Episode 42: Abortion Access Hellscape America (and Europe)

Before we start, two things:
1. Happy Pride!!
2. Enjoy some Women's World Cup!!! That should cheer you up before we look at the recent abortion restrictions being passed throughout the feminist hellscape that is the United States and the anti-choice discourse that has started to become more relevant in many European countries too.

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
She was warm. She was givenan explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,
Hello and welcome to the Persistence.This is she who persisted the Nasty Podcast.
Unsurprisingly, I think you expected that. My name is Beatrice and I'm

(00:36):
here with Liza bad Yeah, viathe interwebs. Yes, yes, because
you're in America and I'm in Austria. Yes, yes, I am in
America and you are in Austria,as people here may not know. Yeah.

(00:57):
Now, I'm saying that because wealso wanted to talk about a topic
that is very relevant and very currentin both the USA in Austria right now.
But before that, before that,also something that's relevant basically everywhere is
June is Pride month. Yay,So happy Pride everyone, also happy riot?

(01:21):
You know, yeah, because it'spolitical. Yeah, no, I
mean, this is the fiftieth anniversaryof the Stonewall Riots. And we're recording
this, you know, about aweek probably before week ish before it'll air.
But just this week in the UnitedStates, the police chief of the
New York Police apologized for starting theriots. What yep, apologize for the

(01:47):
actions that they took that led tothe Stonewall riots, which is pretty amazing,
especially on the fiftieth anniversary of theof the Stonewall Riots. Wow,
that's amazing. I didn't know that. Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty.
Just to mention I know that prideusually the face of pride is,
you know, the young gay,young white gay man. You know,

(02:13):
it's often like a gay dude browho And there's also like a lot of
corporate sponsorship. Now exactly, soexactly, And what I wanted to say
is that Pride wouldn't exist without twowomen. One is Marsha P. Johnson,
who was a black trans woman,a bisexual woman who basically started the

(02:36):
riots. And then Brenda Howard whobasically, you know, planned and executed
with others the first Pride March basicallyas anniversary of the riots. And she's
also called the Mother of Pride becauseshe basically coined the term pride for those

(02:59):
celebrations. And she was also afeminist, bisexual women woman. So yay
to Marsha P. Johnson and BrendaHoward. Uh. The LGBTQ community is
very colorful and very diverse, andit's so much more than just happy,
fun gay why dude bros. Butit's political. It is feministly political,

(03:22):
and if you want to hear moreabout LGBQ TQ issues. Um, I
know that our episodes this month aren'tnecessarily specifically LGBTQ issues, but we have
a number of past episodes on beingum in the LGBT community in academia,
on buy negativity and buy rature,among others. But we could also do

(03:46):
an episode about Marsha P. Johnson, Brenda Howard. I would absolutely be
Oh, we could totally do anepisode about that. We could do an
episode about you know, people whowere instrumental in Pride and Q. I
love that Europe as well. Yeah, I love that we can keep Pride
going past June exactly. It's alwaysI mean, I think it's always a

(04:08):
bit you know, disappointing when peopleonly talk about LGBTQ issues when it's June.
It's like people who only talk aboutfeminist issue when is the eighth of
March, and I'm like, orpeople who only talk about like African American
rights and civil rights in February becauseit's Black Story month, Like that stuff
doesn't go away just because the monthis over. Yeah. Yeah, So

(04:30):
we don't want to do that.So for us, it's Pride year or
year, not just ye month.Another interesting, kind of exciting thing that's
going on right now is the Women'sWorld Cup. Now, Beatrice, I
know that you are not interested insports, so just ignore this. Hey,
I just said football, but you'reactually right. I mean, but

(04:50):
there is an intersection. I'm Imean, not all of the women who
play football slash soccer are gay,but there are a lot of out and
very crowd women on the US nationalteam on coming to get you, Liz,
because I hear it in the background. Yeah, my office is downtown
in the capital of the United States, and as with many capitals and large

(05:14):
cities there, you often hear aresirens. So there's a lot of crime,
you know, mostly in the WhiteHouse. I don't know, Cookie,
you know. I'm sorry anyways,I just wanted to acknowledge the sound
in the background. You get confused. So Women's World Cup. We often

(05:36):
pay a lot of attention to themen's World Cup, but in the United
States, Women's World Cup is farmore interesting for me, if only because
the women's national team is amazing.So if you have not yet checked out
the Women's World Cup, I wouldsuggest doing that because the women's national team

(05:57):
is amazing. The other women's teamsare great too, but as an American
I'm kind of partial to the women'sUS national had I had that the Austrian
team is also quite amazing. Iknow nothing about these things, so I
can't tell you, but I knowthat men's man's soccer in austri is just
bad. They're just bad, andthe women apparently are very good. So
yeah, the the US men's teamoften doesn't even make it to the World

(06:20):
Cup. So but there was anissue a few years ago that like,
the men's team was paid so somuch more than the women's team, and
yet the women's team has won multipleWorld Cups, so there's that. Yeah.
Yeah, it's also the case inAustria. The women are much better,
but the men are always like primetime, you know, yeah it is

(06:41):
you know what else is bullshit?So many things, but how many eyes
do we have? Our topic today, which we're going to try and fit
into the half hour that we havefor our episode today, is looking at
some recent changes to abortion laws.We have talked about abortion laws and Rov

(07:04):
Wade in previous episodes, and abortionlaws in Austria and Europe generally as well,
but a lot has happened in thelast month. So Liz, do
you want to maybe start telling usabout the health scape that is America right
now when it comes to reproductive rightsand reproductive freedom. Yeah, I can

(07:28):
get us started, so please doso. U. Narroll Pro Choice America
is probably the leading, i wantto say, lobbying group but also a
nonprofit group that looks at issues ofreproductive rights and choice in the United States.
And since January, seven states havepassed bills which have played significant bands

(07:56):
on abortion, and many of themare these heartbeat bills which bean abortion at
the first sign of the fetal heartbeat. So what Roe v. Wade says
is that you know, there shouldn'tbe restrictions on an abortion if the like
if it's not viable, which isa different rule per se than like as
soon as it has a heartbeat,because even if something has a heartbeat,

(08:20):
which is often considered it like sixweeks, it's not viable after six weeks,
which is a totally separate issue.So maybe just one thing that I
think we should explain for the peoplelistening from other places then the USA,
is that the judicial system in Americaor in the United States of America is

(08:43):
very much based on precedence and isthat the right word, and like precedence,
yes, and in cases that Ifall in court, yes, and
that's where roe versus weight goes backto. So there was a case in
quote basically and in Europe most consciousit's very different. We have so our
laws are made very differently from howit's done in the United States. Yeah,

(09:07):
sure, so we had our precedentwas set in nineteen seventy three by
the Supreme Court ruling of roversus Wade, which affirmed that women that a woman
has a right to seek an abortionup until the point that the fetus could
be viable outside of the uterus.So like if it's like a viable human
being, like if it could existoutside of the uterus on its own without

(09:28):
any assistance, then like they weren'tokay with that, and that viability has
to be determined on an individual basis. But it's generally between like twenty four
and twenty eight weeks of pregnancy,so like that has been the standard.
The twenty four to twenty eight weeksof pregnancy has been the standard. But
what's happened recently is that there havebeen a number of laws passed. Now

(09:52):
not all of them are in effect, but a number of laws passed that
have limited the time at which onecan get an abortion. So, for
example, these are the states.There are one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight, nine states. They have
super super restrictive abortion laws, andI'm going to go through them alphabetically.

(10:15):
Please do Alabama, as one mightif you were familiar with the United States,
you might not be surprised that Alabamahas one of the most backwards laws,
which says that there should be noabortion after zero weeks. Sweet Home
Alabama, how does the song go? Okay, I'm just doing the soundtrack,

(10:35):
you speak icing. Yeah, soAlabama says you can't have an abortion
after zero weeks. So what thatmeans is like sins, so none at
all, you cannot have an abortion? Yeah exactly. It allows exceptions if
the woman's life is threatened, butthere are no exceptions for rape and incest
and yeah, yeah, so Alabama'stotal abortion van sends doctors up to prison,

(11:03):
into sends doctors to prison for upto ninety nine years? The fuck?
Like, why didn't they make ittwo hundred? Like that is there
any I mean, I'm sure that'sridiculous, but why nine hundred one hundred
too much, who knows. Butanyway, so it's basically a total abortion

(11:24):
van and the doctors could go tojail for ninety nine years. So that's
Alabama. Arkansas also southern state,also somewhat somewhat backwards, but they allow
no abortion after eighteen weeks, andit but it allows for exceptions for rape,
incest, or medical emergencies. Georgiano abortion, sorry, no abortion

(11:52):
after six weeks. It allows exceptionsif the woman's life is endangered, or
if the pregnancy is deemed medically futile, and in cases of rape or incest,
if the woman files a police report. So but so, actually what
that means is because there are womenwho don't even know to set the pregnant
within six weeks. Why, yes, there is. I actually I did

(12:15):
a little research on this and thisis like not at all definitive, but
there's an article on Self magazine,which is like a women's magazine like Plaguetta
or something in Europe, but it'sit's talking about it's recent and it's women
who like, when did they realizethey were pregnant? There are a lot
of women who don't even know thatthey're pregnant at the six week mark,

(12:37):
and one woman, you know,one woman says she like she had some
tequila, like she got sick,wasn't sure it was going on. She
had a pregnancy test, it cameback positive. She went to the doctor,
but the results came back negative.And then she thought she was having
like a liver issue, and thenshe finally went to the doctor and found

(12:58):
out she was six to eight weeksalong. So like she had no idea,
she had no idea she was bringingmm hmm. Yeah. And maybe
you don't know or four week,three or four months. Yeah, I
know. And also even if youknow after like three weeks, you maybe
need time to think about what you'regoing to do. And also sometimes you
also can't get an appointment appointment,yes that or whatever. Yeah, so

(13:24):
that's fucked up. Yeah, let'sget let's go on. There's more.
I just I just noticed that youcan't see me. Oh no, oh
yeah, no I didn't tell me. Now, well I figured maybe you
were having internet problems, so you'redec No, I just didn't click the
butts in. Okay, okay,hikay. So that's that's Georgia. Yeah,
Kentucky, no abortion after six weeks, No exception for raper and SST

(13:50):
only allows exceptions if the woman's lifeis endangered. Now, I want to
know what do they mean by ifa woman's life is endangered? You know
what I think in the case,if right, you don't need an abortion
the first place, because the bodyhas a way to shut the whole thing
down. How No, that isexactly what he said. That is exactly

(14:11):
so, I mean, you don't. It's not even you don't. We
didn't even need abortions after we getright, because we can't get pregnant from
rapes. Do people actually know howwomen's bodies work? No? And then
I'm interested. No, they're not, they're not. Yeah, I'm sorry
that I'm making light of the wholething, but I can't take it any
other way. You know, Ilike completely insane if I would not have

(14:35):
the gift of sarcasm in situations likethat. I totally agree with you.
I totally agree with you. Nowlet me go back to the Georgia Bill.
The Georgia Bills. Please makes abortionillegal before women even know that they're
pregnant, because that six week thingis like many people don't know. But
it also could throw doctors in jailand it could lead to women being investigated
for miscarriages. Okay, say itagain, Say to it again. So

(14:58):
say say it like eight or tenweeks you have a miscarriage. Yeah,
yea, which, like I thinkI read a statistic and I'm going to
make the statistic up. I'm sure, and I'm sure that it's like lesser
more than this. Who knows.But I read a statistic a while ago
that that many abortion and sorry notabortions, many pregnancies, people don't even
know that they're pregnant, and theyend up actually having miscarriages before they even

(15:20):
realize that they're pregnant. And sothey at eight weeks, they might not
even know that they're pregnant. Theymay have had like implantation bleeding at the
normal time when their period was supposedto start, and then they have a
normal period which is actually a miscarriage, or a heavier period which is actually
a miscarriage, and so they actuallyhave no idea. And I think the
statistic that I read like years agowas like fifty percent of pregnancies end up

(15:41):
an abortion in miscarriages, which isyeah, I mean, it's crazy,
but like I believe it. Sothe Georgia bill could possibly lead to women
being investigated for miscarriage if they miscarrypast that six week mark and they are
suspected actually taking like abortion pills,and I mean it's there. I mean,

(16:04):
why does that body then abort thefeatures It's around fucking fault, right,
they can't control themselves. So oh, it's horrible, it's horrible.
It's not great. I didn't evenknow what to say other than just be
stupid about it because I don't knowwhat to say. It's not great.
It's not great, not great isI can't It's a total like understatement.

(16:27):
It's like a shit show. Yeah, hellscape, as I said, Okay,
so we talked about a Kentucky.Louisiana again, no abortion after six
weeks. Like a lot of thesesix week abortion ones have come within the
last like a couple of months andweeks. Also, it's very rich.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, someof them are with it with the end
of end of May. So Louisiana, no abortion after six weeks, exception

(16:52):
for rape. No exception for rapeor incest. Allows exception if the life
is endangered or if the pregnancy isdeemed medically futile, so like if the
baby like it's not developing or itis kind of dead in the womb or
x y z okay, But whodetermines whether again, who determines if the
light woman's life is endangered? Whodetermines if the pregnancy is medically futile?

(17:17):
Exactly? Yeah, Yeah. Mississippithe same as many of the others.
No abortion after six weeks, noexception for rape incests, allows exception if
the woman's life is in danger.Missouri, which was passed very recently.
I want to say, like theend of the month. That is,
no abortion after eight weeks, noexception for rapor incest, allows exception if

(17:41):
the woman's life is endangered. Ohio, no abortion after six weeks, no
exception for rapor incests, allows exceptionsif the woman's life is endangered. And
Utah, which this is not anew law. Utah is a relatively religious
state. No abortion after eighteen weeks, which is like Arkansas. Allows exception
for rape or incest if the doctorperforming the abortion verifies that the incident was

(18:06):
reported to law enforcement, and itallows exceptions if the woman's life is in
danger. So um, you knowa lot of women don't report rapes.
A lot of women and children whoare who are abused in their families but
via incests do not report um andso and and and a lot of times
you need a parent's permission in orderto get if you're under age, in

(18:30):
order to get an abortion, whichmeans who were you asking for permission the
person who abused you a lot oftimes? Yeah, yeah, Jesus Christ.
That's disgusting. Yeah, it's awful. So um Texas legislature in the
in Texas, the lawmakers are consideringa bill that would threaten women seeking an

(18:53):
abortion with the death penalty. Soif you got an abortion, if you
even sought an abortion, it's it'slike premeditated, like murder. Well,
okay, so what like because we'repro life, we're killing women? Is
that the logic? I guess,I don't know. Apparently they make so
much sense. They heard the billand they but they had not passed it.

(19:18):
Okay, Yes, So this yearalone there have been and we're just
in June right now, so we'rehalfway through the year. But this year
alone, nearly thirty bands on abortionhave been introduced past or signed into law
in state houses in the United States. Yeah. So I just want to
say one sentence and then I haveanother question for you. The one sentence

(19:40):
that I wanted to say is it'snot just in cases where there's like the
direct threat of a death penalty foran abortion that the you know, the
regulations and the bands of abortion threatenedwomen's lives. Also, the World Health
Organization they have a statistic that fortyseven thousand women die per year of illegal,

(20:10):
you know, bochy abortions. Sobeing against abortion has nothing to do
with being pro life. It canonly be pro life when you don't consider
women's lives valuable. Yeah, Imean, if you're only focusing on the

(20:32):
child, or the child as theylike to refer to it, then you
are completely ignoring the woman in thesituation, who is born, who is
alive, and in a lot ofways, you're also ignoring the potential like
future life for that unborn child.So exactly, imagine like a woman doesn't

(20:56):
actually want to have a child.Maybe they are in a bad financial situation,
a bad relationship, they are emotionallynot prepared to have a child.
We talk a lot of times inour society about how, you know,
parents need to be totally prepared tohave children, and they're the reason that
children end up, so fucked up. But and yet we are forcing people

(21:17):
to have children who are not preparednor interested in having children. No,
we can also make the argument like, okay, well then they should have
used contraception, but maybe they did. I like, contception is not a
one hundred percent safe No, notat all, not at all. So
I mean it's a it's a bullshitargument in a lot of ways. Yeah.

(21:38):
Also, what one thing that Ialso want to say is people who
say, well, why don't yougive the child up for adoption after it's
born because you don't want to beforced to go through a nine month pregnancy
and that you don't want to have, And but I think a child that
you don't want to have. Womenare not pregnant. Women are all like

(22:02):
baby factories for people who can't havechildren. No, No, And to
be honest, like nobody nobody wantsto have an abortion. Like nobody's sitting
around saying like, oh man,I wish I could have an abortion next
week, Like nobody really wants to. Yeah, because nobody wants to have
an unwanted pregnancy. That's why it'scalled unwanted, unwanted, unintended, unplanned,

(22:25):
All of those things like, yeah, so exactly. So this is
this is one way that that antichoice laws are being created to stop the
possibility of having abortion in certain states. The other way that's happening is by
defunding Planned Parenthood, which which alreadycannot is not allowed to provide government funding

(22:47):
for abortions. And they actually justdo a lot of you know, contraception
and health support for people who arewho don't have the financial means for it.
But by defunding, by potentially defundingPlan Parenthood, what they're doing is
they're actually taking the ability for womenand men, because Plan player in here

(23:08):
is not just for women, buttaking the ability away from them to get
low cost healthcare and low cost costreproductive healthcare, and under the guise of
you know, not wanting to supportabortions with government funding, which they already
can't do. So yeah, sothat's what's that's what's going on in America.

(23:29):
So why do you think that happensnow, because of course you have
a very right wing government right now. I'm a very right wing president,
but he's not you know, Imean, I don't I don't want to
even imagine for how many abortions,like how many abortions. Donald Trump already
paid for himself allegedly. Oh I'msorry, allegedly. Okay, it doesn't

(23:52):
make sense, does it. Whatis the momentum? Why is it happening
now? I didn't quite understand it. It makes sense if they think that
they can overturn roversus way in theSupreme Court, and they think that they
might be able to do that becausethey have one, two, three,
four, five conservative justices on anine justice court. So what you are

(24:15):
saying is that now that there arethe Supreme Court is predominantly conservative, conservative
people think that they can overturn roversesweight and that's why they start making those
laws in the individual states. Sowhat will happen is that they'll be challenged
by and a lot of them arealready being challenged by the ACLU and by

(24:38):
other organizations, and so they'll bechallenged in the courts. They won't,
you know, they won't go intoeffect because they'll be challenged by the courts,
and they'll go through the state courtsand the federal courts, and they'll
end up at the Supreme Court.And then we'll have a new precedent set
based on how they rule on thesenew laws. Okay, so then what

(25:02):
it could what it could do isit could push it back to eighteen weeks
from the twenty four twenty six weeks, or it could push it back to
eight weeks, or it could pushit back to six weeks. You know,
it's just constantly pushing the date,the time back at which you are
legally allowed to get an abortion orgive one, which I think is interesting

(25:22):
because when we talked about it inthe past, one of the things that
you mentioned about Austria is that theyhave made it so that no doctors actually
want to perform abortions. It's abit different. So in Austria, abortion
is not actually legal, which issomething that many people don't know because it's
what is called straff right. Soit's exempt from punishment, Yeah, it's

(25:45):
exempt from from prosecution. So it'sbasically tolerated, but it's not legal and
laws like that. So in thefirst January of nineteen seventy five, I
think it was the law, theso called frisk Zoom was made into law
basically and it says that within thefirst fourteen weeks of pregnancy starting from niedation,

(26:10):
it is not legal but exempt fromprosecution to aborti fetus. Oh,
but it also has a clause likethe paragraph of the legal paragraph also had
like this clause that no doctor canbe forced to do an abortion because which

(26:30):
is also because it's technically not legal, so you can't force anyone to do
something basically illegal even though it's exemptfrom prosecution. And that leads to the
very un yeah, very unnot justuncomfortable, but very shitty situation that women
that there are like federal states inAustria where there is no no you can't

(26:52):
get an abortion, where there isno like kind house, um, yeah,
no clinic that does abortion. Sowomen have to travel from for our
back to Vienno. So it limitsaccess in because yeah, and lewis access.
Also, you know, the costsare very different depending on who does
it because it's there's no actual regulationbecause it's not legal. Yeah, and

(27:15):
also it's in Austria, it's stillhighly highly stigmatized, which is kind of
the Catholic Yeah, it's a veryCatholic country still. And there are three
exceptions to this rule that you can'tyou can't have an abortion within fourteen weeks
because you can't can you're allowed tohave an abortion later than that when there

(27:36):
is risk to the life or healthof the pregnant person, you can have
an abortion later than that, likea late term abortion when the fetus is
let's say, strongly disabled in away that for example, could not survive
outside of the womb or whatever,So then you can have a very late

(27:57):
term abortion. That's what they talkabout in the medically futile kind of laws
in exactly. Yeah. And thenthere's a third option where you can have
an abortion later than the fourteenth week, which is when it's the result when
when the person who's pregnant was youngerthan I think fourteen when they became present

(28:22):
m pregnant. And in Austria abortionhas been so first of all, we
had a very conservative right wing governmentup to two weeks ago. We talked
about this in the last episode,and of course you know those are parties
that are very much against abortion,very conservative, and you know in the

(28:44):
in the coalition like and battle likethe Coalition agreement, they also stated that
they would evaluate or reevaluate the regulationwhen it comes to what you called futile
medical pregnancy. Um an auster iscalled embrew patisia indicatsun, which you can
translate with embryopatic indication, yeah maybe, or the viability or yeah yeah so

(29:11):
and but they call it a genisaindicagenic Are you kidding me? Yes,
exactly, that's what they call it. And of course that is also already
strach So anti choices call it eugenicindication because they want to stress or want
to kind of associate reproductive rights abortionistswith eugenic exactly because you abort like disabled

(29:36):
f fetusis so it's basically eugene.I will say. That's also what the
like the number of people being bornwith Down syndrome, which is a totally
random genetic thing you can't ever liketell like based on someone's familial genetics genetics
if they're ever going to get Downsyndrome. The number of people being born
with Down syndrome is significantly less becausefamilies abort those kids, which I have

(30:00):
a problem with insofar as you know, you're aborting a kid who is perfectly
physically healthy, but it's going tobe mentally disabled because you don't want to
deal with that. And I thinka lot of like disability rights people have
an issue with that because like it'syeah, by telling a person who's who
has a disability, who's a mentaldisability that they are not they're not a

(30:25):
potentially viable member of society. Buthere's the thing. If you want people
to actually carry pregnancies to terms thatyou know, featuses that are disabled.
And first of all, I haveto say that in Austria, when you
want to have an abortion, likein in the context of an imprepatis indicatsoon

(30:45):
so um, then it needs tobe like a very very severe disability,
and there's there's a commission of medicalprofessionals who then together decide whether the case
is severe enough. And it's mostlyfeatusists who can't survive without like outside of
the women's body, or who whowould would be in paying all of their

(31:06):
lives and stuff like that. Sothe thing with down syndrome features is being
aborted. You know, if youwant people to carry those pregnancies to terms,
you need to create a system wherepeople can actually raise children that are
disagreed. Because I mean, thesame government that wants to restrict access to

(31:29):
abortion is also the government who basicallyis very backwards when it comes to disability
rights. And they, for example, they in Austria again reintroduce the so
called sanda shun, which is basicallysegregation. You know, they make specific
schools for disabled people, which isthe opposite of what we want because it
doesn't you know, it's it's segregationbasically. You know. So if you

(31:53):
if you want to have if youwant to live in a society where people
carry to terms pregnancies of you know, disabled Featu says, you need to
also create a society where people don'tget poor when they have a disabled child,
where they get enough benefits so thatthey can actually care for the child,
where people are not ostracized, wherethey're not like excluded from the communities.

(32:15):
All of that. No, there'sa lot of education that needs to
go on around people with disabilities andthe care and education of people with disabilities.
It's a it's a super important issue. That concern I think among a
lot of activists for people with disabilitiesis that the more that we like abort
these these potential people with disabilities,the lower the likelihood that we're going to

(32:39):
get funding and support for providing educationalopportunities for these individuals with disabilities. But
I mean that's a whole I getit. I still think that it's it's
kind of wrong to create, likeforcing women to give birth children that they
don't want is always no matter ifthey've make this disabled. Yeah. Yeah,

(33:01):
so that's where we're kind of atin the United States and in Austria.
H yeah. So, and that'sjust one thing that I wanted to
say, because that's actually the importantpart. So the government wanted to reevaluate
those in this employ partisian in thecartoon. And then there was a petition

(33:23):
in parliament that was also like againstthe so called empery partisian in the kartoon
that it basically should be like abolished, and also that women should have to
wait a certain time period so thatthey can think about whether they actually want
to have an abortion after they alreadydecided. And what's also in the petition

(33:47):
is they want women to be informedabout adoption as a possible alternative to abortion.
So and so a lot of importantpeople in the coalition parties also signed
the petition, so it had ithad government support basically, which made it
very dangerous. And then also likethe feminist community and the pro choice community

(34:13):
in Austria thinks and I think that'svery right that this was just the first
step. They were making to likea total band of abortion. Gotcha,
So that was just the first likeyeah, yeah, well, I mean
we obviously have people pushing for totalabortion bands too, and now have a
state that has passed a lot likethat. What's interesting is that one of

(34:37):
the things about Roe v. Wadeis that it established something nationwide. And
once we have something nationwide established,it trumps, not in a bad way,
the laws that we have in theindividual states. So now there either
has to be like a law,another law passed, or a Supreme Court

(34:57):
decision in order to overturn these individualstates. If roversus weight is completely overturned
and we say, oh, thestates should decide, now each of these
states has to go back and establishwhat is legal and illegal in their states.
And the problem is we now havethese like ten states that have really
restrictive abortion laws, and you know, there are a number of states who

(35:22):
have very like open and non restrictiveabortion laws. But now everybody's got to
like scramble in some ways to thinkabout what they're going to do in their
individual states. If roversus Weight getsoverturned or at least is pushed back to
the point that like it's six weeksor each state is left to determine what
the date is, which is allof that just shows how vulnerable women's rights

(35:47):
are, you know, because twoyears ago, no one thought that this
could happen. You know, lookat us now, you know what,
Look at the things that are possiblethat we never thought web possible. Bull
te years ago, I agreed.There have been a lot of women who
have been kind of shouting from therooftops, like we need to pay attention
to this, we need to payattention to this. And like a lot

(36:07):
of people have said, no,no, it'll be fine, This can't
possibly get screwed up, this can'tpossibly change, blah blah blah. Yet
there have still been people who allalong, like Cassandra, have been like
shouting and telling people like this isgoing to happen. This is going to
happen. And now that it's happening, now we're like, holy crap,
why didn't anybody say that this washappening. And but like women have been

(36:29):
saying this is happening for years,since nineteen seventy three. They've been like
protecting Ruby Wade. Yeah, andso we I mean, it shouldn't be
a surprise to anyone. So maybewe should listen to women. Maybe we
should listen to women on their ownbodies. Yeah. Maybe maybe it's so
depressing. It is depressing, butuh, you know, there are a

(36:52):
lot of organizations out there that arethat are providing both support for women who
are looking for abortions who in thesestates where they are. I mean,
this is something we shouldn't have todo, but this is something that we
are doing. And there are organizationsplopping up so that if women in these
states, if these laws actually endup passing and becoming law in these states,

(37:14):
then they have the support of womenwho will house them and help them
and help pay for their medical careif they need to go out of state
to get things taken care of.Yeah, and there's one address that I
want to tell people, so andI need to tell a little story.
I know we're over time already,but it takes just two minutes. So

(37:36):
if you have Netflix, which allof you have, probably you can watch
a documentary that's called The Vessel.I hope it's on there in America too,
because Netflix is always different regionally.But The Vessel and the Vessel is
about an organization that's called Women onWaves and it's an organization that basically bought
from the Netherlands a women from theNetherlands who basically bought a boat abortion doctor.

(38:01):
Yes, and she kind of sailedto states or close to states where
abortion is illegal and then provided abortionon the seat, like on the boat
because boats are like international waters,so there are often it's not clear what
laws apply. So yeah, soshe basically made abortion boats like mobile clinics,

(38:27):
mobile abortion clinics. And then ofcourse there are states that are not
directly by water, and there arewomen who need abortions too, and sometimes
they don't have access and sometimes it'sillegal. So they also founded an organization
that's kind of sister organization of Womenin Waves. It's called Women on Web
and what they do is they actuallysend out abortion pills to places where they

(38:52):
are not available, either because they'reillegal or because they're just not available,
and they have like online support.So you if if abortion is illegal where
you live, then you can goto I think it's women onweb dot org.
Let me have a look onweb dotorg. Yes, Women on web

(39:13):
dot Org, and you can contactthem and they can send you abortion pills
and they also provide like medical onlinesupport if you have some symptoms that you
they tell you what to do blahblah blah, so they also support you,
they talk to you. Yeah,that's something you can do if you
don't. I don't think that thevessel is available in the United States,
but there is a Netflix documentary calledReversing Row, which might be of interest

(39:37):
to you our listeners. Yeah maybe. Wait, I'm going to check if
the vessels on YouTube because sometimes peopledo that. What people make things available
for people even though Netflix won't.The other option is to pretend like you're
in another country using the like usinglike a VPN. That's how I ended

(39:57):
up watching Eurovision. But that doesn'twork. That doesn't work on Netflix anymore
because I used it. Yeah theyat least it doesn't work in Europe anymore,
which is depressing because I always usedthe British and the American Netflix,
and now I can only use theAustin one, which is not as hitty
in comparison. Okay, yeah,but maybe you can get it an Amazon

(40:17):
primer wherever the vessel is what it'scalled, and women on web dot Org
if you need an abortion and can'tget one. All right, So,
um, I don't know what ournext episode is going to be but happy
Pride, everyone, Happy Pride Pride. If you have any other information or

(40:38):
links or support that you question,questions, or anything that you want to
talk about with regard to abortion lawsin the United States or in Europe or
whatever, feel free upon Maybe youwant to tell us that you love us
or that that's awesome too. Anyway, after the episode, there's a little

(41:01):
like outro thing that has all ofour Compact Tact information. But we would
really appreciate rating, reviewing, supportingus, and reaching out because we love
hearing from our listeners. Yes,and I'm also going to reactivate our Instagram
account because I've been very lazy aboutthat the last few months. So I'm
gonna upload or everything that I missedthe meantime and then you can look at

(41:22):
that too without thinking it's like sevenyears old or like four months or like
four months, which is like onehundred years in internet Time's true, that's
true. Yeah, all right,say nay Nasty bye bye. Thank you
for listening to She Who Persisted theNasty Podcast. If you want to reach

(41:46):
out to us on social media,you can reach us on our Facebook page.
She Who Persisted the Nasty Podcast theFacebook discussion group per Sisters that She
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Persisted pod or via email at shewho Persisted podcast at gmail dot com.

(42:09):
You can always find us on ourwebsite she who Persisted dot com. Thanks
for listening. We hope you'll continueto join us in thinking about ways that
you can fight the patriarchy, resistand persist, Stay nasty. Bye.