detail makes it seem so much more mundane because
you're like, oh, and then you do this, and then
you do this, and you had to get there like this,
and that, Like it makes it a task or like
an errand um when presented procedure, like removing a skin
(24:14):
tag or getting a colonoscopy, or like any of the
things that like we easily can joke about and depict
as not politicized and not traumas. And so I thought
I could do this. Probably I've said abortion more in
the last two years that I've said cumulatively in my
entire life, and it does get easier, and even just
(24:38):
talking about it like this or about the show with
a friend, like I'm finding that like there's just ease
to it, and like that's all that's my only goal
for well, my goal is like for it to be
funny first and foremost, and number two just be like,
can't we just talk about this more? Can't we all
just say this more? I had the incredible experience of
many times when I first started working out the show
(25:00):
in much smaller spaces where I was like, got off
stage and I was like, well, now I'm in the
crowd and we're all just hanging out because there's twelve
of us here, um many women who would come up
to me and just be like I had one too,
and just instantly like feel like from seeing it, like
the ability to share that in a way that I
don't know how often they share that. It doesn't seem
(25:20):
like very often usually, And I'm like, well, if that's
what the show does, then that's like all I could
possibly wanted to do is for people to feel able
to tell someone me, a total stranger or like someone
in their life about an experience they had and not
feel bad about it. More on abortions, betrayal, and popular
culture right after this. So what kind of an impact
(25:48):
can film and TV have on shifting attitudes when it
comes to heated social issues. You can look to gay
rights for one example of the power of representation. I
remember waking up and realizing we were in bed naked
with each other, right because that happened? But what about abortion?
(26:12):
For more than a decade, a team of researchers out
of San Francisco have been trying to find out. My
name is Gretchen Sistem. I'm a sociologist at the University
of California, San Francisco in the Department of eccentric Skin,
Ecology and Reproductive Science UM, and I'm the lead investigator
for the Abortion on Screen program that studies how abortion
(26:35):
and reproductive decision making are portrayed in American film and television.
We started the program back in and the idea that
time was to to start looking more at culture change
and and and considering how abortion was part of our
pop cultural conversations. One of the earliest depictions that we
(26:57):
found as a silent film from nineteen sixteen called Where
Are My Children? UM. It was made by filmmaker Lois
Webber UM, who was herself a rarity at the time
as as a woman filmmaker in the nineteen tens. The
plot line is a bit convoluted, but it's it's effectively
(27:17):
about a district attorney who's prosecuting a physician UM who's
been performing abortions and has a patient die. And in
the process of this investigation, the district attorney discovers that
his wife has been kind of helping people find this provider,
and then he also discovers that his wife has had
abortions herself UM, which has led to her inability to
(27:41):
get pregnant. It's not a sort of revolutionary depiction by
any means. It just was the first one, right. It's
very it's very stigmatizing. It talks about abortions being very dangerous,
which it could often be at the time UM, but
it also relied on UM a lot of racist and
eugenicis ideas about both birth count role and an abortion.
The first abortion story that we saw on television was
(28:05):
UM the legal show The Defenders. The Defenders aired on
April two. The episode is about the trial of an
abortion provider, Mr Preston. In the past eight years, over
twenty thousand expected mothers have come into my office each
(28:28):
one of the morning an abortion twenty thousand. It's like
deeply stigmatizing, right. It sort of presents abortion as as
the choice of very desperate women. Um, the provider is
very clear that, like, he doesn't do abortions for some women,
for women who are, you know, too promiscuous and just
(28:51):
don't want to deal with the consequences of their actions.
On what the basis did you design to operate? More
than half of them were married, Harry fused all them.
Why there was nothing preventing them from having children? I mean,
this defender's episode is absolutely a product of its time.
It makes a strong case for legality. Right, you're supposed
to feel for this doctor, You're supposed to see him
(29:14):
as a moral character, But you're supposed to feel comfortable
with abortion, not because it's something that women need and
deserve as a right to control their own bodies, but
because there's this paternalistic system of lawyers and doctors making
these decisions, not really women making these decisions. By two,
(29:38):
you have MOD, and MOD was actually an anomaly. I
don't actually think MOD was reflective of its time. And like,
if you look at the other stories that were being
told around mod mod is exceptional. It was one of
the first stories that focused on the woman making the
decision and having the abortion. You don't have to think
that way anymore. It's legal now. She's right, it's legal
(30:00):
the New York stage, but to give that a thought,
and her daughter kind of makes a joke like, well,
it's just like going to the dentist now. And then
she Maud turns around and trying to convince her husband
now to get a vasectomy. She's like, I hear, it's
just like going to the dentist together in a sectomy. Um.
But Maud does end up getting getting her abortion, and
(30:20):
there was a lot of protests at the time. By
the early eighties, it's a lot of this, like both sides.
One example that I think is really excellent UM excellent
in that it is very reflective of the moment that
in which it aired was Cagney and Lacy, which aired
(30:40):
in and Cagney and Lacy were too police officers in
New York City. This particular episode one inve UM was
about character comes to the pre saying because she's trying
(31:01):
to access an abortion and um, she's scared of getting
through the line of protesters outside of the clinic, and
Cagney and Lacey um kind of escort her there and
get her through the engage with the protesters. You actually
never find out if this woman gets her abortion. Excuse me, ma'am,
I'm an officer of the law. This lady's going inside
(31:22):
and stop and think about what you are doing before.
So it's not about the woman getting the abortion in
a meaningful way, it's very much about her story. Creating
this conversation between Cagney and Lazy. I was raised Catholic.
This is hard one for me. Oh, I see you doing.
(31:43):
Women like Mrs Herrera are wrong. I don't have a
right to make their own decisions. I didn't say that,
But there are other choices besides abortion. So what you're
seeing here is a lot of what was happening in
the eighties. One protesters right, Like, we're seeing this ramping
up of a really active anti abortion movement that's blocking
clinic entrances, that's making the people seeking services uncomfortable. You
(32:05):
see this like both sides, right, we have to be
fair and balanced and how we're we're talking about this
the most prototypical nineties story that I liked it On
is the TV film UM, If These Walls Could Talk,
If These Walls Could Talk, A sort of three A
story about three vignettes. The first one is a story
(32:29):
about illegal abortion. Stars Demi Moore. Her character is a widow,
a recent, very recent widow. She has been in part
of her grief having an affair with her late husband's brother,
and she finds out she's pregnant. It's clear that it
(32:52):
could not be her husband's child. Um, she seeks an
illegal abortion. Anybody else here, no where's your kitchen. She
has the abortion on her kitchen table, and she dies hospital.
(33:14):
The next story is about a mother with teenage children
who finds out that she is pregnant and she considers
getting an abortion. Um. She doesn't really want to be pregnant,
her children are older, she doesn't really want to start
over with the baby. I just want you to understand
how important school is to me. Come on, honey, I
know that, No, you don't. If you did, you know
(33:36):
that my quitting school isn't the answer to everything. Um.
She really goes back and forth and weighs her choices.
I just wanted to let you know what I decided.
I'm going to have the baby. And this was really
typical of what we saw in the nineties, which we
call the averted abortion. Now this one was wasn't like
(34:01):
typical of an averted story necessarily because a lot of
these stories were a character gets pregnant, considers having an abortion,
decides not to get one, and then has a miscarriage
or then finds out that the pregnancy test was a
false positive. Right, So in those cases, the character doesn't
have to deal with the consequences of choosing to continue
the pregnancy. There's no miscarriage in that particular story. But
(34:24):
because of the structure of the film, with like sort
of this one vignette that fades out, this next vignette
that fades and you moved to an entirely different story. Basically,
as soon as she decides to continue the pregnancy, that
story is over and then you have the third fvignette
is about an abortion provider who's put by Share and
with Um with clinic violence and the provider being killed
(34:46):
by the boyfriend of a patient that she is um
that she's treating at the time. Can I I ask
you a question, m It's all that you have to
do is why do you, why do you still do this?
Because I remember what it was like when it was
illegal for women to make this decision. I don't ever
want to see those days come again. And also when
(35:06):
a woman comes to me and says that she doesn't
know what she would have done without my health, I
know I'm doing the right job. And so you see
her like literally after being shot, like laying on the
floor of the clinics, the doctors. But what we really
(35:27):
see in the nineties is totally consistent with this like
Bill Clintonian idea that was prevalent at the time, which
is abortion is between a woman and her doctor, and
we're striving for safe, legal and rare. When you look
at like, why is the screenwriter including an abortion and
the story in the nineties, it was because the decision
(35:50):
is dramatic, The decision is hard. The decision is going
to bring a character to a crisis point for a relationship,
for a count, you know, like a put them on
a different half. Right, the decision itself is what the
story was about. Um And again, this is this is
where we were in our politics, this is where we
were in our cultural narratives. Is what we see on
(36:10):
the screen when we come Back filmmakers on why they
want to tell new abortion stories. The good news is
filmmakers are breaking free of those old abortion tropes because
(36:32):
of new streaming technology. There's frankly, just a lot more
movies and TV out there, and more content means more
abortion stories, and those stories are starting to take some chances.
Here's Gretchen's co researcher, Steph Harold. So today you don't
often see a character who's kind of going back and
forth like, well, I have the abortion, why not? What
(36:53):
am I gonna do? I need to ask everyone around me? Um?
For example, we see just in the last couple of years,
we've had shows like Shrill on Hulu where a character
like as soon as she gets pregnant, she knows that
she wants to have an abortion right and ultimately the
the abortion actually helps her see more clearly other things
in her life. I got myself into this huge fucking mess,
(37:19):
but I made a decision only for me, for myself,
and I got myself out of it. The abortion has
become less about um um like drama in someone's life
about the decision, and more about oh, this is a
moment where a character is investing in themselves um and
(37:39):
is realizing what, you know, what's going on in their
life that they want to change or want to do differently.
There have been a couple of movies that have come
out in the last couple of years I'm thinking of
um never rarely sometimes always I'm Pregnant, that have tried
that have shown they're kind of like abortion road trip movies,
like one is very serious and one is like a
Buddy Coming. But they show these young teenagers who need
(38:04):
to travel long distances to get the abortion that they
need because they can't in their state because there are
these laws that make it so they need to share
with their parents and they don't want to. It shows
that they have to travel, they have to figure out
how they're going to know miss school and how that
will be explained, they need to get the money to
pay for the abortion, um and lots of various hijinks
and sue along the way. Both of the movies some
(38:27):
you know, like greatly serious, some hilarious. So I think
those have done a good job at helping audiences to
see and really make visible those kinds of experiences. Okay,
I know We're not like close anymore, true, and I'm
probably the last person that you want to help accurate.
But you have a car there it is. Trust me,
(38:48):
if if I could just go somewhere in town or
to St. Louis, even I wouldn't even here. I'm Rachelie
Goldenberg and I am the director and co writer of Pregnant.
The earliest abortion media memory that I have is dirty dancing.
You know, when I first thought, I didn't even realize
(39:09):
that it was an abortion storyline. And then as I
got older, you know, realized it and had actually heard
the writer, heard eleanor Bursting talk about this and say
that what she did was if you want to put
abortion in a story, you need to make sure that
it's essential to the plots that it cannot be cut out.
If it's a new storyline and see storyline, it's gonna
get cut out. But if you make something essential for
(39:29):
your a storyline happen around it, then you get to
hold onto it. And so uh so we did with
I'm Pregnant. Is it's very much the a storyline. Unpregnant
is based on the y A novel of the same
name by authors Jenny Hendricks and Ted Kaplan. Rachel's movie
came out in seventeen year old overachiever Veronica gets pregnant
(39:51):
and needs an abortion, and because of Missouri's restrictive laws,
she must drive a thousand miles to get one, and
she enlists the help of her wild ex bests friend
Bailey and Chaos and sues, Well, it's one of those
things because my when my writing partner and I were
reading the book and we said, can that be write
(40:11):
a thousand miles? And we so we did, researched all
the surrounding states. It just felt inconceivable that would literally
be a thousand miles. And then yeahs is the closest,
closest access that Ronica could have. As a quick side
note amidst all the bad news about abortion in this country,
I'm happy to report there is at least one improvement
(40:35):
that would have dramatically cut down for Ronica's trip. As
of mere days ago June one, Illinois no longer requires
that minors seeking abortions get parental consent. You know, the
the intention of the book was, you know, to to
sort of show how difficult this journey is and to
(40:55):
de stigmatized abortion, and so taking that mission but finding
other ways to do that. In the film, was my mission.
So for example, the the scene with the abortion itself
where we go into the clinic, that was one of
those things where it wasn't quite written in that detail
or you weren't in the moment to moment with Veronica
in the book for that. But I took a tour
(41:17):
of a Los Angeles plan parenthood and they walked me
through all the steps and I because my abortion was
was a pill and so I hadn't been through the
surgical process, and I was like, oh my god, I
didn't know any of this. We need to show people
all of this. You know, they're shocking things like finding
out that in under ten minutes you're in and out
of the surgery room. It's actually not that complicated a procedure.
(41:40):
So that sort of thing felt really important to me
to bring bring to the table. But then, you know,
the spirit of things that were in the book are
ways that we just you know, the things that we
brought to the film as well, like just not uh
not having Veronica uh make a pro and con list.
You know, she knew what she wanted to do. She
was clear on her decision. And the problem and in
(42:00):
the in the film is how do I get it,
how do I get access? What was fascinating that I
didn't anticipate when I started the process with Unpregnant was
how I would become a vessel for people's stories. I'm interviewing,
you know, two different casting directors, and they both are
telling me about their auctions, and I'm, you know, hearing
(42:20):
sort of all the different perspectives. And that actually was
hugely informative in the process for the film, because I
am so familiar with my own experience, but to hear
other people's stories and really help broaden my understanding my
own perspective was helpful for the film because when we
did occasionally get the notes about should she make a
(42:41):
pro and calm list or how difficult should you know,
should this be for her? I could really draw from
my own experience and defend how confident she was in
her decision and how and how she moves on. And
you know, the most difficult part for her afterwards is
talking to her mom about it, not the fact that
she did it. Not sure I'll ever understand. I'm sorry,
(43:04):
I know. Is I love you, sweet people, so much
more than all of that. Okay, She's like probably a
lot of people in America who who have an understanding
of abortion is something that's bad. But then if there's
someone in their life that that that it touches, then
(43:25):
all of a sudden, they're not going to cut that
person out of their life. You know, most parents love
their kids more than they hate their choices. There's a
perception that it's a hot button issue and people are
on one side or the other, but the truth is
that it's it's usually much more gray, And to me,
that's an opportunity because it feels like there's a move,
there's a lot of space to bring people over to acceptance.
(43:47):
I am actually uh working on the next abortion project
that's in a totally different space right now. Um that's
not quite ready to be talked about, but it's um yeah,
it's a totally different tone and totally different um subject matter.
And so looking more critically at the history um of abortion,
you know, it's one of those things where it's like,
is it anyone's responsibility? No, no one has to do anything,
(44:11):
but this is a right that we're losing. It's like
it's fucking diret right now. It's crazy. And so you know,
anything that anyone can do in whatever space they're in.
It's all important, and it's all necessary, and well, you
don't have to do anything. It's almost like as much
as anyone's doing isn't enough right now, we all have
to be doing everything. Um so it's it feels, yes,
(44:34):
very urgent. I think like film can help you understand,
understand things are complicated, understand things that are foreign to
you or to your experience. And so I hope that
more people will be valuing film and making things that
are sober and well considered and well researched, because in
the you know, we have a truth problem, and and
(44:58):
I think the only way to to address that it's
to be really rigorous in our storytelling and not just
appeal to people's heartstrings, but to do the hard work
of you know, following A to B and allowing people
to see for themselves what's really happening if they will look.
My name is Dawn Porter, and I'm a filmmaker. I
(45:21):
primarily make documentary films. Don Porter is part of a
larger cohort of documentarians who are tackling the reality of abortion.
Her film, called Trapped, looks at targeted regulation of abortion
providers or trapped laws. It felt like for people like
me who were like pro choice on paper, that we
(45:44):
kind of needed to see what was really happening UM,
And what was really happening is people who did not
have access to birth control, who did not have medical
insurance UM, who were on public assistance, were caught in
a system where they were hoping to not get pregnant
(46:05):
and hoping not to make this decision. And there were
no faces to go along with what was happening in
the clinics. And I thought people have this mistaken idea
that it's irresponsible party girls, that people didn't give a
lot of thought to the idea of abortion, and nothing
(46:25):
could be further from the truth. There was nobody whooping
and hollering and celebrating UM. The biggest reaction when we
would ask people who were recovering and who agreed to
talk to us was relief. I'm so glad that that.
I'm so relieved, you know, they were with a doctor
who kept them safe, that they you know, the actual
(46:48):
procedure also takes five minutes. Five minutes. It is a
clump of cells UM in most cases, and the overwhelming
number of cases, I was shocked by that, and I
thought people need to kind of see what it actually is,
because there's so much rhetoric that happens that we are
(47:08):
influenced by, even if we are a pro choice, that
we kind of needed. I wanted to bring medicine back
into it, but also some humanity, you know. I think
one of the most powerful influences of film is the
ability to um generate some empathy. Um. But also I
(47:31):
think it was really helpful to destigmatize abortion. And at
every single screening, without fail um, somebody stood up and said,
I want to tell my abortion story for the first time,
and many many people cried, and I think they were
crying from relief that a lot of women had a
(47:51):
lot of shame that they were somehow to blame for
their abortion stories. When it comes to the greater landscape
of abortion stories on screen, Don says, there's still a
ways to go. I think that that there are some um,
you know, there's some efforts in some awareness, and I
think Planned Parenthood Karen's Bruk in particular, is part of
(48:15):
her job is to help advise creators about what really
happens in abortion situations. So I think that there are
some bright spots, But um, I don't think it's really um. Still,
I don't think it's realistic. I don't think we talked
enough about the economics of abortion. I don't think we
(48:38):
talked about the number of minority women who are making
this choice. I really don't see those stories on TV.
You see a young, attractive like girl who gets pregnant
and is, you know, shouting her femininity. Um, but I
think that that is um. That's not a full representation
(48:59):
of what's actually happening. Again, here's step Harold. I need
to see characters who are ordering pills online, having their
abortions themselves at home, surrounded by their loved ones, having
their friend there with them, googling because their friend did
this last month, instead of a legal abortion being this
kind of um dark thing that happened in the past.
(49:22):
We need to see how characters are going to navigate
this moment where abortion is illegal again, but now we
have the technology to get the abortion pills ourselves, right,
and what it means for them to do that medically safely,
but have it be legally risky, which is what it
is in real life. Right. Um. We need to see
characters grapple with Now, if I'm caught, what will happen
(49:44):
because we know that, you know, people across the country
are already being criminalized for for managing their own abortions.
And then I think it's just having an entire TV
series that focus on abortion right, abortion clinics or abortion funds,
abortion travel networks. If there's so much Mitch storytelling possibility there, um,
(50:04):
instead of having it be you know, you're one really
promiscuous character, it gets pregnant and has an abortion, and
that's it. That's a wonderful story to tell, but it
can't be the only one that we see. We need
to see better representation of all kinds of people who
have abortions on television and film. Right. We need more
TV shows and films period that focus on characters of color.
(50:26):
But we also need to see those characters having their
abortions and supporting their friends and family having abortions. UM.
That I think that is crucially important, UM for representation. Right.
It helps everybody who's going through their abortions now feel
us alone. UM, it helps um normalize abortion and abortion experiences. Obviously,
representation doesn't fix everything, but it's a small step towards
(50:49):
people feeling not alone, people feeling secure and safe. In
their decision. My name is Jack, my pronouns are they.
Then there's We're in sexual education and wellness, and I'm
based out of Los Angeles. It's so weird. It's been
ten years now. I had an abortion when I was twenty.
I was in college and I was in a relationship
(51:11):
with my high school sweetheart. We grew up in Miami
together and we both ended up going to college in Orlando.
It was not a good relationship, unfortunately. It was very
toxic and it was very back and forth. And what
had happened was is the condom broke. I did go
ahead and take a Plan B, but that only really
stopped too from ovulating. And apparently I'm just fertile. So
(51:34):
I believe at about a month I want to say,
like three or four weeks goes by. I had my
twentieth birthday. I'm thinking everything should be fine, but I
never start my cycle. So I grew up a pregnancy test,
try it to be on it, and it immediately comes
back positive. You know, at the time, I had fairly
freshly come out as a non binary person. I think
(51:56):
at the time I was identifying specifically as a gender
and that I've always experienced dysphoria from having a womb.
It's not really been so much of an external experience
for me, Like I love, I'm cool with the way
I look, I'm cool with all that. But for some reason,
just the concept of having a womb and the concept
of being pregnant is absolutely mortifying to me. So I
(52:19):
communicated with the partner I had at the time, and
we both were very much team abortion. We called I'm
nervous as hell. I make an appointment for the first
one that was available for saying in the morning, like
eight in the morning. I believe as soon as I
could get one was about a week out too, which
was not fun because I'm sitting for a week going
(52:40):
still pregnant, not not too stoked on that, you know.
I remember walking in seeing protesters they had something there
was there was a signage that was specifically um like
targeting or marketing father saying like it's your baby too.
And when I go in, the person in the whoever
the receptionist was, was just the sweetest person in the
(53:02):
world is immediately smiling at me, and a lot of
my anxiety kind of went down after meeting them, and
they were playing maide in Manhattan in the lobby. Oh
Lord almost sund on your faith right there, and I'm
Puerto Rican. So I was like, wait, this, lets you
a sign JL. Yes, JL soothed my fears about this
abortion situation. I chose to have a medication abortion specifically
(53:24):
versus a surgical one because well, one, it was cheaper
by about a hundred dollars and this was not something
that I had pocket money for. Um. And the second
big reason for me is I was really uncomfortable with
the concept of having someone just in my crotch. UM.
I did not want to be exposed to strangers in
(53:47):
that way. I felt really uncomfortable with that. So I
thought that this would be a better a better option
because I could take I could take these pills, I
could go home. You take one at the clinic and
then you take the rest home like Unfortunately, that same year,
something passed in Florida right before I went to get
my abortion, where you had to get a transvaginal ultrasound
(54:07):
that is an internal ultrasound. That is not the cute
see in the movies. A little bit of Jillian your
telling me, no, they put something inside you. And that
is kind of what I was trying to avoid that
kind of situation was exactly what I was trying to
stare away from by choosing medication abortion. But unfortunately they
wanted to, I guess, make sure that I was pregnant,
(54:29):
even though I was pretty damn sure I was pregnant. Um,
and then when I went back for a follow up
in two weeks, I had to do that again. Um. Yeah,
at the time, this is this happened in two thousand eleven.
I want to stay around there. You know, at the time,
there weren't a lot of conversations about trans people in
(54:55):
medical spaces, especially in healthcare situations. You know, there's no
you'll see it now, especially now that I live in
Los Angeles, you know, and you fill out your forms,
there's a space for a preferred name, there's a space
for your pronouns. I feel like now we're beginning to
recognize that not everybody who has a uterus or needs,
you know, this kind of reproductive health care is going
(55:15):
to identify as a woman. So fantastic, but again, ten
years ago, not not a thing. So I had to
go into this thing by myself and have conversations with
you know, very sweet staff. Really, I really appreciate how
much they were trying to help me, But it was
really difficult to go in for service where every two
seconds you're being miss gendered and you're being talked to
(55:39):
and about as if you are of an identity that
you're not. Being miss gendered is very much an act
of violence, and it's very upsetting to have to be
in that space where you're already vulnerable something I don't
like being, and then I have to navigate that. I
didn't tell very many people about it either. I live
(56:00):
with my older sister at the time too, and I
never mentioned it. You know, clearly I was unwell, but
I didn't talk about it. I didn't even tell my
family till years later. For me, the experience was something
that I just it was in the way. It was
just something I needed to get done, um so I
could continue my life. I've never felt guilty about it.
I've never felt um, you know, ashamed of having had
(56:23):
an abortion. It was just it's a thing. It happened.
I had my feelings, and I'm moving on. I did
a fellowship UH and an internship with Planned Parenthood specifically,
and I volunteered with Nayral and other other organizations, other
reproductive rights UM organizations, and the experiences weren't weren't great.
I feel like even though that these people, you know,
(56:44):
we're definitely trying to fight for the same endgame where
you know, obviously abortion accesses is fully there. The way
that I was spoken to, especially then, was not acceptable.
You know, it was always very much you know, we
have to make sure women have access to this first,
and then we'll cover nuances like you know, transgender not
conforming people accessing abortion, or people of color neating abortion.
(57:05):
The narrative was always very much around sis gendered white women,
and I just I was always put off by that
because it just doesn't that's not how this works. It's
never it's never been successful to just aim to support
one group and then it trickles down. That's it's never worked.
So I don't know where that idea came from. So
when I was finally presented with an opportunity to be
in a cohort where the majority of the people there
(57:28):
are people of color, and eventually, you know, I was
the only trans person at first, but eventually not Now
there are other trans people talking about similar experiences. When
I first heard that there was another trans person who
was going to be joining me testify. I cried because
I had not I've never met or spoken to any
(57:49):
other trans person that's had an abortion. I know where,
I know we're there, I know we're out here. It's
just it's a completely different experience. We can actually interact
with that person when other people actually, um, you know,
you've come to me other trans folks and then gender
not conforming folks come to me with you know, you
made me feel like like I'm okay, like I'm gonna
be fine. You know, we're out here. This is normal.
(58:12):
My heart I can't. It kills me, but it's good.
It's good. High listeners for all of you who have
been with us these last four episodes, Thank you so
much for listening. Two quick things. One, if you're interested,
Alison Leave's comedy show Oh God to show about abortion
(58:35):
got extended. Find more about how to see it in
l A or New York at oh God show dot com. Also,
how are you all doing considering all that's happened. I'd
love to hear from you. You can call this number
one eight four four four seven nine seven eight eight
three and leave me a message about what you're thinking.
(58:57):
Or maybe the actions you're taking, or even things you
have learned want to share about abortion. Your message might
be included in a future episode, and we really will
appreciate hearing from you. All that number again one eight
four four four seven nine seven eight eight three. Abortion
(59:18):
The Body Politic is executive produced by me Katie Curic
and was created by small team led by our intreptid
supervising producer Lauren Hansen, editing and sound designed by Derrick
Clements researched by Nina Perlman. Production and editing help for
this episode from Julia Weaver and Mary do and a
(59:40):
special thanks to k c M producers Courtney Litz and
Adriana Fasio
Host
Katie Couric
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