April 29, 2025 • 52 mins
After personal experience with severe pregnancy complications and requiring a later abortion among a labyrinth of state abortion bans, Erika Christensen and Garin Marschall co-founded Patient Forward, a national strategy and advocacy organization. Erika and Garin sit down with us to talk about why people need abortions later in pregnancy, what barriers exist to accessing that care, and why government interference in pregnancy outcomes is overwhelmingly unpopular.
Further into pregnancy, the cost of care goes up, the number of providers goes down, and more and more restrictions go into effect. People require abortions later in pregnancy for a host of reasons, but often they are needed after 1) they learn that they are pregnant later in gestation or learn new information about the pregnancy, or; 2) they know care is needed earlier in pregnancy but are delayed by TRAP laws, abortion bans, economic reasons, and more. Many experience a combination of these factors which impact their access.
You might be interested in the Public Health is Dead podcast: https://www.publichealthisdead.com/ 9o03
Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social
Email us: jennie@reprosfightback.com
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast
Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Repro Fight Back a podcast on all
things related to sexual andreproductive health rights and
justice. Hi. Re pros. How'severybody doing? I'm your host
Jenny Weather , and my pronounsare she her. See y'all. I am
back from my trip. I had such agreat time traveling with my
mom. Um, like I said, we took aViking cruise from, we started
(00:27):
in Oslo and took the train fromOslo to Bergen, and it was
gorgeous. Y'all like, justabsolutely stunning. And then
we left from Bergen and hitShetland, and then we did some
stops in Scotland, and then wewent to the Orny Islands. And
then we had a quick stop in ,uh, we had some more in
(00:49):
Scotland, and then we went toBelfast. And then we had a
couple stops in Wales. And thenwe were supposed to go to
Dublin, but the weather was notcooperating, so we didn't do
that. But we then had a couplestops in England and ended in
London. And it was two and ahalf weeks. It was so much fun,
(01:11):
saw so many wonderful things.
Took so many pictures. Theweather, y'all , the weather
Gods were smiling on us thewhole time. It might have been
like a little cold or windy,but it did not rain on us at
all. And considering the placeswe were, that is like an utter
miracle. Like most days it waslike gorgeous and sunny. Um ,
(01:31):
maybe a little windy, maybe alittle chilly, but like nothing
like I, I just had like asweater most days. Like, it
wasn't like cold and it wasjust so much fun. And , uh, it
was just a great time. I saw somany wonderful things. It's
hard to pick a favorite. Ireally loved Shetland was
gorgeous. Like I got getting tosee the Shetland ponies and ,
(01:55):
um, I , I don't know, it wasjust so much fun. I, I don't
know that I have a favorite. Ireally liked Edinburgh and I'd
like to go back. Um, I wouldlike to go back to Bergen at
some point. Um, I feel likethere was a bunch of Scotland I
really enjoyed. Uh, it was justwonderful. Oh, and it was
lambing season, so there werejust like little baby lambs
(02:16):
everywhere, which wasdelightful. We have so many
pictures of lambs. My one, Iguess two bummers is I didn't
get to see a highland cow,which I was super excited to
see, but I did not get to see aScottish island cow, which made
me very sad. And then to ourtrip to Dublin being canceled,
(02:38):
I had been before, so it wasn'tlike a huge deal. But I had
plans for when we were inDublin of like things I wanted
to buy. And , um, we had areally fun trip planned that
day, but that's okay. It wasstill so much fun. I did a lot
of reading. I did not check myemail. I mostly stayed off
social. It was just sodelightful to get away from
(03:01):
everything and not deal witheverything happening. And I had
such a wonderful time and yeah.
Oh, oh , the other thing Ireally loved, we went to Bodian
Castle, which was super cool.
It's only like the outer partsof the building are still
intact, but it's got like amoat. It was just gorgeous.
(03:24):
Maybe I'll share some pictureswith Elena that they can post
on social , uh, about my trip.
It was a lot of fun. It wasalso a little surreal to be in
the UK when there was a courtruling that was anti-trans that
came down. But, so that was,that was, that was sad and ,
um, hard to, to see thathappen. Um, but it was also
(03:45):
very exciting to be in Londonon the day, on the, on the
Saturday where there was thebig rallies. We had stuff
planned. So I, I did not get togo to the rally, but we were
around it and it was sowonderful to see so many people
who turned out to support transrights and the uk Very sad
that, that the case came downin a negative way. But it was
(04:08):
great to see the energy and allof the people who turned out
for trans rights. So I was gladto be able to at least see that
part. Um, but yeah, overall Ihad such a fun time. Um, uh, my
mom and I did really welltogether. I was a little
nervous that two and a halfweeks , uh, in one room might,
might be complicated, but Ithink overall I think she would
(04:29):
agree. We did really well.
Thanks, mom. I had such awonderful time. I can't wait to
look at all of the picturesthat are still on my camera at
this point, but maybe that'swhat I will do over the weekend
is start doing some editing ofpictures and stuff because
y'all, I took so many, it'soutrageous the number of
pictures I took, but it was awonderful time. Okay. With
(04:50):
that, I'm not even gonna talkabout anything that happened
while I'm gone. 'cause I'mstill trying to live a little
bit in that bubble of like,ignore it all. But I'm very
excited for this week'sepisode. We are doing a six
month series, so one episode amonth talking about abortion
later and pregnancy. It is suchan important issue that we have
(05:10):
done episodes talking about,but we haven't done a deep dive
in a while. So I'm very excitedto do this long-term look at
abortion later in pregnancy andwhy we need to care about it in
many different aspects of it.
And I couldn't think of abetter place to start than with
Garrin Marshall and EricaChristensen at Patient Forward
. They were wonderful guestsand I had so much fun talking
(05:33):
to them. And I talk a littlebit about the way they have
impacted my work, and I am justso grateful for all of the work
that they are doing. It is soimportant and I am so excited
to be able to highlight it andjust feel lucky to have them
on. They were wonderful guests.
Okay, so with that, let's go tomy interview with Erica and
Garrin . Hi Garrin . Hi Erica .
(05:54):
Thank you so much for beinghere today. Oh
Speaker 2 (05:56):
My gosh. Hi. Thank you for having us. We
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I'm so excited to have you here. And before I let
you introduce yourselves, I'mgoing to , uh, probably
embarrass you for a second. Um,I have definitely followed you
on social media for a very longtime, and I have been just so
grateful for all of theadvocacy that you have done
around abortion later inpregnancy. Uh, as you know,
(06:20):
we've done our 50 state reportcard for, I don't know , I
think this year's was our 13thyear. And because of your
childless advocacy, not likeaimed at me or anything, but
just like watching the amazingwork that y'all do. Uh, when we
switched the report card fromPopulation Institute to re
Pros, we got rid of, we used toonly ding states for 20 week ,
(06:41):
uh, abortion bans or lower. Andbecause of all of your work and
and advocacy, we switched it toany gestational ban.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yes. Clapping . Oh, that's
incredible. That's wonderful tohear. Thank you for sharing
that. That is amazing. I'mgonna ride that. Yeah , I'm
riding this high all day, . That's
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Amazing. Okay , so let's go ahead and have you
introduce yourself. Uh, Erica ,do you wanna go first? Yes,
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Thank you. Uh , my name is Erica Christensen. My
pronouns are she her. Um, and Iam co-founder of Patient
Forward , and I will let Garrinintroduce himself before we
share too much more maybe. Hi,
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I'm Garrin Marshall.
I, I use he him pronouns andI'm also the co-founder of
Patient Forward . We're marriedsometimes , uh, you know, it's
important to like put that outthere so people understand
maybe our relationship or whywe're familiar or.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, it would be confusing listening to this and
thinking we're coworkers .
People might think, wow, theyare very, they have a real
problem over there, .
Uh , no, we are , uh, westarted this work married, we
remain married. And that is,you know, that's just something
we try to let people know fromthe beginning. Well,
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I am really excited to have the two of you on.
That's just because you'veplayed a big role in
influencing how I think aboutthis. But it's a good start of
a new series we're gonna dowith , uh, in coordination with
Patient Ford for the next sixmonths. We're gonna have one
episode a month talking aboutsome aspect or some issue
relating to abortion later inpregnancy. And honestly, I
couldn't think of a betterplace to start than with the
(08:23):
two of you. Do you maybe wantto talk about how you got
involved in this work?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yes, thank you. And also, we're so excited about
this series. Thank you so muchfor being such a wonderful
partner as we put all of thistogether , uh, along with our
patient forwards Chief ExternalAffairs Officer Baan Lee
Gilmore, she's also beenincredibly instrumental in
putting this series togetherand we're so excited for it. So
thank you. Maybe we'll plug it, uh, a few more times over the
(08:52):
course of this conversation aswell, because we're so excited
. So I guess I'll start. Um,Garin and I started doing this
work , um, almost nine yearsago, which is so wild. Um, it's
so amazing how fast the timegoes, but it was very much a ,
a case of an issue sort ofchoosing you . Uh , we were
(09:15):
newly married, we were , uh,wanting to grow our family, and
we thought quite naively inretrospect, that we were going
to experience pregnancy andhaving children, hopefully
without too much friction. Andwhat we found is it was much
harder , I think, than we hadanticipated. My first pregnancy
(09:36):
ended in a miscarriage at, at10 weeks, and then , uh, I was
pregnant again soon after. Andthat pregnancy approved to be
very complicated, and thecomplication sort of grew , uh,
as the pregnancy progressed. Itgot so that every appointment,
you know, every two weeks wewould learn some new piece of
(09:59):
critical complicatedinformation about our pregnancy
that eventually culminated inlearning at 30 weeks that in
fact, our doctors no longerthought that my pregnancy , uh,
was viable. Their treatment orone, you know, one option
available to us. One treatmentwas to end the pregnancy was,
was to have an abortion. Uh, wewere living in Brooklyn at the
(10:22):
time. Our doctor was on theUpper West Side. You know, we
had access to the best medicalcare in America. We were really
lucky. And in the sameconversation where my doctor
suggested that we mightconsider ending this pregnancy,
he also shared that if that isthe course we chose , uh, we
would not be able to do it inNew York, in New York State ,
(10:44):
um, and that it would requireflying across the country , uh,
to one of the last stop alltrimester abortion clinics. Uh,
the one he recommended was inColorado. And so at the same
time that we're learning all ofthis new information about my
pregnancy and we're processing,you know, this terrible news,
the grief, the trauma, we'realso learning in real time
(11:06):
about New York State abortionlaw, which I , you know, I
think for many people it's notuntil you face a ban , uh, that
you might have even thought tolook into it. You know, it's
not something that peopleanticipate having to
experience. So in very realtime , we're learning about New
York State abortion law. We'relearning that there's a limit
(11:27):
at 24 weeks, which I had sailedpast weeks before without
anyone having mentioned that itexisted. Um, even as my
pregnancy was already quitecomplicated. I also had, you
know, health complications ofmy own. I had had a brain
surgery the year before , uh,which could be its own podcast.
Uh , so, you know, there was alot of complicating factors ,
(11:49):
but in the end, we sort offocused on getting every, all
the pieces together that neededto be together for me to be
able to travel at that point inmy pregnancy and reach care, a
lot of doctors had to get onthe same page. Uh , my maternal
fetal medicine specialist, Dr.
Hearn and Colorado, my brainsurgeon, they're all having,
(12:12):
you know, these conversationsabout how best , uh, to care
for me despite the law in NewYork. And that was clarifying
for us. They thought, how canwe best help this person given
this law in New York? And so wewere able to put travel on
credit cards, you know, lastminute flights , uh, car rental
(12:33):
hotels. My mom gave us $10,000out of her 401k so we could pay
for the care itself. And werealized really immediately how
lucky we were to be able to dothat. And at every point,
Garrin and I would look at eachother and say, oh my God, what
if we didn't have IDs? What ifwe couldn't fly? What if we
(12:54):
didn't have driver's licenseand couldn't rent? What if we
couldn't rent the car? What ifwe were under 25? What if we
didn't have my mom who hadaccess to this money who could
take it out of her account andgive it to us? You know, it was
the whole time we were justunderstanding how if any piece
had not been in place, I wouldbe forced to carry that doom
(13:15):
pregnancy to term, and then wewould be grappling with what
that would look like, you know?
Um, so I think that was prettyimmediately radicalizing for
us. And , uh, I think we sortof became really overnight
obsessed with abortion laws. Ithink that's safe to say
(13:36):
, um, and remain maybemore obsessed than ever. Um, so
Karen , uh, did I leaveanything out? Any important
pieces that I'm missing? Well,
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I, I think, I think to that point, like when we
were sort of going throughthis, we were like, oh my God,
does anyone know about this ? And nobody that we
knew did. And, and I think, Ithink there was this impulse
that we had to fix it, right?
And like, the way mine showedup is I was like, I kind of
went down a rabbit hole oninsurance or whatever, but
(14:05):
Erica , to her credit was like,I, I want to , I wanna like
talk to someone about this.
And, you know, and she reachedout to Geo Tolentino and did an
, uh, at the time, an anonymousinterview with Geo Tolentino
for Jezebel about herexperience needing this care.
And, and, you know, then laterthrough advocacy, you know, we
(14:27):
got, because of that article,we got hooked up with folks
with the New York CivilLiberties Union and, and
learned about efforts in, inNew York state to sort of fix
the law and decriminalizeabortion. And this process of
like, feeling the need to tellpeople, feeling the need to try
to help fix it so that someoneelse didn't have to go through
it. You know, I , I think thosewere very early impulses of
(14:47):
ours. And I think that thenthose drove like really what
was like a learning process,frankly, about how the law
works, about how insuranceworks, about how these, these
complications exist, about thesort of barriers and obstacles
that existed in New York at thetime that weren't allowing that
law to move forward. You know?
So we sort of like threwourselves into that and we're
(15:08):
able to work with other folksin the state, other advocates
that have been working on itfor some time to get the New
York , uh, reproductive HealthAct passed in 2019. And I think
early on we realized that like,you know, we realized that that
was like, it was very importantto decriminalize abortion in
New York . And then we alsolearned that we wish we had
(15:30):
gone farther, and we wish that,that that law had had gone
farther and had not in a waylike reified a line , uh, still
in the state. And I think that,you know, that learning process
really drove what becamepatient forward of realizing
that, you know, we wanted folkswho were, who were sharing
(15:51):
their stories in an effort tochange laws, to have more
tools, to have more education,to have more resources. We
wanted advocates in the fieldto understand the sort of
breadth of experiences waybeyond ours that drove people
to need this care. And I, Ithink that's the other thing is
we realized that stories likeours were way overrepresented
with regard to later abortionstories of a fetal diagnosis
(16:13):
or, or something like that. Andrealizing that there were all
these stories and all thesepeople and all these
experiences missing from thisnarrative around abortion later
in pregnancy. And, and sopatient forward is really like,
you know, it began as ourefforts to try to like figure
out some of those problems and,and see if we could like work
with others and, and kind ofstart to shift things in the
(16:35):
country. But, you know, bothfederally and, and at the state
level. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (16:39):
I think I first started following y'all around
during the Raya fight andremember following , um, all of
that and, and then really justthinking back of like, my early
days working in this field andhow, how much abortion later in
pregnancy wasn't really talkedabout other than like, like you
said, like those specific caseswith the fetal diagnosis or, or
(17:03):
the , uh, parent's life beingat risk. And , but even then
you weren't hearing it veryoften. And it's become such a
bigger part of the conversationnow. And I , I think you , you
all are a huge part of why thatconversation has been really
pushed forward over the, thelast years. And I think it goes
(17:23):
back to something I've tried totalk about on the podcast a lot
of how all of these things areinterconnected, right? Like,
you can't just talk aboutgestational bans without
talking about waiting periodsor insurance coverage, or how
these things impact people withlow incomes or traveling to
travel to get access. And theseare all interconnected and just
(17:47):
like this messy web that peoplehave to try and navigate to
access care. And so many peopleare unprepared for that when
they encounter it. And it , itmakes it so hard to find the
care they need and in a timelyway and to be able to afford
that care. And I think all ofthat just kind of gets
amplified when it's later inpregnancy.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, a a hundred percent, I mean, further into
pregnancy, the cost of caregoes up, the number of
providers goes down, and moreand more restrictions go into
effect, right? And so what you,what people experience is that
later in pregnancy , uh, firstmaybe I should back up a little
bit for anyone listening who ismaybe new to this topic or
(18:34):
might, you know, have thequestion that we get most
often, which is why doessomeone even need a later
abortion? You know, and that'sasked on the, you know, that's
asked on the , uh, maybe lesskind end of the str spectrum in
like a why did she wait so longto, you know, you know,
(18:56):
couldn't we put things in placethat would essentially
eradicate the need for thiscare? Like if we make early
care so accessible and , uh,possible and easy, then
theoretically, perhaps wewouldn't, you know, need this
care. You know, there's like,there's sort of this wide , uh,
spectrum of , uh,misunderstanding when it, that
(19:16):
is really rooted in , um, alack of awareness about why
most people need this care. Thetruth is that people need
abortion later in pregnancy forthe same initial considerations
that they do early inpregnancy. However, there's a
lot of people who just cannotaccess care as soon as they
would like. And there are sortof two pathways, two main
(19:41):
pathways , uh, that people findthemselves on when they're
seeking care later inpregnancy. And this framework
comes to us from a wonderfulresearcher named Dr. Katrina
Kim Port , um, out of UCSF. SoDr. Kim Port identified these
two paths. The first path isnew information that the person
just could not have known untilthey knew it. And that is , um,
(20:04):
after the first trimester thatthey learned this information.
This information like me couldbe a new fetal diagnosis or
issue that they weren't awareof. It could be an issue with
their own health that came uplater in pregnancy. Um, as
pregnancy itself grows morecomplicated and more things can
come up later, it could be anew life circumstance that they
(20:25):
didn't anticipate a loss of apartner, a loss of income, a, a
hurricane. I mean, the list, the list goes on, or
the new information that theymight learn is that they're
pregnant later. Recognition ofpregnancy is far more common
than people think. And it'sactually the most common
scenario that faces folks , uh,who need care later. You know,
(20:48):
not, not to be too obvious, butyou can't seek an abortion that
you don't know you need yet.
And again, later recognition ofpregnancy, far more common ,
uh, than people think,particularly for young people ,
uh, who maybe haven't had theirperiods for very long , uh, for
people with complicated medicalhistories, et cetera . The
other path is knowing that youwant and need care earlier, but
(21:12):
being delayed by circumstancesoutside of your control. That
could be trap laws , that couldbe abortion ban, certainly. Uh,
it could be the $400 that youmight need for an abortion
earlier. And as you are workingyourself to the bone to try to
get that money together , um,your pregnancy is continuing to
inch up and with it the price.
(21:33):
And so you're just constantlychasing a price that you can
never meet until it's, untilyou find yourself over these
lines. Um, and then for mostpeople, they like , they
experience a combination of thetwo. They find out new
information later in theirpregnancy that they couldn't
have known any earlier, andthen they were delayed even
further by these circumstancesoutside of their control. Now
(21:55):
the reason we'll always needaccess to later abortion care
is because that path one newinformation, that's life stuff,
that's body stuff. We are nevergonna be able to legislate or
regulate away bad pregnancyoutcomes later recognition of
pregnancy. This is, this isjust the experience of being a
human being with a pregnancycapable body. We will always
(22:16):
need access to this carebecause those things will
always happen. Now, column B,path B barriers to accessing
care as early as as we wouldwant. Those are manmade
problems. And we coulderadicate all of those
tomorrow. And we should, and weshould be working to eradicate
every single one unequivocally.
And without qualifiers, allabortion bans gotta go. They're
(22:38):
not rooted in health, they'renot rooted in safety, they're
rooted in control. We canabsolutely decide there is no
such thing as a benevolentabortion ban, and therefore
we're gonna do our best to getrid of every single one. Uh, we
could make abortion care free , and you wouldn't have
to chase the fee . I mean, wecould , uh, focus all of our
(22:58):
time and energy on, on thatsecond pathway because it's
what we have control over. Andit speaks to , uh, the parts of
the patient experience that wecan actually address. Um, and
at the same time, we would beaddressing stigma and
everything else,criminalization, everything
else. So that's sort of like a, uh, both short and long way
(23:20):
of explaining from a patientperspective , um, how people
find themselves needing carespecifically later in
pregnancy. But their sameinitial impulses, same as
early, they don't wanna bepregnant. They already have
enough children. They neverwanna have children being
pregnant gives them body orgender dysphoria. Uh, they
(23:40):
experience, you know, thesecomplications. Same, the same
impulses
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Are the same. So you've been doing this work for
six years with patient forward.
Uh, what have you seen changeover that time? Or what
challenges have you like reallyrun up against?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I feel like hope is not something that people talk
a lot about these days., understandably. And I think
there's a lot to be terrifiedabout in a way, like outside of
this very specific topic. But Ithink with regard to abortion
later in pregnancy, we havesome hope with regard to like
how things have evolved andchanged over, over the, the
last five, six years or so. Imean, first of all, we've seen
(24:17):
like major shifts in publicopinion. So like you said, it's
something that people aretalking about more and more and
more. It really is gettingsimplified to the fact that
people just actually don't wantthe government involved in this
interfering in people's, youknow, decisions to get care,
ability to get care, et cetera.
And it used to be that peopleunderstood they , we didn't
(24:39):
want the government involvedprior to viability or
something, right? And now we'rerealizing that like, no, it is
actually just that people don'twant the government involved.
They actually just don't, theydon't want it, they don't trust
the government to be someone inthat space. Right? And that
makes a lot of sense. Andwe're, and we're seeing big
movement with regard to publicopinion post roe on this. And
(25:02):
that, I think is giving us alot of hope. The other things
that we're seeing advances inpolicy that reflect this, so
not everywhere, but you know,like California passed prop one
in 2022 , uh, Vermont amendedtheir constitution. Both of
those didn't have limits at allinvolved. California still has
(25:23):
a viability ban, which we wouldlove to see repealed. But the,
you know, the ballot measureitself didn't have a limit. Um,
Minnesota got rid of itsMichigan following their ballot
measure. We saw them repealtheir viability line. And, and
like for instance, right now wesee Massachusetts actually
there are active efforts in thestate to repeal their viability
(25:43):
line. These are all things thatare actually quite new. Like in
the time that we startedpatient forward, or like around
2019, there were all theseefforts to yes, protect
abortion, but only up untilviability. And we're still
seeing that, you know, we sawall these ballot measures last
year that had viability lines,but at the same time we are
seeing this other sort ofcross-cutting , um, momentum
(26:05):
with regard to just, justgetting the government out of
that part of it in a way. Likeidentifying a more supportive
role for the government. Thegovernment can provide funding
so people can get care, theycan support clinics. There's a
really great bill in Marylandthat just passed that's, you
know, gonna , they found areally novel way to get some
money to help support abortioncare and clinics and stuff like
that. And I think that those,those two things, this movement
(26:29):
in public opinion, some of thismovement in policy suggests
like a big sea change withregard to how we are
understanding where people arein the public and where
advocates and politiciansshould be. This is one of these
cases where the public may be alittle bit in front of a lot of
(26:51):
the advocates in the field andthe politicians. People are
scared of abortion later inpregnancy when they're talking
about it in these politicalspaces. But they needn't be, it
turns out, and that's not tosay that people don't have
complicated feelings aboutthis, but they have actually
very uncomplicated feelingsabout whether the government
should be stopping people fromgetting care.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah. I feel like that shows up very clear in any
polling around most healththings, right? Like the
government should not begetting involved.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah. Or, or the way that we want the government
involved is to, you know, makesure instruments are clean,
make sure people can get to thecare, make sure that, you know,
providers have training. There, there are all these like
really great places. 'cause Ifeel like there's this big
attack right now on even theidea of government. So I just
wanna clarify, there is a rolefor the
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Government. No, very good point. ,
Speaker 3 (27:44):
The government, a collective project is
something, you know, we canmake sure to take care of each
other. That's what thegovernment could be. And so we
can take care of people thatend up for all the reasons that
Erica listed in terms of likewhy people need abortion care
later in pregnancy. Like forinstance, like, I've been
thinking a lot about recentlyhow many people are having to
travel just for this care, justfor abortion care. Later in
(28:06):
pregnancy. People are travelingall the time for this care like
we did. And you know, on, whatis it? May 7th, they're gonna
start requiring real IDs to flydomestically. So suddenly
there's gonna be a lot ofpeople that have like
heightened ID requirements whoare gonna find that out maybe
at the airport. And they are,you know, they have an
(28:27):
appointment in two days orwhatever, they're gonna have a
problem. And so I, I think thisis just one of these things
where like every news article Iread, I understand how that's
gonna affect, you know, peoplewho need abortions later in
pregnancy who are already, thepeople who are the most
marginalized in our, in oursociety are already
overrepresented in thatpopulation. And so I think
(28:49):
there are all these thingswhere, you know, we tend to
silo these issues. We tend tosilo abortion, we tend to silo
it away from these otherthings. But if you think about
immigration, if you , if you'resomeone who has, whose
immigration status makes itdifficult for you to travel
suddenly, if you need abortioncare later in pregnancy, that's
a problem. If you're someonewho, because of criminalization
(29:09):
for something else, you're notallowed to leave your state
without, like, approval fromyour parole officer or just not
at all. Suddenly you can't getcare that you need. And so I
think, I think that's the otherbig trend that we're seeing is
people are starting to connectdots between things better. So
we're starting to understandwhy criminalization is
happening, why these otherthings are affecting people,
(29:31):
and, and stop being so siloed.
And I, and I think that's aencouraging trend as well.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (29:35):
That also just makes me think of young people and
not how , like, how that'sgonna impact their ability to
access care later in pregnancyif they have to travel out of
state . You mentioned itearlier, you know , maybe not
be able to rent a car. Like ifyou have to fly, like that's a
whole new level of money thatmany young people aren't gonna
be able to meet
Speaker 2 (29:53):
A thousand percent.
We, we think about young peopleall the time, and you know, in
response to the research, wesort of think of young people
as young people and very youngpeople because there are the
teenagers, of course, that findthemselves overrepresented
among the later abortionpopulation. But this also, this
population includes children.
(30:14):
And if you talk to any alltrimester abortion provider ,
uh, they will tell you thatthey have all cared for
children at their practices.
And, you know, as like, I, I ama parent, like, it's, it's
crushing to think of thesecases and, and so many kids who
are unprotected and who havethe least amount of bodily
autonomy in our country, theyhave tremendous barriers. And
(30:38):
we know that this is yetanother reason to fight so hard
to protect access to theseincredible all trimester
clinics , um, that areculturally competent. They're,
you know, trained in, in traumaand trauma response. Like
that's, if, if someone findsthemselves in these terrible
situations, where do we wantthem to end up? Do we want them
(30:59):
to end up trying to figure outwhat to do on their own? We do
not. We're starting to see someof those cases and it's
terrifying. We want them tofind their way to one of these
excellent clinics , uh, thatare trained and very able to
care for them so that their ,um, health and wellbeing is, is
intact. You know, and I thinklike this is also related to,
(31:20):
to the public's evolution onthis. Ultimately people care
most about health and safety.
And this is, this is a healthand safety issue, and certainly
we should care because thepopulation includes , uh, low
income people, people who arealready most likely to be
criminalized young people,children, et cetera. But also
everyone understands that ifthey're in a hard circumstance,
(31:42):
they want access to health andsafety too. So
Speaker 1 (31:45):
That makes me think of like the next part of the
conversation of how, how do webring people in on this, right?
We've talked about, we've seendiscussions of it happening
more, and it does seem like thepublic is, is moving on this,
but, but how can we continue tobring people in to get them to
understand why abortion laterin pregnancy is such an
important issue? Well,
Speaker 2 (32:04):
One, I think, you know, we, we continue to invest
in, in education andcommunications resources. We,
we have a website called WhoNot When, who not when.com,
which is sort of the go-to ,uh, resource for information
about abortion later inpregnancy. Uh, we have fact
sheets on there. We have, youknow, a media guide for a
(32:24):
better reporting on abortionlater in pregnancy. We have a
ton of resources if people wantto educate themselves and
hopefully then educate theircircles and communities, share
good organization information,have better language for
talking about this. So that'sthere for people to learn
always. And then another bigpiece of this is helping people
(32:48):
understand the ramifications ofgestational bans, including
viability bans beyond abortion.
Because these lines, thesebands harm us in myriad ways,
, that I think I , Ikind of wanna pass to garrin to
this one because he's been ,uh, working very hard on some ,
(33:09):
uh, resources to, to helppeople do just that. So I'm
passing you the baton. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I mean, I, I think that we've, you know, for years
in patient forward, we werevery focused on abortion later
in pregnancy and, and, and sortof making the case to people
that it was worth protectingthis care, making sure people
could get this care for all ofthe reasons that have to do
with abortion and all of thoseare still true. People deserved
(33:35):
to get care as soon as possibleand as late as necessary,
period. And these , uh, linesthat people keep drawing in our
protective abortion laws, solike , uh, lines at a specific
gestational age or, or lines at, at potential fetal viability
have other ramifications beyondabortion. So what, what those
(33:59):
lines are doing is saying thatthis is the point that we, you
know, in this ballot measure orin this, in this law, we are
recognizing that the state hasan interest in a pregnancy that
becomes controlling, right? So,and, and that's, that's really
the crux of what Roe v Wadewas. And so where they were
trying to balance the interestbetween the pregnant person and
(34:21):
the state, and they weren'ttrying to like, give people
bodily autonomy. They weretrying to give, they were
trying to balance the interestsbetween the state and the
individual. And we have notreally escaped that. That's one
of the biggest challenges hereis that even folks within our
field have not escaped thatgeneral idea that there should
be some sort of line. And so,again, beyond abortion, the
(34:45):
problem with those lines isthat when you give the state
that place, when you give thestate control over pregnancy,
at some point, when you drawthat line, that line has to be
policed. And that the way thatline is policed is by
investigating pregnancyoutcomes. If there is a
(35:06):
stillbirth, why is there astillbirth? Did someone do
something wrong? We need to gofind out, we need to arrest
that person, investigate them.
There will be local newsstories sharing their name
publicly. We're gonna go do allthat, and then we may decide
that we're not gonna chargethem with anything, right? Like
just happened in Georgia, butthat person's name is out there
(35:28):
that they went through thatwhole experience. That's awful.
But obviously there are alsoother people who are in prison
because of pregnancy outcomes.
There are people in, in prisonbecause of behavior or conduct
during their pregnancy rangingfrom substance use, which is in
itself not a crime. It is notillegal to have ingested drugs
in America, but it is oftenillegal to have ingested drugs
(35:52):
if you're pregnant. So thereare all these things that
become illegal because you'repregnant. That line that we're
drawing at viability is sayingafter this point, we're okay
with the state doing all thisstuff. We're okay with the
state inve investigatingpregnancy outcomes, you know,
controlling pregnancy behavior.
There have been situationswhere people are, they have
(36:12):
forced medical interventionslike c-sections or blood
transfusions. Often people are,are rejecting these things
based on religious grounds orjust because they don't want
them. And, and again, that is apervasive, right, in this
country, you are , you're notallowed to have things done to
your body that you don't wantto do unless you're pregnant.
. And the state has,again, granted, been granted
(36:36):
this, this place afterviability, typically when that
matters.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Can I interject one important piece of this, which
is that quote unquote viabilityis not a hard line. It's a,
it's like a general gray area,and like everything that
involves the carceral state, ittends to creep. So really
whenever there is a developedpregnancy that is , uh, the
concern here, the state isgoing to take their place where
(37:05):
they feel that it'sappropriate, which is how you
have people investigated at 20weeks, at 19 weeks. Um, we know
from , uh, a report by F1 howthat 87% of cases of
criminalization affectpregnancies in the second and
third trimester. So while froman abortion context, this care
is uncommon when we're talkingabout criminalization, it
(37:28):
represents the vast majority ofcases where someone is
criminalized and the , andthey're, they're being
criminalized based on ideas andlegal concepts that we are
writing into the law ourselves.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah, I was just thinking this, like, while you
were talking about that, of howwe got in, in this place where
we lost RO anyway, right? Likeyou had like this slow chipping
away. So all of a sudden wehave these viability bands.
Okay, so then 24 weeks. Okay,20 weeks. And it just, you see
it start creeping back and backand that it would start
(38:04):
impacting more and more peoplebecause again, it's not going
to stay at just viability.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Well, it also speaks to the inherent like difference
of goals. I think with, ifwe're singularly focused on
abortion, if that's the goal isto get people abortions and to
ask state daddy for permissionto get as many abortions as
possible, then you would writepolicies and act the way. Um ,
we kind of have, for the past50 plus years . If your goal is
(38:35):
to have bodily autonomy towrestle control from the state,
to be left alone, to beunharmed by the state, then a
gestational ban would beunthinkable. But we have
different goals. And that issomething that, it's another
challenge that we have found isthat that is a conversation
(38:58):
that starts to make folksreally uncomfortable. But until
we have that conversation aboutwhat our goals are, what it is
we are trying to win, what is awin? Until we can really have
that conversation openly andwithout blaming or hurting each
other, I fear that we are justgoing to norms our way to like
a total personhood,protections at the fed level
(39:22):
because we're not, we're, we'refighting different fights
sometimes at cross purposes.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Oh man, this is just making me so excited for the
rest of this series, y'all. Iam so excited for all the
conversations we're gonna behaving. Let's wrap up. This
one. I always love to end with.
What can our audience do? Howcan the audience get involved
around these issues? I think
Speaker 3 (39:45):
One thing that we would love to invite folks to
do is that when you're asked tosupport something, a bill, some
legislation or a ballot measureor whatever, is to read it
and see if there are,are there lines in it? Are
there limits to the protectionsin it? Ask yourself whether it
(40:05):
allows government interferenceand criminalization. 'cause all
pregnancy criminalization isbased on the idea of fetal
personhood, which is a verydangerous idea. And so it's
important for people to kind oflike have their spidey senses
up about this when they'rereading things that they're
(40:25):
asked to support. So that's one. And it , and I think
to be clear, it's okay to pushback to say, Hey advocate, hey,
elected person asking me to dosomething. I I'm concerned
about this thing in this law.
Why is that there? Could wemaybe not do it? 'cause I don't
support that. Let them know. Ithink that's really important.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
You know, I think we all, well , anyone with, with,
you know, who's even remotelycovering what is happening in
our country , uh, knows thatthis is a time that we must be
working together, pulling ourresources, having a singular
focus to fight fascism, tofight all of these attacks on
(41:07):
our bodily autonomy in all ofthese different ways. We can't
do that if there are a lot ofus throwing the most
under-resourced and over policemembers of our communities
under the bus. We just cannot .
And so we're, we want to worktogether. We want everyone to
work together under and towardsthe same goal. Um , but that is
(41:29):
going to require simplystopping the protections of
criminalization in our ownlaws. And again, we could all
decide to do that. And I knowthat there are so many
conflicting sort of interestsout there. You know, you can
take these, these ballotmeasures for one , uh, the
ballot measures are a tactic.
They're not a strategy. Whatare they a strategy for? I
(41:49):
don't know. People havedifferent interests in, in, you
know , uh, what these ballotmeasures can, can or cannot do.
What I know is from aperspective of a, a full-time,
you know, worker workingtowards , uh, the protection of
bodily autonomy and access toabortion, I know that there's
harmful things in there. Um,and I know that we can do more
(42:11):
together and we can be moreunited if we simply come
together to decriminalizeabortion in America. We should
just be decriminalizingabortion that will require
repealing a bunch of bad lawsthat are on the books and that
have been on the books for likea hundred years. It means going
back and getting them all outof there. Like everyone now
(42:33):
knows about Comstock and how itwas very bad to let that thing
sit there for so long and nowit's gonna come back, you know,
as this zombie law and doterrible things to us. Well,
you know, unfortunately, thereare a lot of such laws on the
books. People are being chargedunder them today and they all
need to go. And so instead ofwriting, you know, new things
(42:54):
with limits in it that can alsobe used to hurt people , um, we
could just be enshriningfundamental bodily autonomy and
protections into our stateconstitutions. And then repeal,
repeal, repeal, repeal. InArizona, our , uh, proactive ,
uh, reproductive justicecoalition wrote a bill that
aimed to repeal the 50 plusrestrictions in Arizona,
(43:15):
repeal, repeal, repeal , um, . So that is , uh,
that's, that's I guess the, thepolicy , um, hope that we have.
Uh, there's other things peoplecan do. People can always give
money to funds and PSOs fundsand PSOs are doing the
goddesses work when it comes togetting people access to safe,
(43:36):
dignified quality laterabortion care care throughout
pregnancy. Few people haveaccess to the amount of money
that it takes to access timelylater abortion care, which is
where the funds and PSOs comein , um, if you wanna support
people finding their way togood care, give your money to
(43:57):
the funds, to the PSOs, that'swhere I give my my dollars.
And,
Speaker 3 (44:01):
And I would say that it's, it's important to
understand that this is notjust like a Red State problem.
So a lot of the funds andpractical support organizations
that are based in places wherepeople are going for care are
the ones helping people pay forcare in that area. So it's
important really to just like,I mean, I think a good rule of
thumb is to support your localfund and give there and just
(44:23):
recognize that those people ,uh, you know, one thing that I
don't think a lot of peopleknow is that when we're talking
about abortion care later inpregnancy, because the cost is
so high, it's often that noteven one fund can help pay for
it. And so therefore, there'swhat's called solidarity
funding, where a number ofabortion funds will help fund a
(44:44):
single abortion. And that hasto be coordinated. That is
people across the countrycoordinating to help one person
access care. And theydo it every week, all
the time. It's an ongoingproject. There's never enough
money, any amount of moneyhelps.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
And I'll just point out it is fund Aon time, so now
is the time when most of themare getting all of their money
for the year . So yep ,donating now making sure you
are following a bunch ofabortion funds , uh, on social.
If you're on social, becauseyou talked about every week you
see funds coming together forlike a big ask. You will see
emergency appeals of like, wehave a patient who needs care,
(45:23):
we need $10,000. And so you'llsee those calls on social. So
if you have the money or time,it's a great opportunity to
take in. And my always appealwhen I talk about funding
abortion funds is their moneyis so they , they never know
what they're gonna have eachmonth. So if you can be a
(45:43):
monthly donor, and again, thatdoesn't mean you're giving a
hundred dollars a month, youcan give $2 a month. They know
they are getting that $2 everymonth and they can budget for
the year, and they can makeplans because they know they
can count on it. So I havefunds that I give to, I have
funds that I am a monthly donorof. It really makes a huge
(46:05):
difference to them to know thatthey can count on X amount
every month as they're makingtheir plan for how they're
divvying up their funds , uh,throughout, throughout their
month.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
And I thank you.
Thank you for that. Yeah. I,what , what is it? The , the,
it's , um, somewhere in theballpark of like $300 million
have gone towards these ballotmeasures. Um, and you've got
funds, you know, basicallystringing together $7 and a
tube of chapstick to take careof all the people who are left
out of those frameworks. Soagain, please, yes, give to uh,
(46:36):
those funds. Another thingfolks can do is press your
elected officials for what youreally want, right ? Call, tell
these supposedly pro-choiceelected officials that you
would like them todecriminalize abortion. And by
the way, 41 states ban abortionat some point in pregnancy. So
(46:56):
there is a lot of work to bedone here with elected
officials in certainlyMassachusetts. Please call
Massachusetts and tell yourelected officials there that
you support , uh, the repeal ofthe bi viability ban there, but
also in New York, inCalifornia, in Illinois. Yes.
Please call your electedofficials and say, why aren't
(47:18):
you decrim decriminalizingabortion here? That's what we
should be doing. And if you do,I will knock doors for you. I
will send you some money. Iwill, you know, I'm team you
, you know, let themknow they need that, they need
that reinforcement becausethey're getting plenty of
messages from consultantstelling them that people don't
want this. So it's our job totell them what we actually do
(47:40):
want. Um , and we should betelling them often. And then
lastly, this is, and
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Then thank them.
Thank and thank them when theydo the good thing .
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yes. And when they do the right thing, don't
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Just hear from you and you're mad. Yes,
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yes. That's such good advice. Let them know when
they do a good thing. And thenmaybe the lowest lift is to
spend a little time on who notwhen.com if you've learned
anything or if you're surprisedby anything or if any myths
have been busted for you, shareit. Um, if you see these myths
being perpetuated , um, even ifit's from an organization that
(48:15):
is otherwise pro-choice, youknow, let them know what the
truth is. If, if somebody tellsyou 22 states ban abortion at
some point in pregnancy, forinstance , you can always
comment and say, well, in fact,41 states ban abortion at some
point in pregnancy. Don't letthem erase all of the people
who are experiencing bans inthese 41 states. That's
(48:37):
something we can all do. Andthat's free.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
And you can see that you know, who not when and
other, our other projects onour website, patient
forward.org . We do a number ofdifferent things and we
continue to add new stuff there, uh, various projects that
we're working on, all of whichare exciting and awesome
.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yeah . So check those out, . Yeah, I
mean, if you can't tell, we are, we are a thousand percent
obsessed with this, youknow, and it's, and it, it
actually is like , uh, it's,it's affirming for us. Like, we
love to do this. We love tomake new resources. If one
person says they read one thingor used one thing, I I will
ride that high all week. Um, soplease , uh, check those out.
(49:19):
And if , um, anyone listeningever requires assistance or
collaboration around this topic, um, you know, we have done
later abortion one oh ones nowfor many, many years. We've
done them for nonprofit boards,we've done them for Planned
Parenthoods, we've done themfor , uh, advocacy
organizations, progressiveclubs. Um, if you are, if you
(49:42):
have a few friends who you canget together on a Zoom to learn
about abortion later inpregnancy, please reach out.
And we're, we're happy to, toshare what we've learned , um,
and continue to learn every day.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
There's nothing like the community that you're
trying to support using yourresources because they say
they're good. I remember , uh,I did an episode on intimate
partner violence and talkedabout my experience , uh, with,
with somebody else and, anddomestic violence. Wisconsin
shared that episode is a greatresource. And like, as a
(50:14):
intimate partner, violencesurvivor from Wisconsin, like
that just like hit like, ugh .
Like it really, like, okay, I'mglad. Like, it just, it meant
everything that they thought itwas helpful.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Oh, I love that.
Yes. Like, please, it is, ittruly is the best, the best
feeling for sure. So thank you.
Thank you for all of the goodinformation you've shared on
this episode too. We appreciateit. We always learn from your
podcast as well, so it's very
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Ah , thank you.
Yeah. For thank you so much forbeing here. I am so excited
about this series and cannotwait for the next , uh,
episodes and I, and learn moreabout abortion later in
pregnancy. So Garin , Erica ,thank you so much for being
here today. Oh ,
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoy my interview with
Erica and Garin . I am solooking forward to this series,
talking about abortion later inpregnancy. We'll have one
episode a month for the nextsix months, talking about
abortion later in pregnancy.
And with that, I will see y'allnext week. If you have any
questions, comments, or topicsyou would like us to cover,
always feel free to shoot me anemail. You can reach me at
(51:23):
jenny jn , NIe@reprofightback.com , or you
can find us on social media.
We're at Repro Fight back onFacebook and Twitter or repro
FB on Instagram. If you loveour podcast and wanna make sure
more people find it, take thetime to rate and review us on
your favorite podcast platform.
Or if you wanna make sure tosupport the podcast, you can
(51:45):
also donate on our website atrepro fight back com . Thanks
all .
Welcome to Repro Fight Back a podcast on all
things related to sexual andreproductive health rights and
justice. Hi. Re pros. How'severybody doing? I'm your host
Jenny Weather , and my pronounsare she her. See y'all. I am
back from my trip. I had such agreat time traveling with my
mom. Um, like I said, we took aViking cruise from, we started
(00:27):
in Oslo and took the train fromOslo to Bergen, and it was
gorgeous. Y'all like, justabsolutely stunning. And then
we left from Bergen and hitShetland, and then we did some
stops in Scotland, and then wewent to the Orny Islands. And
then we had a quick stop in ,uh, we had some more in
(00:49):
Scotland, and then we went toBelfast. And then we had a
couple stops in Wales. And thenwe were supposed to go to
Dublin, but the weather was notcooperating, so we didn't do
that. But we then had a couplestops in England and ended in
London. And it was two and ahalf weeks. It was so much fun,
(01:11):
saw so many wonderful things.
Took so many pictures. Theweather, y'all , the weather
Gods were smiling on us thewhole time. It might have been
like a little cold or windy,but it did not rain on us at
all. And considering the placeswe were, that is like an utter
miracle. Like most days it waslike gorgeous and sunny. Um ,
(01:31):
maybe a little windy, maybe alittle chilly, but like nothing
like I, I just had like asweater most days. Like, it
wasn't like cold and it wasjust so much fun. And , uh, it
was just a great time. I saw somany wonderful things. It's
hard to pick a favorite. Ireally loved Shetland was
gorgeous. Like I got getting tosee the Shetland ponies and ,
(01:55):
um, I , I don't know, it wasjust so much fun. I, I don't
know that I have a favorite. Ireally liked Edinburgh and I'd
like to go back. Um, I wouldlike to go back to Bergen at
some point. Um, I feel likethere was a bunch of Scotland I
really enjoyed. Uh, it was justwonderful. Oh, and it was
lambing season, so there werejust like little baby lambs
(02:16):
everywhere, which wasdelightful. We have so many
pictures of lambs. My one, Iguess two bummers is I didn't
get to see a highland cow,which I was super excited to
see, but I did not get to see aScottish island cow, which made
me very sad. And then to ourtrip to Dublin being canceled,
(02:38):
I had been before, so it wasn'tlike a huge deal. But I had
plans for when we were inDublin of like things I wanted
to buy. And , um, we had areally fun trip planned that
day, but that's okay. It wasstill so much fun. I did a lot
of reading. I did not check myemail. I mostly stayed off
social. It was just sodelightful to get away from
(03:01):
everything and not deal witheverything happening. And I had
such a wonderful time and yeah.
Oh, oh , the other thing Ireally loved, we went to Bodian
Castle, which was super cool.
It's only like the outer partsof the building are still
intact, but it's got like amoat. It was just gorgeous.
(03:24):
Maybe I'll share some pictureswith Elena that they can post
on social , uh, about my trip.
It was a lot of fun. It wasalso a little surreal to be in
the UK when there was a courtruling that was anti-trans that
came down. But, so that was,that was, that was sad and ,
um, hard to, to see thathappen. Um, but it was also
(03:45):
very exciting to be in Londonon the day, on the, on the
Saturday where there was thebig rallies. We had stuff
planned. So I, I did not get togo to the rally, but we were
around it and it was sowonderful to see so many people
who turned out to support transrights and the uk Very sad
that, that the case came downin a negative way. But it was
(04:08):
great to see the energy and allof the people who turned out
for trans rights. So I was gladto be able to at least see that
part. Um, but yeah, overall Ihad such a fun time. Um, uh, my
mom and I did really welltogether. I was a little
nervous that two and a halfweeks , uh, in one room might,
might be complicated, but Ithink overall I think she would
(04:29):
agree. We did really well.
Thanks, mom. I had such awonderful time. I can't wait to
look at all of the picturesthat are still on my camera at
this point, but maybe that'swhat I will do over the weekend
is start doing some editing ofpictures and stuff because
y'all, I took so many, it'soutrageous the number of
pictures I took, but it was awonderful time. Okay. With
(04:50):
that, I'm not even gonna talkabout anything that happened
while I'm gone. 'cause I'mstill trying to live a little
bit in that bubble of like,ignore it all. But I'm very
excited for this week'sepisode. We are doing a six
month series, so one episode amonth talking about abortion
later and pregnancy. It is suchan important issue that we have
(05:10):
done episodes talking about,but we haven't done a deep dive
in a while. So I'm very excitedto do this long-term look at
abortion later in pregnancy andwhy we need to care about it in
many different aspects of it.
And I couldn't think of abetter place to start than with
Garrin Marshall and EricaChristensen at Patient Forward
. They were wonderful guestsand I had so much fun talking
(05:33):
to them. And I talk a littlebit about the way they have
impacted my work, and I am justso grateful for all of the work
that they are doing. It is soimportant and I am so excited
to be able to highlight it andjust feel lucky to have them
on. They were wonderful guests.
Okay, so with that, let's go tomy interview with Erica and
Garrin . Hi Garrin . Hi Erica .
(05:54):
Thank you so much for beinghere today. Oh
Speaker 2 (05:56):
My gosh. Hi. Thank you for having us. We
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I'm so excited to have you here. And before I let
you introduce yourselves, I'mgoing to , uh, probably
embarrass you for a second. Um,I have definitely followed you
on social media for a very longtime, and I have been just so
grateful for all of theadvocacy that you have done
around abortion later inpregnancy. Uh, as you know,
(06:20):
we've done our 50 state reportcard for, I don't know , I
think this year's was our 13thyear. And because of your
childless advocacy, not likeaimed at me or anything, but
just like watching the amazingwork that y'all do. Uh, when we
switched the report card fromPopulation Institute to re
Pros, we got rid of, we used toonly ding states for 20 week ,
(06:41):
uh, abortion bans or lower. Andbecause of all of your work and
and advocacy, we switched it toany gestational ban.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yes. Clapping
incredible. That's wonderful tohear. Thank you for sharing
that. That is amazing. I'mgonna ride that. Yeah , I'm
riding this high all day,
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Amazing. Okay , so let's go ahead and have you
introduce yourself. Uh, Erica ,do you wanna go first? Yes,
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Thank you. Uh , my name is Erica Christensen. My
pronouns are she her. Um, and Iam co-founder of Patient
Forward , and I will let Garrinintroduce himself before we
share too much more maybe. Hi,
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I'm Garrin Marshall.
I, I use he him pronouns andI'm also the co-founder of
Patient Forward . We're marriedsometimes , uh, you know, it's
important to like put that outthere so people understand
maybe our relationship or whywe're familiar or
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, it would be confusing listening to this and
thinking we're coworkers .
People might think, wow, theyare very, they have a real
problem over there,
Uh , no, we are , uh, westarted this work married, we
remain married. And that is,you know, that's just something
we try to let people know fromthe beginning. Well,
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I am really excited to have the two of you on.
That's just because you'veplayed a big role in
influencing how I think aboutthis. But it's a good start of
a new series we're gonna dowith , uh, in coordination with
Patient Ford for the next sixmonths. We're gonna have one
episode a month talking aboutsome aspect or some issue
relating to abortion later inpregnancy. And honestly, I
couldn't think of a betterplace to start than with the
(08:23):
two of you. Do you maybe wantto talk about how you got
involved in this work?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yes, thank you. And also, we're so excited about
this series. Thank you so muchfor being such a wonderful
partner as we put all of thistogether , uh, along with our
patient forwards Chief ExternalAffairs Officer Baan Lee
Gilmore, she's also beenincredibly instrumental in
putting this series togetherand we're so excited for it. So
thank you. Maybe we'll plug it, uh, a few more times over the
(08:52):
course of this conversation aswell, because we're so excited
. So I guess I'll start. Um,Garin and I started doing this
work , um, almost nine yearsago, which is so wild. Um, it's
so amazing how fast the timegoes, but it was very much a ,
a case of an issue sort ofchoosing you . Uh , we were
(09:15):
newly married, we were , uh,wanting to grow our family, and
we thought quite naively inretrospect, that we were going
to experience pregnancy andhaving children, hopefully
without too much friction. Andwhat we found is it was much
harder , I think, than we hadanticipated. My first pregnancy
(09:36):
ended in a miscarriage at, at10 weeks, and then , uh, I was
pregnant again soon after. Andthat pregnancy approved to be
very complicated, and thecomplication sort of grew , uh,
as the pregnancy progressed. Itgot so that every appointment,
you know, every two weeks wewould learn some new piece of
(09:59):
critical complicatedinformation about our pregnancy
that eventually culminated inlearning at 30 weeks that in
fact, our doctors no longerthought that my pregnancy , uh,
was viable. Their treatment orone, you know, one option
available to us. One treatmentwas to end the pregnancy was,
was to have an abortion. Uh, wewere living in Brooklyn at the
(10:22):
time. Our doctor was on theUpper West Side. You know, we
had access to the best medicalcare in America. We were really
lucky. And in the sameconversation where my doctor
suggested that we mightconsider ending this pregnancy,
he also shared that if that isthe course we chose , uh, we
would not be able to do it inNew York, in New York State ,
(10:44):
um, and that it would requireflying across the country , uh,
to one of the last stop alltrimester abortion clinics. Uh,
the one he recommended was inColorado. And so at the same
time that we're learning all ofthis new information about my
pregnancy and we're processing,you know, this terrible news,
the grief, the trauma, we'realso learning in real time
(11:06):
about New York State abortionlaw, which I , you know, I
think for many people it's notuntil you face a ban , uh, that
you might have even thought tolook into it. You know, it's
not something that peopleanticipate having to
experience. So in very realtime , we're learning about New
York State abortion law. We'relearning that there's a limit
(11:27):
at 24 weeks, which I had sailedpast weeks before without
anyone having mentioned that itexisted. Um, even as my
pregnancy was already quitecomplicated. I also had, you
know, health complications ofmy own. I had had a brain
surgery the year before , uh,which could be its own podcast.
Uh , so, you know, there was alot of complicating factors ,
(11:49):
but in the end, we sort offocused on getting every, all
the pieces together that neededto be together for me to be
able to travel at that point inmy pregnancy and reach care, a
lot of doctors had to get onthe same page. Uh , my maternal
fetal medicine specialist, Dr.
Hearn and Colorado, my brainsurgeon, they're all having,
(12:12):
you know, these conversationsabout how best , uh, to care
for me despite the law in NewYork. And that was clarifying
for us. They thought, how canwe best help this person given
this law in New York? And so wewere able to put travel on
credit cards, you know, lastminute flights , uh, car rental
(12:33):
hotels. My mom gave us $10,000out of her 401k so we could pay
for the care itself. And werealized really immediately how
lucky we were to be able to dothat. And at every point,
Garrin and I would look at eachother and say, oh my God, what
if we didn't have IDs? What ifwe couldn't fly? What if we
(12:54):
didn't have driver's licenseand couldn't rent? What if we
couldn't rent the car? What ifwe were under 25? What if we
didn't have my mom who hadaccess to this money who could
take it out of her account andgive it to us? You know, it was
the whole time we were justunderstanding how if any piece
had not been in place, I wouldbe forced to carry that doom
(13:15):
pregnancy to term, and then wewould be grappling with what
that would look like, you know?
Um, so I think that was prettyimmediately radicalizing for
us. And , uh, I think we sortof became really overnight
obsessed with abortion laws. Ithink that's safe to say
(13:36):
Karen , uh, did I leaveanything out? Any important
pieces that I'm missing? Well,
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I, I think, I think to that point, like when we
were sort of going throughthis, we were like, oh my God,
does anyone know about this
knew did. And, and I think, Ithink there was this impulse
that we had to fix it, right?
And like, the way mine showedup is I was like, I kind of
went down a rabbit hole oninsurance or whatever, but
(14:05):
Erica , to her credit was like,I, I want to , I wanna like
talk to someone about this.
And, you know, and she reachedout to Geo Tolentino and did an
, uh, at the time, an anonymousinterview with Geo Tolentino
for Jezebel about herexperience needing this care.
And, and, you know, then laterthrough advocacy, you know, we
(14:27):
got, because of that article,we got hooked up with folks
with the New York CivilLiberties Union and, and
learned about efforts in, inNew York state to sort of fix
the law and decriminalizeabortion. And this process of
like, feeling the need to tellpeople, feeling the need to try
to help fix it so that someoneelse didn't have to go through
it. You know, I , I think thosewere very early impulses of
(14:47):
ours. And I think that thenthose drove like really what
was like a learning process,frankly, about how the law
works, about how insuranceworks, about how these, these
complications exist, about thesort of barriers and obstacles
that existed in New York at thetime that weren't allowing that
law to move forward. You know?
So we sort of like threwourselves into that and we're
(15:08):
able to work with other folksin the state, other advocates
that have been working on itfor some time to get the New
York , uh, reproductive HealthAct passed in 2019. And I think
early on we realized that like,you know, we realized that that
was like, it was very importantto decriminalize abortion in
New York . And then we alsolearned that we wish we had
(15:30):
gone farther, and we wish that,that that law had had gone
farther and had not in a waylike reified a line , uh, still
in the state. And I think that,you know, that learning process
really drove what becamepatient forward of realizing
that, you know, we wanted folkswho were, who were sharing
(15:51):
their stories in an effort tochange laws, to have more
tools, to have more education,to have more resources. We
wanted advocates in the fieldto understand the sort of
breadth of experiences waybeyond ours that drove people
to need this care. And I, Ithink that's the other thing is
we realized that stories likeours were way overrepresented
with regard to later abortionstories of a fetal diagnosis
(16:13):
or, or something like that. Andrealizing that there were all
these stories and all thesepeople and all these
experiences missing from thisnarrative around abortion later
in pregnancy. And, and sopatient forward is really like,
you know, it began as ourefforts to try to like figure
out some of those problems and,and see if we could like work
with others and, and kind ofstart to shift things in the
(16:35):
country. But, you know, bothfederally and, and at the state
level. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (16:39):
I think I first started following y'all around
during the Raya fight andremember following , um, all of
that and, and then really justthinking back of like, my early
days working in this field andhow, how much abortion later in
pregnancy wasn't really talkedabout other than like, like you
said, like those specific caseswith the fetal diagnosis or, or
(17:03):
the , uh, parent's life beingat risk. And , but even then
you weren't hearing it veryoften. And it's become such a
bigger part of the conversationnow. And I , I think you , you
all are a huge part of why thatconversation has been really
pushed forward over the, thelast years. And I think it goes
(17:23):
back to something I've tried totalk about on the podcast a lot
of how all of these things areinterconnected, right? Like,
you can't just talk aboutgestational bans without
talking about waiting periodsor insurance coverage, or how
these things impact people withlow incomes or traveling to
travel to get access. And theseare all interconnected and just
(17:47):
like this messy web that peoplehave to try and navigate to
access care. And so many peopleare unprepared for that when
they encounter it. And it , itmakes it so hard to find the
care they need and in a timelyway and to be able to afford
that care. And I think all ofthat just kind of gets
amplified when it's later inpregnancy.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, a a hundred percent, I mean, further into
pregnancy, the cost of caregoes up, the number of
providers goes down, and moreand more restrictions go into
effect, right? And so what you,what people experience is that
later in pregnancy , uh, firstmaybe I should back up a little
bit for anyone listening who ismaybe new to this topic or
(18:34):
might, you know, have thequestion that we get most
often, which is why doessomeone even need a later
abortion? You know, and that'sasked on the, you know, that's
asked on the , uh, maybe lesskind end of the str spectrum in
like a why did she wait so longto, you know, you know,
(18:56):
couldn't we put things in placethat would essentially
eradicate the need for thiscare? Like if we make early
care so accessible and , uh,possible and easy, then
theoretically, perhaps wewouldn't, you know, need this
care. You know, there's like,there's sort of this wide , uh,
spectrum of , uh,misunderstanding when it, that
(19:16):
is really rooted in , um, alack of awareness about why
most people need this care. Thetruth is that people need
abortion later in pregnancy forthe same initial considerations
that they do early inpregnancy. However, there's a
lot of people who just cannotaccess care as soon as they
would like. And there are sortof two pathways, two main
(19:41):
pathways , uh, that people findthemselves on when they're
seeking care later inpregnancy. And this framework
comes to us from a wonderfulresearcher named Dr. Katrina
Kim Port , um, out of UCSF. SoDr. Kim Port identified these
two paths. The first path isnew information that the person
just could not have known untilthey knew it. And that is , um,
(20:04):
after the first trimester thatthey learned this information.
This information like me couldbe a new fetal diagnosis or
issue that they weren't awareof. It could be an issue with
their own health that came uplater in pregnancy. Um, as
pregnancy itself grows morecomplicated and more things can
come up later, it could be anew life circumstance that they
(20:25):
didn't anticipate a loss of apartner, a loss of income, a, a
hurricane. I mean, the list,
the new information that theymight learn is that they're
pregnant later. Recognition ofpregnancy is far more common
than people think. And it'sactually the most common
scenario that faces folks , uh,who need care later. You know,
(20:48):
not, not to be too obvious, butyou can't seek an abortion that
you don't know you need yet.
And again, later recognition ofpregnancy, far more common ,
uh, than people think,particularly for young people ,
uh, who maybe haven't had theirperiods for very long , uh, for
people with complicated medicalhistories, et cetera . The
other path is knowing that youwant and need care earlier, but
(21:12):
being delayed by circumstancesoutside of your control. That
could be trap laws , that couldbe abortion ban, certainly. Uh,
it could be the $400 that youmight need for an abortion
earlier. And as you are workingyourself to the bone to try to
get that money together , um,your pregnancy is continuing to
inch up and with it the price.
(21:33):
And so you're just constantlychasing a price that you can
never meet until it's, untilyou find yourself over these
lines. Um, and then for mostpeople, they like , they
experience a combination of thetwo. They find out new
information later in theirpregnancy that they couldn't
have known any earlier, andthen they were delayed even
further by these circumstancesoutside of their control. Now
(21:55):
the reason we'll always needaccess to later abortion care
is because that path one newinformation, that's life stuff,
that's body stuff. We are nevergonna be able to legislate or
regulate away bad pregnancyoutcomes later recognition of
pregnancy. This is, this isjust the experience of being a
human being with a pregnancycapable body. We will always
(22:16):
need access to this carebecause those things will
always happen. Now, column B,path B barriers to accessing
care as early as as we wouldwant. Those are manmade
problems. And we coulderadicate all of those
tomorrow. And we should, and weshould be working to eradicate
every single one unequivocally.
And without qualifiers, allabortion bans gotta go. They're
(22:38):
not rooted in health, they'renot rooted in safety, they're
rooted in control. We canabsolutely decide there is no
such thing as a benevolentabortion ban, and therefore
we're gonna do our best to getrid of every single one. Uh, we
could make abortion care free
to chase the fee . I mean, wecould , uh, focus all of our
(22:58):
time and energy on, on thatsecond pathway because it's
what we have control over. Andit speaks to , uh, the parts of
the patient experience that wecan actually address. Um, and
at the same time, we would beaddressing stigma and
everything else,criminalization, everything
else. So that's sort of like a, uh, both short and long way
(23:20):
of explaining from a patientperspective , um, how people
find themselves needing carespecifically later in
pregnancy. But their sameinitial impulses, same as
early, they don't wanna bepregnant. They already have
enough children. They neverwanna have children being
pregnant gives them body orgender dysphoria. Uh, they
(23:40):
experience, you know, thesecomplications. Same, the same
impulses
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Are the same. So you've been doing this work for
six years with patient forward.
Uh, what have you seen changeover that time? Or what
challenges have you like reallyrun up against?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I feel like hope is not something that people talk
a lot about these days.
there's a lot to be terrifiedabout in a way, like outside of
this very specific topic. But Ithink with regard to abortion
later in pregnancy, we havesome hope with regard to like
how things have evolved andchanged over, over the, the
last five, six years or so. Imean, first of all, we've seen
(24:17):
like major shifts in publicopinion. So like you said, it's
something that people aretalking about more and more and
more. It really is gettingsimplified to the fact that
people just actually don't wantthe government involved in this
interfering in people's, youknow, decisions to get care,
ability to get care, et cetera.
And it used to be that peopleunderstood they , we didn't
(24:39):
want the government involvedprior to viability or
something, right? And now we'rerealizing that like, no, it is
actually just that people don'twant the government involved.
They actually just don't, theydon't want it, they don't trust
the government to be someone inthat space. Right? And that
makes a lot of sense. Andwe're, and we're seeing big
movement with regard to publicopinion post roe on this. And
(25:02):
that, I think is giving us alot of hope. The other things
that we're seeing advances inpolicy that reflect this, so
not everywhere, but you know,like California passed prop one
in 2022 , uh, Vermont amendedtheir constitution. Both of
those didn't have limits at allinvolved. California still has
(25:23):
a viability ban, which we wouldlove to see repealed. But the,
you know, the ballot measureitself didn't have a limit. Um,
Minnesota got rid of itsMichigan following their ballot
measure. We saw them repealtheir viability line. And, and
like for instance, right now wesee Massachusetts actually
there are active efforts in thestate to repeal their viability
(25:43):
line. These are all things thatare actually quite new. Like in
the time that we startedpatient forward, or like around
2019, there were all theseefforts to yes, protect
abortion, but only up untilviability. And we're still
seeing that, you know, we sawall these ballot measures last
year that had viability lines,but at the same time we are
seeing this other sort ofcross-cutting , um, momentum
(26:05):
with regard to just, justgetting the government out of
that part of it in a way. Likeidentifying a more supportive
role for the government. Thegovernment can provide funding
so people can get care, theycan support clinics. There's a
really great bill in Marylandthat just passed that's, you
know, gonna , they found areally novel way to get some
money to help support abortioncare and clinics and stuff like
that. And I think that those,those two things, this movement
(26:29):
in public opinion, some of thismovement in policy suggests
like a big sea change withregard to how we are
understanding where people arein the public and where
advocates and politiciansshould be. This is one of these
cases where the public may be alittle bit in front of a lot of
(26:51):
the advocates in the field andthe politicians. People are
scared of abortion later inpregnancy when they're talking
about it in these politicalspaces. But they needn't be, it
turns out, and that's not tosay that people don't have
complicated feelings aboutthis, but they have actually
very uncomplicated feelingsabout whether the government
should be stopping people fromgetting care.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah. I feel like that shows up very clear in any
polling around most healththings, right? Like the
government should not begetting involved.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah. Or, or the way that we want the government
involved is to, you know, makesure instruments are clean,
make sure people can get to thecare, make sure that, you know,
providers have training. There, there are all these like
really great places. 'cause Ifeel like there's this big
attack right now on even theidea of government. So I just
wanna clarify, there is a rolefor the
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Government. No, very good point.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
The government, a collective project is
something, you know, we canmake sure to take care of each
other. That's what thegovernment could be. And so we
can take care of people thatend up for all the reasons that
Erica listed in terms of likewhy people need abortion care
later in pregnancy. Like forinstance, like, I've been
thinking a lot about recentlyhow many people are having to
travel just for this care, justfor abortion care. Later in
(28:06):
pregnancy. People are travelingall the time for this care like
we did. And you know, on, whatis it? May 7th, they're gonna
start requiring real IDs to flydomestically. So suddenly
there's gonna be a lot ofpeople that have like
heightened ID requirements whoare gonna find that out maybe
at the airport. And they are,you know, they have an
(28:27):
appointment in two days orwhatever, they're gonna have a
problem. And so I, I think thisis just one of these things
where like every news article Iread, I understand how that's
gonna affect, you know, peoplewho need abortions later in
pregnancy who are already, thepeople who are the most
marginalized in our, in oursociety are already
overrepresented in thatpopulation. And so I think
(28:49):
there are all these thingswhere, you know, we tend to
silo these issues. We tend tosilo abortion, we tend to silo
it away from these otherthings. But if you think about
immigration, if you , if you'resomeone who has, whose
immigration status makes itdifficult for you to travel
suddenly, if you need abortioncare later in pregnancy, that's
a problem. If you're someonewho, because of criminalization
(29:09):
for something else, you're notallowed to leave your state
without, like, approval fromyour parole officer or just not
at all. Suddenly you can't getcare that you need. And so I
think, I think that's the otherbig trend that we're seeing is
people are starting to connectdots between things better. So
we're starting to understandwhy criminalization is
happening, why these otherthings are affecting people,
(29:31):
and, and stop being so siloed.
And I, and I think that's aencouraging trend as well.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (29:35):
That also just makes me think of young people and
not how , like, how that'sgonna impact their ability to
access care later in pregnancyif they have to travel out of
state . You mentioned itearlier, you know , maybe not
be able to rent a car. Like ifyou have to fly, like that's a
whole new level of money thatmany young people aren't gonna
be able to meet
Speaker 2 (29:53):
A thousand percent.
We, we think about young peopleall the time, and you know, in
response to the research, wesort of think of young people
as young people and very youngpeople because there are the
teenagers, of course, that findthemselves overrepresented
among the later abortionpopulation. But this also, this
population includes children.
(30:14):
And if you talk to any alltrimester abortion provider ,
uh, they will tell you thatthey have all cared for
children at their practices.
And, you know, as like, I, I ama parent, like, it's, it's
crushing to think of thesecases and, and so many kids who
are unprotected and who havethe least amount of bodily
autonomy in our country, theyhave tremendous barriers. And
(30:38):
we know that this is yetanother reason to fight so hard
to protect access to theseincredible all trimester
clinics , um, that areculturally competent. They're,
you know, trained in, in traumaand trauma response. Like
that's, if, if someone findsthemselves in these terrible
situations, where do we wantthem to end up? Do we want them
(30:59):
to end up trying to figure outwhat to do on their own? We do
not. We're starting to see someof those cases and it's
terrifying. We want them tofind their way to one of these
excellent clinics , uh, thatare trained and very able to
care for them so that their ,um, health and wellbeing is, is
intact. You know, and I thinklike this is also related to,
(31:20):
to the public's evolution onthis. Ultimately people care
most about health and safety.
And this is, this is a healthand safety issue, and certainly
we should care because thepopulation includes , uh, low
income people, people who arealready most likely to be
criminalized young people,children, et cetera. But also
everyone understands that ifthey're in a hard circumstance,
(31:42):
they want access to health andsafety too. So
Speaker 1 (31:45):
That makes me think of like the next part of the
conversation of how, how do webring people in on this, right?
We've talked about, we've seendiscussions of it happening
more, and it does seem like thepublic is, is moving on this,
but, but how can we continue tobring people in to get them to
understand why abortion laterin pregnancy is such an
important issue? Well,
Speaker 2 (32:04):
One, I think, you know, we, we continue to invest
in, in education andcommunications resources. We,
we have a website called WhoNot When, who not when.com,
which is sort of the go-to ,uh, resource for information
about abortion later inpregnancy. Uh, we have fact
sheets on there. We have, youknow, a media guide for a
(32:24):
better reporting on abortionlater in pregnancy. We have a
ton of resources if people wantto educate themselves and
hopefully then educate theircircles and communities, share
good organization information,have better language for
talking about this. So that'sthere for people to learn
always. And then another bigpiece of this is helping people
(32:48):
understand the ramifications ofgestational bans, including
viability bans beyond abortion.
Because these lines, thesebands harm us in myriad ways,
this one because he's been ,uh, working very hard on some ,
(33:09):
uh, resources to, to helppeople do just that. So I'm
passing you the baton. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I mean, I, I think that we've, you know, for years
in patient forward, we werevery focused on abortion later
in pregnancy and, and, and sortof making the case to people
that it was worth protectingthis care, making sure people
could get this care for all ofthe reasons that have to do
with abortion and all of thoseare still true. People deserved
(33:35):
to get care as soon as possibleand as late as necessary,
period. And these , uh, linesthat people keep drawing in our
protective abortion laws, solike , uh, lines at a specific
gestational age or, or lines at, at potential fetal viability
have other ramifications beyondabortion. So what, what those
(33:59):
lines are doing is saying thatthis is the point that we, you
know, in this ballot measure orin this, in this law, we are
recognizing that the state hasan interest in a pregnancy that
becomes controlling, right? So,and, and that's, that's really
the crux of what Roe v Wadewas. And so where they were
trying to balance the interestbetween the pregnant person and
(34:21):
the state, and they weren'ttrying to like, give people
bodily autonomy. They weretrying to give, they were
trying to balance the interestsbetween the state and the
individual. And we have notreally escaped that. That's one
of the biggest challenges hereis that even folks within our
field have not escaped thatgeneral idea that there should
be some sort of line. And so,again, beyond abortion, the
(34:45):
problem with those lines isthat when you give the state
that place, when you give thestate control over pregnancy,
at some point, when you drawthat line, that line has to be
policed. And that the way thatline is policed is by
investigating pregnancyoutcomes. If there is a
(35:06):
stillbirth, why is there astillbirth? Did someone do
something wrong? We need to gofind out, we need to arrest
that person, investigate them.
There will be local newsstories sharing their name
publicly. We're gonna go do allthat, and then we may decide
that we're not gonna chargethem with anything, right? Like
just happened in Georgia, butthat person's name is out there
(35:28):
that they went through thatwhole experience. That's awful.
But obviously there are alsoother people who are in prison
because of pregnancy outcomes.
There are people in, in prisonbecause of behavior or conduct
during their pregnancy rangingfrom substance use, which is in
itself not a crime. It is notillegal to have ingested drugs
in America, but it is oftenillegal to have ingested drugs
(35:52):
if you're pregnant. So thereare all these things that
become illegal because you'repregnant. That line that we're
drawing at viability is sayingafter this point, we're okay
with the state doing all thisstuff. We're okay with the
state inve investigatingpregnancy outcomes, you know,
controlling pregnancy behavior.
There have been situationswhere people are, they have
(36:12):
forced medical interventionslike c-sections or blood
transfusions. Often people are,are rejecting these things
based on religious grounds orjust because they don't want
them. And, and again, that is apervasive, right, in this
country, you are , you're notallowed to have things done to
your body that you don't wantto do unless you're pregnant.
(36:36):
this, this place afterviability, typically when that
matters.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Can I interject one important piece of this, which
is that quote unquote viabilityis not a hard line. It's a,
it's like a general gray area,and like everything that
involves the carceral state, ittends to creep. So really
whenever there is a developedpregnancy that is , uh, the
concern here, the state isgoing to take their place where
(37:05):
they feel that it'sappropriate, which is how you
have people investigated at 20weeks, at 19 weeks. Um, we know
from , uh, a report by F1 howthat 87% of cases of
criminalization affectpregnancies in the second and
third trimester. So while froman abortion context, this care
is uncommon when we're talkingabout criminalization, it
(37:28):
represents the vast majority ofcases where someone is
criminalized and the , andthey're, they're being
criminalized based on ideas andlegal concepts that we are
writing into the law ourselves.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah, I was just thinking this, like, while you
were talking about that, of howwe got in, in this place where
we lost RO anyway, right? Likeyou had like this slow chipping
away. So all of a sudden wehave these viability bands.
Okay, so then 24 weeks. Okay,20 weeks. And it just, you see
it start creeping back and backand that it would start
(38:04):
impacting more and more peoplebecause again, it's not going
to stay at just viability.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Well, it also speaks to the inherent like difference
of goals. I think with, ifwe're singularly focused on
abortion, if that's the goal isto get people abortions and to
ask state daddy for permissionto get as many abortions as
possible, then you would writepolicies and act the way. Um ,
we kind of have, for the past50 plus years . If your goal is
(38:35):
to have bodily autonomy towrestle control from the state,
to be left alone, to beunharmed by the state, then a
gestational ban would beunthinkable. But we have
different goals. And that issomething that, it's another
challenge that we have found isthat that is a conversation
(38:58):
that starts to make folksreally uncomfortable. But until
we have that conversation aboutwhat our goals are, what it is
we are trying to win, what is awin? Until we can really have
that conversation openly andwithout blaming or hurting each
other, I fear that we are justgoing to norms our way to like
a total personhood,
(39:22):
because we're not, we're, we'refighting different fights
sometimes at cross purposes.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Oh man, this is just making me so excited for the
rest of this series, y'all. Iam so excited for all the
conversations we're gonna behaving. Let's wrap up. This
one. I always love to end with.
What can our audience do? Howcan the audience get involved
around these issues? I think
Speaker 3 (39:45):
One thing that we would love to invite folks to
do is that when you're asked tosupport something, a bill, some
legislation or a ballot measureor whatever, is to read it
there limits to the protectionsin it? Ask yourself whether it
(40:05):
allows government interferenceand criminalization. 'cause all
pregnancy criminalization isbased on the idea of fetal
personhood, which is a verydangerous idea. And so it's
important for people to kind oflike have their spidey senses
up about this when they'rereading things that they're
(40:25):
asked to support. So that's one
to be clear, it's okay to pushback to say, Hey advocate, hey,
elected person asking me to dosomething. I I'm concerned
about this thing in this law.
Why is that there? Could wemaybe not do it? 'cause I don't
support that. Let them know. Ithink that's really important.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
You know, I think we all, well , anyone with, with,
you know, who's even remotelycovering what is happening in
our country , uh, knows thatthis is a time that we must be
working together, pulling ourresources, having a singular
focus to fight fascism, tofight all of these attacks on
(41:07):
our bodily autonomy in all ofthese different ways. We can't
do that if there are a lot ofus throwing the most
under-resourced and over policemembers of our communities
under the bus. We just cannot .
And so we're, we want to worktogether. We want everyone to
work together under and towardsthe same goal. Um , but that is
(41:29):
going to require simplystopping the protections of
criminalization in our ownlaws. And again, we could all
decide to do that. And I knowthat there are so many
conflicting sort of interestsout there. You know, you can
take these, these ballotmeasures for one , uh, the
ballot measures are a tactic.
They're not a strategy. Whatare they a strategy for? I
(41:49):
don't know. People havedifferent interests in, in, you
know , uh, what these ballotmeasures can, can or cannot do.
What I know is from aperspective of a, a full-time,
you know, worker workingtowards , uh, the protection of
bodily autonomy and access toabortion, I know that there's
harmful things in there. Um,and I know that we can do more
(42:11):
together and we can be moreunited if we simply come
together to decriminalizeabortion in America. We should
just be decriminalizingabortion that will require
repealing a bunch of bad lawsthat are on the books and that
have been on the books for likea hundred years. It means going
back and getting them all outof there. Like everyone now
(42:33):
knows about Comstock and how itwas very bad to let that thing
sit there for so long and nowit's gonna come back, you know,
as this zombie law and doterrible things to us. Well,
you know, unfortunately, thereare a lot of such laws on the
books. People are being chargedunder them today and they all
need to go. And so instead ofwriting, you know, new things
(42:54):
with limits in it that can alsobe used to hurt people , um, we
could just be enshriningfundamental bodily autonomy and
protections into our stateconstitutions. And then repeal,
repeal, repeal, repeal. InArizona, our , uh, proactive ,
uh, reproductive justicecoalition wrote a bill that
aimed to repeal the 50 plusrestrictions in Arizona,
(43:15):
repeal, repeal, repeal , um,
that's, that's I guess the, thepolicy , um, hope that we have.
Uh, there's other things peoplecan do. People can always give
money to funds and PSOs fundsand PSOs are doing the
goddesses work when it comes togetting people access to safe,
(43:36):
dignified quality laterabortion care care throughout
pregnancy. Few people haveaccess to the amount of money
that it takes to access timelylater abortion care, which is
where the funds and PSOs comein , um, if you wanna support
people finding their way togood care, give your money to
(43:57):
the funds, to the PSOs, that'swhere I give my my dollars.
And,
Speaker 3 (44:01):
And I would say that it's, it's important to
understand that this is notjust like a Red State problem.
So a lot of the funds andpractical support organizations
that are based in places wherepeople are going for care are
the ones helping people pay forcare in that area. So it's
important really to just like,I mean, I think a good rule of
thumb is to support your localfund and give there and just
(44:23):
recognize that those people ,uh, you know, one thing that I
don't think a lot of peopleknow is that when we're talking
about abortion care later inpregnancy, because the cost is
so high, it's often that noteven one fund can help pay for
it. And so therefore, there'swhat's called solidarity
funding, where a number ofabortion funds will help fund a
(44:44):
single abortion. And that hasto be coordinated. That is
people across the countrycoordinating to help one person
access care
the time. It's an ongoingproject. There's never enough
money, any amount of moneyhelps.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
And I'll just point out it is fund Aon time, so now
is the time when most of themare getting all of their money
for the year . So yep ,donating now making sure you
are following a bunch ofabortion funds , uh, on social.
If you're on social, becauseyou talked about every week you
see funds coming together forlike a big ask. You will see
emergency appeals of like, wehave a patient who needs care,
(45:23):
we need $10,000. And so you'llsee those calls on social. So
if you have the money or time,it's a great opportunity to
take in. And my always appealwhen I talk about funding
abortion funds is their moneyis so they , they never know
what they're gonna have eachmonth. So if you can be a
(45:43):
monthly donor, and again, thatdoesn't mean you're giving a
hundred dollars a month, youcan give $2 a month. They know
they are getting that $2 everymonth and they can budget for
the year, and they can makeplans because they know they
can count on it. So I havefunds that I give to, I have
funds that I am a monthly donorof. It really makes a huge
(46:05):
difference to them to know thatthey can count on X amount
every month as they're makingtheir plan for how they're
divvying up their funds , uh,throughout, throughout their
month.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
And I thank you.
Thank you for that. Yeah. I,what , what is it? The , the,
it's , um, somewhere in theballpark of like $300 million
have gone towards these ballotmeasures. Um, and you've got
funds, you know, basicallystringing together $7 and a
tube of chapstick to take careof all the people who are left
out of those frameworks. Soagain, please, yes, give to uh,
(46:36):
those funds. Another thingfolks can do is press your
elected officials for what youreally want, right ? Call, tell
these supposedly pro-choiceelected officials that you
would like them todecriminalize abortion. And by
the way, 41 states ban abortionat some point in pregnancy. So
(46:56):
there is a lot of work to bedone here with elected
officials in certainlyMassachusetts. Please call
Massachusetts and tell yourelected officials there that
you support , uh, the repeal ofthe bi viability ban there, but
also in New York, inCalifornia, in Illinois. Yes.
Please call your electedofficials and say, why aren't
(47:18):
you decrim decriminalizingabortion here? That's what we
should be doing. And if you do,I will knock doors for you. I
will send you some money. Iwill, you know, I'm team you
that reinforcement becausethey're getting plenty of
messages from consultantstelling them that people don't
want this. So it's our job totell them what we actually do
(47:40):
want. Um , and we should betelling them often. And then
lastly, this is, and
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Then thank them.
Thank and thank them when theydo the good thing .
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yes. And when they do the right thing, don't
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Just hear from you and you're mad. Yes,
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yes. That's such good advice. Let them know when
they do a good thing. And thenmaybe the lowest lift is to
spend a little time on who notwhen.com if you've learned
anything or if you're surprisedby anything or if any myths
have been busted for you, shareit. Um, if you see these myths
being perpetuated , um, even ifit's from an organization that
(48:15):
is otherwise pro-choice, youknow, let them know what the
truth is. If, if somebody tellsyou 22 states ban abortion at
some point in pregnancy, forinstance , you can always
comment and say, well, in fact,41 states ban abortion at some
point in pregnancy. Don't letthem erase all of the people
who are experiencing bans inthese 41 states. That's
(48:37):
something we can all do. Andthat's free.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
And you can see that you know, who not when and
other, our other projects onour website, patient
forward.org . We do a number ofdifferent things and we
continue to add new stuff there, uh, various projects that
we're working on, all of whichare exciting and awesome
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yeah . So check those out,
mean, if you can't tell, we are, we are a thousand percent
obsessed with this
actually is like , uh, it's,it's affirming for us. Like, we
love to do this. We love tomake new resources. If one
person says they read one thingor used one thing, I I will
ride that high all week. Um, soplease , uh, check those out.
(49:19):
And if , um, anyone listeningever requires assistance or
collaboration around this topic, um, you know, we have done
later abortion one oh ones nowfor many, many years. We've
done them for nonprofit boards,we've done them for Planned
Parenthoods, we've done themfor , uh, advocacy
organizations, progressiveclubs. Um, if you are, if you
(49:42):
have a few friends who you canget together on a Zoom to learn
about abortion later inpregnancy, please reach out.
And we're, we're happy to, toshare what we've learned , um,
and continue to learn every day.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
There's nothing like the community that you're
trying to support using yourresources because they say
they're good. I remember , uh,I did an episode on intimate
partner violence and talkedabout my experience , uh, with,
with somebody else and, anddomestic violence. Wisconsin
shared that episode is a greatresource. And like, as a
(50:14):
intimate partner, violencesurvivor from Wisconsin, like
that just like hit like, ugh .
Like it really, like, okay, I'mglad. Like, it just, it meant
everything that they thought itwas helpful.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Oh, I love that.
Yes. Like, please, it is, ittruly is the best, the best
feeling for sure. So thank you.
Thank you for all of the goodinformation you've shared on
this episode too. We appreciateit. We always learn from your
podcast as well, so it's very
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Ah , thank you.
Yeah. For thank you so much forbeing here. I am so excited
about this series and cannotwait for the next , uh,
episodes and I, and learn moreabout abortion later in
pregnancy. So Garin , Erica ,thank you so much for being
here today. Oh ,
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoy my interview with
Erica and Garin . I am solooking forward to this series,
talking about abortion later inpregnancy. We'll have one
episode a month for the nextsix months, talking about
abortion later in pregnancy.
And with that, I will see y'allnext week. If you have any
questions, comments, or topicsyou would like us to cover,
always feel free to shoot me anemail. You can reach me at
(51:23):
jenny jn , NIe@reprofightback.com , or you
can find us on social media.
We're at Repro Fight back onFacebook and Twitter or repro
FB on Instagram. If you loveour podcast and wanna make sure
more people find it, take thetime to rate and review us on
your favorite podcast platform.
Or if you wanna make sure tosupport the podcast, you can
(51:45):
also donate on our website atrepro fight back com . Thanks
all .
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com