Now is The Time to Defend All Abortions

“Democrats love to avoid it, and Republicans love to lie about it. But later-abortion care has never been more important.” Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent for the Nation and author of the new book Killers of Roe: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights, talks to us about her new article for the Nation, What Would It Mean to Defend All Abortions? Garin Marschall, co-founder of Patient Forward, joins to discuss the importance of protecting access to later abortion care. 

Amy’s new article in the Nation explores the use of disinformation centered on abortion later in pregnancy. Amy spent time with providers and patients in abortion clinics to capture and share the truth about abortion later in pregnancy—which is that it is a necessary, compassionate form of healthcare provision. A better future must be imagined and provided for those needing an abortion, and especially those in need of an abortion later in pregnancy. 

For more information, check out CRAMPED: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cramped/id1778101696

Transcript

Jennie: 1:03

Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health rights and justice. [music intro] Hi rePROs, how's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/ her. So, before we get started, let's just do like a quick bit of housekeeping. Just a reminder that we launched a brand new merch store. You can find it on Bonfire if you look for rePROs Fight Back on Bonfire, but also if you go to our show notes, the links will be there or on social media. We've had people talking about how much they love our various designs we have had when we have gone out and had stickers and stuff, so we finally put it on merch that you could all purchase. Y'all, I love everything so much. We have t-shirts, we have tank tops, there are mugs, there's water bottles, there's bags, there's cute little pouches, and so much more with our cute designs that we have had, both from Liberal Jane and from our in-house designer. I love all of them. I haven't decided what my first priority to buy is yet, but I really need to go and buy myself something because I am so excited for all of it. And I can't wait to wear my rePROs Fight Back merch out in public. I hope you will do as well. Like I said, I know a lot of you have said you've been excited and have been hoping that we would get a merch store soon so that you could buy some of our stuff. So it is there now. It's Bonfire. And if you look for rePROs Fight Back, you'll find us there. Otherwise, we will have links in the show notes and all over social media. So we would love it if you would wear your love for rePROs Fight Back. Okay, that's enough housekeeping. We have kind of a long episode. It's a really good episode, but it is a little long. So we'll keep the intro a little shorter. Well, let's see. I'll do one highlight and one low light. So highlight, the rePROs team and then the broader Population Institute team went to a Nationals game this week. It was so much fun. We took Wednesday. It was like the perfect baseball day. It was like mid 80s, cloudy. So we weren't in the direct sunlight, which was delightful. As somebody who is very, very white and wears her Irish and English and heritage on her skin, I did not get a sunburn, which which was pretty delightful. I wore sunscreen, but that's not always a guarantee in my world. So I felt very lucky to get to spend a day hanging out, not thinking about all of the terrible things that are happening and just enjoying some baseball and some ballpark food and just having a fun day away from everything. I mean, the Nats lost, which was a bummer, but everything else was so delightful and so fun. So I'm glad we were able to do that. Okay, so the low light. We have talked about on the podcast how The administration has really gone after and gotten rid of our aid system. They got rid of USAID. They have slashed almost all of the funding for global health and development. Just a little bit remains. This was all done very suddenly over the course of this administration so far, but it's been really done quickly. just so fast and everything was shut down that there was food and commodities that were already bought and in transit or in warehouses waiting to be given out to aid recipients. And so, now we have all of these things that are already bought and paid for with US tax dollars that are food going to rot or medical supplies just sitting in warehouses. So, one of the things that has happened is that the administration has decided that instead of trying to sell this or give it to recipients or letting other aid agencies around the world buy it and use it, $10 million worth of contraception is going to be burned. So that is almost $10 million worth of IUDs and birth control that instead of getting to the people who need it, who can use it to control their lives, the administration is going to spend money to burn it. Unconscionable. This is just horrifying. So all of these cuts were done under Doge, under the guise of "waste," "fraud," and "abuse," heavy air quotes. If you want to talk waste, fraud, and abuse, let's look at $10 million of contraception already bought and paid for. Instead of selling it to somebody else who can make sure it gets to the recipients who need it for lifesaving healthcare, we are going to spend money to burn it. That is is horrifying. I just, I can't, I can't get over how egregious this is that you are, we are actively going out of our way to ensure that people are not able to get access to this life-saving healthcare that gives people the ability to control their lives, that we are going to set it on fire instead. Just horrifying. So it has not happened yet, at least as of when I'm recording this, but it is their intention to burn it. There are members of Congress who are trying to fight this. Senator Shaheen and Senator Schatz introduced a bill in the Senate to try and stop it. And Representative Meeks, Frankel, and Meng in the House have introduced a bill to try and stop it. It's great to see them fighting back and pushing to prevent this destruction of commodities. It's bigger than just family planning. It is looking at other things like food that has been running on shelves and things like that to try and prevent this waste and make sure that this aid gets to the people who need it. Yeah, just terrible, y'all. Okay, with that, I'll keep it short and sweet. Let us turn to this week's interview. I'm very excited. It is our next episode in our series on abortion later in pregnancy. And again, I just want to give a special shout out to Patient Forward for being such a wonderful partner in this project. They have done such a great job helping us find guests and think about topics that we should talk about relating to abortion later in pregnancy. This week, we're going to talk to Amy Littlefield at The Nation, who wrote a great article for them in May talking about why we need to fight for abortions at all stages. And she's also the author of a forthcoming book coming out in March that I am so excited for called Killers of Roe: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights. I cannot wait to read it. We will absolutely have her on the podcast when it comes out. And I am so excited to have along with Amy, Garin Marschall with Patient Forward again, so excited to have him on to talk about the work that Patient Forward does and to talk about why it is so important to advocate for abortion later in pregnancy. So with that, let's go to my interview with Garin and Amy. Hi, Amy. Hi, Garin. Thank you so much for being here.

Garin: 8:01

Hello.

Amy: 8:01

Hi, Jennie. Thanks for having us.

Jennie: 8:04

Always excited to have both of you on. Before we get started, let's do a quick round of introductions so everybody knows who's talking. Amy, would you like to go first?

Amy: 8:14

So, my name is Amy Littlefield. I'm the abortion access correspondent for The Nation magazine, and I am excited to debut the new and improved title of my forthcoming book on the anti-abortion movement, which will be out in March 2026. It's called Killers of Roe, My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights. So, keep an eye out for that come springtime.

Jennie: 8:39

Ooh, thanks for the great birthday present. My birthday is in March.

Amy: 8:43

Oh, great. I'll send you one.

Jennie: 8:45

First, congratulations! Yes. I'm a huge reader. So like anybody who can write a book, it's like magic to me. So, I'm so excited for you and I cannot wait to read it. We'll have you back on to talk about it when it comes out.

Amy: 8:59

I'll make sure yours is sent in sparkly wrapping paper for your birthday. Yes.

Jennie: 9:05

Okay, Garin, would you like to introduce yourself?

Garin: 9:07

Sure. My name is Garin Marschall. I'm the co-founder of Patient Forward, a strategy and advocacy organization fighting for a future where all pregnant people are met with support not stigma or punishment. And yeah, I can go more into who I am I guess when we have a minute.

Jennie: 9:26

I'm so excited to have you on again, Garin. I am so excited to work with Patient Forward. Y'all have been amazing partners for this six-month series on abortion later in pregnancy. I am just so grateful to y'all for working with us to make this wonderful series so everybody can learn more about why abortion later in pregnancy is important.

Garin: 9:44

And thank you for doing it.

Jennie: 9:44

I am really excited about this series. I have been having a lot of fun doing it. I've had so many great conversations. And Amy, I'm so excited to have you on today to about the amazing article you wrote for The Nation that came out In May?

Amy: 10:00

May, yeah.

Jennie: 10:01

May, June, somewhere in that area. I don't know, I've lost all, time is like, it means nothing anymore. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your article and like what has stuck with you during this reporting?

Amy: 10:13

Yeah, so this article on later abortions really grew out of watching the way that the issue of later abortion was handled in the 2024 election. Like many of us, I watched Donald Trump on the debate stage talking about babies being executed and, you know, abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy and using this combination of distortion and lies to really fixate on the one aspect of abortion rights where Republicans think they can still win public hearts and minds, right? Republicans were having a tough time figuring out how to talk about abortion, many of them were running from the issue. Like during that debate in September 2024, while Trump was, you know, talking about executing babies after birth, Kamala Harris's rebuttal was to say, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion, right? It's this sort of way of saying, this doesn't happen or it's rare, rather than talking about the realities of later-abortion, what actually does happen, and I think that's left the public in the dark about what actually happens during a later-abortion and what actually is the truth. And so, I really wanted to spend time in a clinic and find out what happens in a later-abortion and what are the steps involved, who are the people who are seeking these procedures, because the reality felt so separate from the political debate. But we don’t often let the public into the reality. We don't often give people a window into what it actually does look like, because I think there's a lot of fear among the pro-choice majority in this country around talking about these procedures and what they actually entail. So, I reached out to the co-founders of Partners in Abortion Care and was like, hey, can I show up and spend a few days in your clinic and see what happens and talk to any patients who are willing and just learn what this actually looks like so that we can tell people. Rather than leave a vacuum that I think has allowed Republicans to completely guide the conversation and allowed abortion opponents to completely distort the way that we think about later abortion, I wanted to bring a journalist's eye to the question of what these procedures actually look like. And fortunately, I found two patients who were incredibly open and trusting and wonderful and wanted to share their stories in order to help advance the public understanding of of what they and others in their position are going through.

Jennie: 13:39

I guess that brings me makes me think of the important role that storytelling plays in all of this. I think, you know, it does so much to battle stigma. Garin, would you like to talk about that portion?

Garin: 13:50

Yeah, I think I will say I love this article. And I think one one of the most successful parts of it is that it does have these stories to anchor it. And I think that that's very important to kind of replacing the rhetoric that we've heard on both sides. And that's something that we experienced a lot. My own sort of journey of understanding with abortion later in pregnancy, it came from a personal story. But I think as we've told that personal story, to people, it's been interesting to see how it does sort of immediately just dispel these things that are in people's minds and replace it with something that actually happens. And the importance of that cannot be understated. And I mean that like both at the sort of national or political level or in articles like this, but also just in small rooms over small tables, I think people telling each other about their experiences with abortion care later in pregnancy is huge. I co-founded Patient Forward with my partner, Erika Christensen, after she needed an abortion in 2016. And at the time, abortions earlier in pregnancy were legal in New York, but later abortion in the care that she needed was banned. And we were lucky and we were privileged and she was able to get compassionate care in Colorado, but we knew that the state's law was wrong. And so, we started sharing our story in efforts to decriminalize abortion in New York. So, we started RHA Vote and the grassroots effort to pass the Reproductive Health Act, which was signed into law in 2019. And, you know, there's a lot I can say about that. It was a bittersweet victory. By the time the law had passed, we'd come to understand that, like, the viability limit in the RHA was not great. And now people are still being denied care under the new law. Like, we didn't really, like, strike at the root and ultimately, in a way, inadvertently reinforce the state's role in pregnancy. But I think that what we learned through that process is the importance of storytelling for lawmakers. And there was actually a study about this that they don't listen to data, they listen to stories, or that's more compelling. But I think that's true with all of us. We need something to anchor our understanding. And I think that... as Amy's story highlights, people who need later abortions come to this care from a wide array of circumstances. And a lot of times the ones that we talk about publicly are these fetal anomaly stories, as they're so-called. And we're often sharing these stories in support of policies that then undermine the bodily autonomy of people later into their pregnancy. So, it's important that when we do share stories... In our later abortion stories, we first understand what are the stories being used for and to ensure that it's not the reason why someone's getting care that we're focused on. Instead, the story talks about the impact of the government interference of the abortion laws and stuff like that. From an advocacy perspective, that part's important. But I think that this piece, I want everyone in the country to read it, partly because of those stories. Because I think those stories just show the things that people are dealing with, the things that we see show up in data or whatever, but they humanize them in such an important way.

Amy: 17:15

I think the only thing that I would add is just on the criminalization point that, like, people are being criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes, and that was happening before the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, and it's happening now. And that Pregnancy Justice reported a record 210 prosecutions for conduct associated with pregnancy loss or birth in the year after the Dobbs decision, and that most of those cases happened in Alabama, Oklahoma, or South Carolina, where courts have expansively interpreted the personhood of viable fetuses according to the Pregnancy Justice report that recently came out. And so, you know, a lot of people know the story of Brittany Watts, a Black woman in Ohio who was arrested for miscarrying in her bathroom, right? And that's a case that Pregnancy Justice has highlighted because, you know, what mattered in her case was the fact that the fetus was considered to be a size and age where it could theoretically survive or be viable, right? It didn't matter, you know, that it was a miscarriage that she herself hadn't caused. And so, I think we should just be cognizant that we live in a, you know, system of mass incarceration where Black people in particular, people of color, low-income people tend to be criminalized and that people have been you know, criminalized for a long time in this country. And this is, so this is not when we talk about pregnancy criminalization, it's not a hypothetical.

Garin: 18:34

Yeah. And I think that Pregnancy Justice report, which I worked on with Karen Thompson at Pregnancy Justice, it's really great. People can go check it out at pregnancy justice.com, but this report is great because it really does make a connection, a link. It connects the dots between these lines that we're drawing in abortion policies that ban abortion later in pregnancy and the links to criminalization, the links to this invitation of the government to sort of police pregnancy. Because when you draw a line, it's going to be policed. And that's what we're doing. And we're seeing the consequences of that. And to be clear, this is not something that started when Roe was overturned. This has been going on for decades and decades and decades. So, I invite people to check that out. And I think it's such a huge part of this conversation because it's not just about abortion, for sure.

Jennie: 19:26

This all makes me think of not necessarily storytelling, but the humanization part had such an important role it played for me early when I first was starting to think about this. I've talked about this on the podcast before, but But I went to Catholic school, K-8. I had sex ed from a nun. As you can imagine, it was not sex ed in any way, shape, or form. And I had a friend when I was in, I don't know, maybe fifth grade who asked me to go with her to go to Madison to go save babies. And obviously, yeah, I want to go save babies. And I remember going home and talking to my mom and her sitting me down. I have this really clear vision of sitting at the breakfast counter. And her not telling a story, she didn't have her own personal story to share, but really doing the like, have you thought about a person in this circumstance? Or what if this is happening in the person's life? Or what about this situation? And then for me, I thought she did a really smart thing of being like, I'm not saying you can't go. If you want to go, you can go. Make your decision. And gave me the autonomy to take all that in and process it and make my own decisions. And it was something that really stuck with me, putting myself in that person's shoes. So the role of stories and personalizing it just can make a huge difference. I think another really important part in the piece, and you've already kind of touched on this a bit, Amy, was the "Democrats love to avoid it and Republicans love to lie about it line," like that really stuck out. Do you want to maybe dig into that a little bit more?

Amy: 21:06

Yeah, I mean, I feel like that was my experience, not just in the 2024 election, but just watching how the abortion issue has been discussed from the national stage. Republicans love to talk about later abortions, because again, it's the one point where they think they can still win. And so, and they love to make up lies about, you know, abortion on the way to the delivery room. And the way that this narrative serves them, I think, is that it focused is attention on the fetus, and away from the person carrying the fetus, right? So it's intended to distract us away from the story, as you're talking about, right, the story of the person carrying that pregnancy, and towards the image of, you know, the fetus. And, you know, I think a lot about the history of the debate around so called "partial -birth" abortion, right, which began in the 1990s. And just what a successful strategy that was by the anti-abortion movement where they basically invented this term to describe an abortion procedure and circulated drawings and illustrations and focused everyone's attention on this idea of partial birth which you know for anyone who's gone through or been present at a birth that conjures a certain image in your mind right and you know they really created this political rhetoric that was completely divorced from reality and i think it was actually very challenging for Democrats and pro-choice advocates to rebut it. And I think we still haven't, I think the movement still hasn't pinned down a way to fully rebut rhetoric like that, that focuses on the imagery of, you know, what happens supposedly, which again is often distorted beyond belief, you know, during a later abortion. But I think it's a very smart strategy on their part. And I think it was sort of the only one left to Republicans, right? Like, what else are they going to talk about? This is a wildly popular, you know, constitutional right that's more popular than most politicians, like most of them were running from questions about the issue and not wanting to discuss it at all. So, and I think for many pro-choice groups, and I'm sure we'll talk about the ballot initiatives, right, that we saw coming out of this huge number of efforts to advance reproductive rights at the ballot box in states where that was feasible, a lot of them had limitations or allowed the state to impose limitations on them. on abortion after viability. And so, rather than sort of tackling the stigma and the issue of how Republicans distort later abortion, I think a lot of pro-choice advocates said, look, this is an emergency situation, we're going to pass an imperfect, you know, ballot initiative. And now we're seeing state constitutions that enshrine, you know, allowing such restrictions. And so, I think that was another reason to talk about it in this political moment to sort of assess how that played out in the 2024 election and what we're likely to see with these ballot initiatives moving forward.

Jennie: 24:02

I think this also makes me think of how...smart, and I really hate to give them credit for this, but the anti-abortion movement is, right? They're naming things and then getting the media to use that language, right? Whether it's calling themselves the "pro-life" movement when all they're really focused on is making sure that you have the baby, but not talking about any other forms of support, right? You just saw them making huge cuts to SNAP and Medicaid and all of these other life-saving things. Things talking about "heartbeat bans" or any of these other things that are language that they get the media to use, that you have this evocative imagery that gets to, like you said, kind of like that emotion on their side in a way that is great. Devious is maybe not the right word, but a little bit, yeah. So that is just something that, you know, as you were talking, like that was what was going through my head, was just their use of language to kind of sway the conversation and pull it over to their side.

Garin: 25:18

Yeah, and I think that they are successful at... some of these things, some of it is about, frankly, things like message discipline, you know, like they're very good at that in ways that maybe we aren't always. But which I think, you know, we can go into details about that. But I also think that there is the failure of a vision being put forward, I think, on both sides to some degree. So, like, you know, they can say what they don't want, but, you know, they're not really being honest about what the reality that would follow that would be, right? And similarly, I don't think that the—I'll call it the pro-choice side, but the generally pro-abortion side, and I mean that in an expansive sense— has in a way failed to both settle on a goal and a long-term vision. And so I do think there are visions out there that we could fully embrace, like reproductive justice, but I think that that would require us to put forward different policies. So, the policies that Amy was talking about, these ballot initiatives that do have lines drawn, are not actually aligned with reproductive justice. They do not protect or allow bodily autonomy, things like that. And so, I think that we, you know, we do need to start offering people an expansive vision, but also start, when we're talking about these things, you know, we don't need to talk about, you know, if they're talking, if they're using this very graphic inflammatory language, our response doesn't need to be, that doesn't happen. Because obviously that's not true. What's true is that the question needs to be, how do you want the government to be involved in that? Right. And so that's, I think, where we need to focus is like, what do you want the government's role to be in this? It's OK if people are uncomfortable with these things. Right. I mean, if you described any medical procedure in graphic detail, people would be uncomfortable with it. But how do you want the government to interfere, to make laws, to criminalize people, to punish providers? Who do you want to go to jail for this? That's where I think our language needs to be, is really talking about what is the reality they're arguing for? What is the reality and the future that we're arguing for? And put those against each other and I think when we do that, and we offer people an expansive future and expansive vision, they choose that and, like, with the ballot measures, they're just people are voting for what they're given so like it's not that people wanted a line at drawn at viability but that's what they were given to vote on in 2024 in a lot of these states. And so, I think that, you know, I think we have a lot of work to do to sort of invest in this vision of the future, invest in a different role for the government in this. And I think we can do it.

Jennie: 28:08

Yeah, it makes me think when I was originally doing this work, you know, I still had all of that. You bathe in this like soup of like abortion stigma that is just like out in the world and you just like take so much of it on and some of it is a process of like making sure that you get rid of any of that internal stigma that you have picked up. And I talked about this when Erika and Garin were on the podcast before, but their amazing work that they did on social media talking about this and talking about why it was so important that we got rid of these gestational bans. led to me deciding that we needed to update our 50-state report card to not only measure up to 20 weeks, which is what we had done in the past. But when rePROs Fight Back took over that report card, we went all the way through like any gestational ban has to go. And I fully credit their work that they had done on social media, not targeted at me or pushing on me or anything, but just it was something that I started to see and think about. And I really credit them for that work that it helped me shape my thinking and change my not necessarily change my mind. It's not like I had like a problem with it, but decided we needed to update our report card. So it was more reflective of the reality of what the world looked like right now.

Amy: 29:27

I have a story in the storytelling vein, a story to piggyback on Garin's point there, which is when I interviewed Garin and Erika for this article, I told them about the fact that I had shared, you know, my project, what I was doing with certain members of my family. And they are pro-choice people. You know, they are blue voters here in the beautiful state of Massachusetts. And yet when I said, yeah, I was watching this abortion procedure happen at 28 weeks, and this is what it entailed. And it starts with an injection to stop the fetal heart. And then, and they were horrified that I was writing about this. And they felt a whole range of complicated feelings about the fact that abortions are happening at that stage of pregnancy. And when I related this to Erica, she made that point that Garin just made about, okay, then at what point in a pregnancy does this become a criminal matter? At what point do people need to, we need to consider prison time for this? And the answer that I got, right, when I put that to the, you know, one of the members of my family who had this strong reaction, she was like, of course, I don't want the government involved. Of course. And it was like her distrust of the government having any say in pregnancy outweighed whatever personal emotional feelings she had about the idea of this procedure. And so... I think I tried in the article to give people a little bit of an escape valve, you know, through that argument that I think people when they hear about an abortion taking place, when the fetus looks like a baby, you know, and when the fetus is moving around inside a patient's body, and you know, that brings up complicated feelings that frankly we have never accommodated in our political discourse, right? Like, a political ad doesn't tend to have room for that sort of nuance. And so the stories that tend to make it through are the ones of catastrophic tragedy and often a white person with a wanted pregnancy facing a horrible, you know, decision. And so, you know, people can grapple with and think through the nuance and that's what the storytelling is for. But it also, I think that framing around like, is this really a criminal matter, you know, gets to the heart of how complicated it is to think about the law colliding with the very complex and unpredictable science of pregnancy.

Jennie: 32:01

Yeah, I have to say, I was really shocked when we did the report card. The first time taking that on is how few states don't have a gestational ban, right? I think Amy had it in her piece. It was nine states in DC, or is that nine total, don't have a gestational ban. That is wild. And there are a lot of states where you assume have access that do have gestational bans. And I remember being surprised with that as well.

Garin: 32:29

Which I love, by the way. But I also just want to make a quick point about that, which is that in a way, what you're describing and what we've been talking about a little bit sometimes is an absence of even, like you said, Amy, accommodating people's complex feelings about this, but also we haven't just talked about it. There haven't been people loudly, vocally supporting it. You can look at maps on the New York Times or on other websites that track abortion laws, and they just pretend that abortion bans later in pregnancy aren't bans. And I think that if you think about that, if you think about the sort of pervasiveness of these lines drawn in the Roe decision or whatever, the absence of more diverse stories, it makes sense that people are uncomfortable with this because we've never tried to do anything different. And so now what's happening is that people are trying, people are doing it. You do have, it used to be a lot of the providers, you know, they were these like embattled providers. dudes who were like providing care and like being shot at and they were, you know, like whatever. And now they're just like normal, wonderful people working at these clinics and, and wanting to open more clinics and more people want it. Like people are going to partners to train. And I think part of it is that this care being brought into the light, especially by articles like this one that handle it so thoughtfully is super important to this bigger culture shift that has to happen where we do give the public the opportunity to decide how they feel about it. But we've never given them enough information to form an opinion, frankly. And so now what's happening is I think we're seeing a shift there and things like changing how we're tracking policies and describing that, how we're presenting stories about later abortion and featuring the providers and showing pictures of people. You know what I mean? Instead of just like these weird cut-off belly images or whatever. You know, it's like I do think a lot of that is changing. And so, I really appreciate both of your work for that and sort of our broader mission there.

Amy: 34:40

I've been doing a lot of deep dives into history for my book. And I think that this question is actually a perennial one in the abortion rights space, right? Dating back to the early seventies when abortions banned in the majority of states, you know, pre Roe v. Wade, right? And you have the question of whether anti-abortion bans in the states should be repealed or should they be reformed, right? Should they be reformed since that doctors still have some say over when someone should get an abortion And surely there must be some qualification on it. We can't just let anyone go get an abortion willy nilly for any reason. Right. And then you had, you know, I think of people like Pat McGinnis who were like, forget it. This just is an unequivocal right. Right. This is just this is, you know, autonomy. This is feminism 101. Come on. And so. I think that debate over how far can we go and what's politically feasible, but also can we really trust pregnant people to make the decision without some government involvement, that's played out in various forms for the entire time that abortion has been a constitutional right and even before, right? And I think that's what's so interesting about the question of later abortions is that it really gets to the root of of what are we talking about here? Do we trust people to make this decision? Or not, you know, and Shelley Sella, who wrote a book on later abortions, that's, that's very moving, that I cite in the piece, she, of course, was one of the few people in the country who provided openly provided abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy, you know, she talks about leaving it up to patients to determine whether a pregnancy is viable, right. And that level of trust and autonomy for pregnant people, it's very rare to find that in our political discourse, right? And I think one of the few places that that unconditional support for pregnant people exists is in clinics like Partners, right? Where actually they don't ask, why are you here? And why are you seeking this abortion at 28 weeks? They just say, you know, we trust, I mean, there's counseling, of course, they make sure that people are confident in their decision, but they're not saying, And as you point out, this is a rare thing, nine states and Washington, D.C., where there isn't some sort of limitation. And so I think that's partly why this is so contentious, because it really gets to the heart of the issue of how much do we allow pregnant people to make this decision on their own without mediation from a judge or a state legislator or a doctor.

Garin: 37:11

And if you think about that for a second, it's kind of bananas, right? Like, it's like... Are there other very complex decisions that we feel like are improved by involving the government? You know what I mean? Not many. So I think this is one of those situations where, yes, I think it is about how much do we trust patients? How much do we trust providers? But I think there is the other side of that, which is like, how much do we trust the government? And remember that the government changes, and we're not talking about lofty, super-educated judges making these decisions. We're talking about street-level bureaucrats making decisions about people and about the private medical care that they're going to get, etc., And I just really, I think when you talk to someone, most people, and you sort of drill down on that and you're like, no, no, I'm really talking about like that guy down the street who's like wearing a badge or whatever is going to be the one making the decision. How do you feel about that? Or this prosecutor? And people are like, well, I don't like that. So in that way, it's very simple. But I do think that part of the problem is that we have not given people another way to manage their complex feelings about this and that's true throughout our society like we don't have if you don't like something for the most part our government's like well we can either make it illegal or not and that's all we have and so i think there are other things we can do providers for instance like you know medical providers go through all types of licensing and stuff like that like i can't just go start providing these surgeries so we don't need special laws for abortion providers We just need the same laws that we apply to other medical procedures to apply to abortion providers, and that's probably it. And that's why a lot of those, when we are talking about repeal versus reform, I do really do think we need to be in a repeal mind space, as opposed to tinkering around the edges. And that's one of the big conversations happening in Massachusetts right now, where You know, since I think in 2019 or so, they they passed their Reproductive Health Act and like expanded care later in pregnancy with under exceptional circumstances. And then after Dobbs, they kind of like tweaked the language a little bit. But people are still having to leave Massachusetts for care. Like, you know, Massachusetts has incredible health care available there and people are still having to leave that state to access care and go to places like partners or these other providers. And that's partly because they failed to just absolutely repeal the ban. And so now they are putting forth a bill in this legislative session that will just repeal the ban. They're just like, look, we tried tinkering around it. We tried massaging the language. It didn't work. We're going to just fix it. And they're the first state to sort of openly say, we're going to repeal our viability ban that we had put in place because it's not working. And it's getting a lot of support.

Jennie: 40:09

So, what do we see as the path forward? So we talked about getting repeal and getting rid of some of these things. What are some other things you're thinking about as we build to this better future?

Garin: 40:23

I mean, I think that like when I imagine the future of what I want this care to be, it actually looks a lot like partners. It looks a lot like, you know, what... The detail in Amy's piece where she talks about how providers and patients interacted, how when patients were feeling emotional, there was space made for that. I know these providers. They're incredible people. And I think that is what I want for people when they need this care. It's really that simple. I want someone who doesn't ask why you're here and make judgments about it. I want them to be supported, whether they have complex feelings about the care they're about to receive or not. I want a provider that explains to them what's about to happen and answers their questions and treats them with dignity and respect. And I also, one thing I love about those people featured in that story, including Dr. McNicholas, Dr. Villavicencio, Dr. Horvath, Morgan Nuzzo, is that these are providers who are willing to stand in their values. They're willing to stand up and say, I am here to provide compassionate care for my patients and it is worth doing and it's good. So they're willing to be, to stand in front of the work that they do. And I think that that's the future that I want. And there are other clinics opening. I mean, I think there's been this like idea that people don't want to provide this care or that people don't, that it's somehow like this darkness over it. But I, you know, we see more, there's more later abortion providers than have ever existed in this country providing care. They're younger. They're increasingly people of color, queer people opening and owning clinics. There's a [Valley Abortion Group] (VAG) clinic that just opened in Albuquerque. They're wonderful. We were literally just there last week on our way back on a road trip. We stopped by and visited. And I think that those are the kinds of things that we want to see is we want to see states that say, we will not get involved here. We're going to let providers and patients figure it out. And the thing is, like, all of these people are moral decision makers. Patients will navigate the moral complexity of this care. Providers will navigate it. The nurses, the office staff, the people working at abortion clinics, at abortion funds, practical support organizations, all of these people are doing that. They're showing up because they have wrestled with these things and they've come out to where they are. And I think that that's the future that I want to see is where we make space for that. We allow that to happen. And then we kind of keep it moving. Let's fix some other stuff.

Amy: 43:02

Yeah. Jennie, I would love to answer your question by sharing some of the stories from my piece because I'm not a policy person. But I'll tell you, when I went down to the clinic to visit, I assumed that I was probably going to get... in touch with, that if any patients there, if I was fortunate that any of them wanted to talk with me and share their stories, that it was probably going to be someone with a fatal fetal anomaly or someone from a banned state who had been forced by the laws in her home state to seek an abortion later in pregnancy, right? And that's because I know the statistics around who seeks later abortions, and I know that tends to be people who receive new information, like a devastating fetal diagnosis, or people who get pushed further into pregnancy by anti-abortion laws, right? And so, when I showed up there, I was hoping someone would talk to me, and I assumed it would be someone in those categories. Instead, the person who wound up being the most open with me, who allowed me to accompany her through every step of her procedure, to be there in the room when she went through each step and who shared her story and her reasons with me, was somebody who is statistically not typical. It was somebody who lived in the state of Maryland. And so, Medicaid covered her abortion. So, she was not someone who was having to raise the thousands of dollars that an abortion later in pregnancy typically costs, right? She was someone whose main barrier had been her own ambivalence. She didn't know what she wanted to do. And she took a lot of time to make her choice. Her name was Ayanna. She was a mom of three. She had a one-year-old and she worked at a school for kids with autism and then on the weekends answered phones at a pizza place. Her partner worked for a moving company. And her kids, you know, her daughter in particular, who's five years old, noticed that she was struggling at home. Her daughter was trying to pitch in and change her baby brother's diapers. And her daughter chided her and said, we don't need any more babies. When she saw that her belly was growing, she said, we don't need any more babies. And Ayanna told me she had been waiting for a sign. You know, as the weeks went by, she had really been agonizing over the decision and waiting for a sign. And in the end, the sign was her three kids. And once she made her decision, she radiated the sense of calm. Like, it was just so the entire experience, she knew what she wanted. She was firm. She was one of the most sort of tranquil people I've ever reported on. And I know from talking with doctors in states like Florida and and Texas where people have been forced to live under six week abortion bans. I mean, Texas now has a total ban that when people are rushed to make a decision, they can end up regretting it, right? It's because they feel like the right is gonna get taken away, they rush, they make a decision, they have the abortion. People sometimes need that time. And so, statistically, there isn't a huge- this is not a major reason why people seek abortions later in pregnancy. Statistically, the decision, it tends not to be. It tends to be more likely be the other factors I talked about. But this was the person in front of me. And this was the story that I had to tell. And she was such a gift because she was willing to share it with me. So I think to the extent that people can connect with her, can identify with, you know, I'm a mom myself, I could really identify. And I was pregnant while I was there. And I was a little worried, like, is the fact that I'm pregnant going to make me feel weird about being around these people who are terminating their pregnancies? And instead, I felt like, no, I can connect with her even more. Cause I've got a five-year-old and boy, do I realize how, you know, the wild things that they say. And also the fact that I would do anything in the entire world to give them a good life, you know? And so meeting these women who really were motivated by the love for the kids that they had, that really touched me. And I felt like, you know, as I was waddling my like nauseous self around this clinic, you know, remembering what a toll pregnancy takes on, on the body, I was thinking, you know, that there really is more that connects us. I love that quote about how the person seeking an abortion and the person having a baby, it's the same person at different points in their lives. And so I really felt that when I was there. And I really hope that people can connect with Ayanna and can understand the complexity of her story and open their hearts and minds to anyone who you know, who might wind up in this position, not just the person with, you know, it's interesting, one of the advocates I talked to for the piece, I was like, you know, the person who I'm featuring, you know, most closely in the piece is someone who, who just needed a lot of time to make her decision. And it was, you know, a quote, unquote, "elective abortion," right? She didn't have a terrible fetal malformation or maternal health indication, or it hadn't taken her time to raise the money because her insurance covered it. And the advocate said, good. I was like, why is that good? Wouldn't it be better if I had, you know, like some tragic story to tell where it'd be really clear to the reader that this was needed? And she was like, no, because that's, you know, that's always been the decision dating back to, you know, in the partial -birth, so-called "partial- birth" abortion debate. It was the people who had, you know, tragic circumstances with wanted pregnancies who were selected to sort of have some semblance of making this an acceptable procedure for the public. And I think telling the true story involves allowing in more complexity and being honest about the nuances and the real complicated lives of the people involved.

Jennie: 48:49

I agree. I was really touched by both of the stories and the stories in Dr. Seidel's book as well. Those were just really stuck with me and found them all just so moving. And again, the power of stories and the more stories you tell, the more you can show the experience in its full breadth. If you're only going to tell a story, then it's easier to fall into that trap of telling the most tragic one that you can find to try to move hearts and minds. But if you're telling multiple stories, you are able to capture that full experience in a way that I think people are able to connect with and see themselves with and in many different places.

Garin: 49:30

And I want to say one thing about that, because, you know, our story, my family's story is one of those, you know, we got a poor fetal diagnosis, we sought care for those reasons. And we did, as we told our story, in efforts to sort of change the law in New York and things like that, we started to see the master narrative in a way that we were reinforcing and how harmful it was to other people who needed care. And so I think what we realized is that we and other people in the reproductive rights space need to hold ourselves accountable to that. How do we make a safe place for people who sought care for other reasons to tell their story? How do we make it safer? How do we make it more welcoming? And I think that when you look at Democrats or mainstream reproductive rights organizations, if they're pretending this care doesn't happen or pretending it only happens in these very specific circumstances, they're actually silencing the these other stories. They're making it less safe for those people to tell their stories. They're making it less welcoming. And I think that that has done a real harm. And it's kind of like a reinforcing, you know, it's like a feedback loop. So, the reason why a lot of Americans are confused about why people seek this care later in pregnancy is because of these stories that we keep telling them. And we have to expand those stories. And there are groups that have done a lot of work to do that, We Testify, etc., but I think that there is just this absence of those stories. And I'm so glad that the stories that you featured in this article weren't those stories in that way. And then the other person in there, Scarlett, I think is the name that you used, who came from California. I loved that we were showing that someone flew across this huge country to get care because that's what she had to do to get that care.

Amy: 51:23

So, Scarlett was a patient I profiled in the story who had traveled from a state that didn't have any clinics that offered care as late as she needed it. I don't name the state where she's from in the piece, but she had found out she was pregnant at 16 weeks, and she was one of the people who had to raise $12,000 because that was how much she needed for the abortion. And then there's another unnamed patient in the piece who did come from California, and I think many people would be surprised to learn that California which we probably think of as one of the bluest states in the country, if not the bluest, was not able to see this person. And she had to make her own journey to fly to Maryland. And by the time she got there, she was past partner's limit. And it seemed unlikely that she was going to be able to get care, you know, because of where she was gestationally at that point. And so, so yeah, it goes to show you this impacts people, even in blue states, like Massachusetts, where I'm sitting.

Jennie: 52:21

Okay, being conscious of everybody's time. Let's let's get to the end. I always like to focus on how can our audience get involved? Like what can our audience do to help in this moment? Let's go to Amy first.

Amy: 52:36

I mean, I would let people know that there are abortion funds and places that support people later in pregnancy. In particular, there's places like the Brigid Alliance. Most abortion funds are also working to help people later in pregnancy who might need to travel. And so, I would check out the places in your area that you might be interested in donating to or volunteering for if you want to help people who are, you know, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, I've been hearing from a lot of advocates is like there was this huge surge in rage donations in 2022. And this huge amount of money that went into like helping people travel and get access to the care they needed. And that's one of the reasons why the number of abortions rose after the Dobbs decision, which I just think is such a testament to the strength of the, you know, abortion access support networks that we have, and also to the level of public outrage that really filled those coffers and made it so that people could get, in addition to the shifting landscape around medication abortion, which is a huge factor, I think that helped. But I think those donations have begun to dry up as people's attention has fractalized in a million different directions because the Trump administration has done that to us. So, I would check out what's going on in your local area to see what abortion funds might be operating and might need your support.

Garin: 54:07

Yeah, and I would say, I mean, I think we need to invite people to just loudly reject abortion bans, all of them, like people are doing in Massachusetts. And I think everyday people who are being asked to sign on to a campaign or support something or legislators or advocates can just start really asking these really simple questions of like, does this allow a ban on abortion at any point in pregnancy? Does this give the government any control over pregnancy decisions? Like we just have to start asking better questions of the things we're being asked to support. and really ultimately demand a kind of true reproductive justice framework. And we have a tool that people can use to analyze policy called Unpunish Pregnancy. It's at unpunishpregnancy.com. But I think that or other tools or other things, and if people have criticisms of a policy that seems good, let's start just having a more complex conversation about that and push for a really, truly expansive framework. And I think we'll ultimately be in a better place when we rebuild whatever's following this shitshow of an administration.

Jennie: 55:18

I think the only thing I would add is my usual things I like to flag around abortion funds. If you are able and would like to donate to abortion funds, it really means a lot to them if you are able to do monthly, even if it's only a couple dollars, because then they know they're getting that couple dollars every month. And that helps them with budgeting when they're thinking through what they can disperse each month. So that makes a huge difference. And if you're on social media, make sure you are following your local abortion fund or other abortion fund you would like to support often. You'll see if they get somebody who needs to travel far or have an abortion later in pregnancy, that is really expensive. You'll see special call outs on social media of, hey, we have this patient and we have, it's $10,000 and we need to raise it. I know I have contributed to things like that. And so I think those are just a couple of things to, if you want to really help in this moment, make a huge difference. Okay, Amy, Garin, thank you so much for being here today. I had such a wonderful time talking to the two of you.

Garin: 56:20

Thank you so much. It was great.

Amy: 56:21

Thanks, Jennie. Always great to be with you.

Garin: 56:24

And thanks for writing this article.

Amy: 56:25

And thank you for letting me interview you and draw on your expert knowledge multiple times.

Jennie: 56:32

Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Garin and Amy. I had such a great time talking to them. And I am so excited for Amy's book when it comes out. And I am excited for our next episode in our series on abortion later in pregnancy that will come out in August. And otherwise, I will see everybody next week. [music outro] If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at Jennie, J-E-N-N-I-E, at reprosfightback.com. Or you can find us on social media. We're at rePROs Fight Back on Facebook and Twitter, or @repros fb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. And if you have any questions, or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all.