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Self-Managed Medication Abortion: Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It
167 Plays21 days ago
For as long as people have been getting pregnant, they’ve also been figuring out how to get un-pregnant. A self-managed abortion (SMA) is when a person ends their pregnancy outside of the formal medical system. Most often, self-managed abortions are done as “medication abortions” — abortions induced by medication. In this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we talk about self-managed medication abortions done with a combination of the drugs misoprostol and mifepristone. Guests Jane and Hazel are both abortion doulas (also known as abortion companions) with extensive experience supporting people completing self-managed medication abortions. Jane, based in Appalachia, works with the Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective (MAADCO). Hazel, based in the Rust Belt, is a former abortion clinic worker, and wrote the zine “how to do it anyway: a guide to self-managing an abortion at home” after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. We discuss the history of reproductive justice, how self-managed abortion is often stigmatized and why that can be harmful, and the actual step-by-step details of what a medication abortion entails (how to measure pregnancy, which pills to take when, how it might feel physically in the body, what to look out for to determine if an abortion has been completed, pain management, and some of the ways that people sometimes emotionally or culturally process an abortion), among other topics.
There are many resources on self-managed medication abortion available. Here are just a few, mentioned in today’s show:
-“how to do it anyway: a guide to self-managing an abortion at home” (https://www.tangledwilderness.org/shop/p/how-to-do-it-anyway)
-National Network of Abortion Funds (https://abortionfunds.org/) — connects people to local abortion funds for financial aid, and to resources that provide practical support (childcare, rides to clinics, etc.)
-Abortion Finder (https://www.abortionfinder.org/) — finds verified abortion clinics
-Plan C Pills (https://www.plancpills.org/about) — educational website w resources on how to source abortion pills, how to dose them, what to look out for
-Aid Access (https://aidaccess.org/en/) — provides access to medication abortion via mail
-RX List (RXlist.com) — searchable database that provides information about general drug interactions
-Miscarriage & abortion hotline (https://mahotline.org/) — text hotline for medical advice, particularly if you are self-managing an abortion
-The Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective (MAADCO) (https://mtnabortiondoula.co/)
-Holler Health Justice (https://www.hollerhealthjustice.org/)
-The Yellow Hammer Fund (https://abortionfunds.org/fund/yellowhammer-fund/)
-“The Janes” (https://www.hbo.com/movies/the-janes) — HBO documentary on the Jane Collective (1960s/70s underground network of abortion providers)
-“Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff” podcast episode about the Jane Collective (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-cool-people-who-did-cool-96003360/episode/part-one-the-jane-collective-direct-96629898/)
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Transcript
Introduction to The Beautiful Idea
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello. You're listening to The Beautiful Idea, a podcast from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We're bringing you interviews and stories from the front lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis.
00:00:25
Speaker
Follow us on Mastodon and at thebeautifulidea.show. Thanks for listening.
00:00:43
Speaker
Hello, and
Concerns Post-Trump Inauguration
00:00:44
Speaker
thanks for listening to The Beautiful Idea. With Trump's in inauguration, concerns around access to abortion and miscarriage care are increasing, and lots of communities are working to make access to abortion, including self-managed abortion, more feasible.
00:00:59
Speaker
Today, I'm going to be talking with two people, Jane and Hazel, who know a lot about self-managed abortion and the different ways that people are working together to make it more accessible for people who need it.
00:01:10
Speaker
So to kick us off, can you both please introduce yourselves for our listeners? Hey, so
Introducing Jane and Hazel
00:01:16
Speaker
my name is Jane. I use their she pronouns. And I am an abortion companion or doula working in Western North Carolina and more broadly in Appalachia. And work alongside several different crews of people and also as an individual, but i i work in support the Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective.
00:01:39
Speaker
Hi there, my name is Hazel. I use they them pronouns. I am an abortion doula and a former clinic worker living in the Rust Belt and in a red state. I am also the author of a zine called How to Do It Anyway, which is a guide to self-managing an abortion at home.
00:01:56
Speaker
And that was released through Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness last year. Okay, thanks to both of you for being here. And we're going to talk more about that zine in just a little bit. Can you tell us
What is Reproductive Justice?
00:02:07
Speaker
what is reproductive justice and what kind of experience do you both have working on it? Like, how would you define it?
00:02:13
Speaker
And Jane, maybe you can start on that. Yeah, sure. So I think it's really important to ground in the in the knowledge that reproductive justice is a framework that was specifically invented and continues to be led by and like primarily used by Black women and non-binary people. it was invented in Cairo in the 90s, I think, like a specific summit, a specific term was coined then So specifically, like, there's there's a lot of like conceptual elements to the idea of RJ, but ah like a really important piece of that, of but the idea of reproductive justice is like people should be free to choose to have children or not children and live in a world where it is safe to parent the children.
Linking Reproductive Justice and Abolition Work
00:03:03
Speaker
they already have along with like decolonizing the concept of sex and pleasure but I think it's really critical that like as a as a white person myself I don't like specifically identify as like okay I do reproductive justice justice work like I support and I flank the work of folks doing reproductive justice work and I approach my own abortion support work through a reproductive justice lens but that like that work belongs to and is the the provenance of like black and brown folks of color and specifically like addresses institutional racism within the more liberal like abortion rights movement i guess addressing that how i've done that work you know i think a lot specifically magco is like an or as an organization really strives to like center the ideas and leadership and
00:03:52
Speaker
of black folks and center like also the needs of like black folks in our communities you know and that's like an ongoing process and that's something i'm saying like we're great at or we've completed that process yet but i think a lot of the work also means recognizing the intersections between reproductive justice and like other forms of abolition work like for example the jail in ashville is like one of the most terrible jails in the entire state. And we were just doing some work supporting somebody who was in the jail and was pregnant and was like forced to give birth in jail.
Pro-Choice Movement Limitations
00:04:29
Speaker
So kind of organizing our principles of reproductive freedom and autonomy around the idea that like anybody like should be able to author these decisions for themselves and like all forms of state violence and state control like interfere with that decision making, that makes sense.
00:04:47
Speaker
Totally. And thanks for that rundown. Could you say the name of that organization that you mentioned again? The Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective. Okay, great. Thanks. Hazel, did you have anything to add to that definition? Yeah, I really appreciated all of what you had to say, Jane. And I think my one addition is just that reproductive justice is often trying to address the sort of inadequacies like a pro-choice framework from the more mainstream, like pro-choice abortion rights movement.
00:05:19
Speaker
And that specifically, a lot of that movement has often focused on like the right to have an abortion in in ways that kind of leave behind more marginalized, oppressed people, poor folks, poor women, people of color, Black women especially. And it was specifically an intervention, right, trying to say that, like, choice isn't enough. We have to have access. It is, like, one thing to have a theoretical right from the government to be able to end an unwanted pregnancy. But how do we
00:05:50
Speaker
How do we actually, you know, like one isn't actually free to choose unless they are able to afford that abortion or they're able to get transportation there or they're able to have child
Self-Managed vs. Procedural Abortions
00:06:01
Speaker
care. And so reproductive justice is often thinking like much more in like a systemic way and sort of foregrounding access.
00:06:09
Speaker
And again, to Jane's point, like, again, I as a white person, I don't want to... This is not territory that I think that Jane just said it really well. Like, I strive to be in support of reproductive justice and I operate from a reproductive justice lens. But like also with with the really strong like knowledge and deference and honor towards like the black women who have built this work before us.
00:06:35
Speaker
Cool. I think that's a really helpful overview. So getting right into it, what is self-managed or medication abortion for people who don't know? And how is it different from what's known as procedural or surgical abortions?
00:06:50
Speaker
So typically, when we think of accessing abortion, people will think about going to a clinic and either if look at a procedural abortion, which is where a clinical practitioner, often a doctor, is kind of using gentle suction to empty the contents of the uterus. People might have some kind of sedation while they do this. Or or people are like thinking about going to a clinic to get some pills, and then they take the pills at home and are basically inducing a miscarriage.
00:07:19
Speaker
causing the uterus to bleed and to cramp um and to pass the pregnancy with the use of the medication. and
Safety of Medication Abortions
00:07:25
Speaker
self-managed abortion is kind of all of the abortion that happens outside of clinics, where like instead of having ah doctor there to manage the abortion, like you are the one who is taking that on. Self-managed abortion can look a lot of different ways.
00:07:40
Speaker
The zine that I wrote is specifically addressing and giving some instructions and support for people who are choosing to access pills and medication abortion outside of clinics.
00:07:51
Speaker
There is a lot of other legacy and current practice of other kinds of abortion happening outside of clinic spaces. There are anecdotal on pretty underground networks of trained non-medical lay people who are able to provide a procedural abortion underground, herbal abortion as well.
00:08:15
Speaker
But I think the thing that is really special and exciting about self-managing an abortion with medication is that we know that medication is super, super safe to take. And these like big international public health organizations in the past couple of years, such as the World Health Organization, have started to come out and explicitly advocate that people should be able to access pills and take them without having to go to a doctor's office, without having to go to a clinic.
00:08:40
Speaker
That the procedure is simple enough and safe enough that we should be able to do it ourselves. We should be able to do it anyway. Yeah, thank you. And I think you you already kind of spoke to this a little bit, Hazel, but Jane, I'm wondering if maybe you would you would like to add to it.
00:08:56
Speaker
I was going to ask about the history of self-managed abortions, if you all know anything about that. And you're talking about access to medication, but I'm wondering if there's other information about the history
History and Criminalization of Abortion
00:09:08
Speaker
of self-managed abortions.
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's fascinating. There's certainly historians that would know much more about this than I do, but there's an alternate to be like too nerdy or long-winded. I mean, I think an important thing to note is that before the development of like the contemporary medical industrial complex, the primacy of midwives and midwifery across the globe, really. But like speaking specifically to like the Western context that Hazel and I are both situated in was like how so many people accessed generative or reproductive health care in general. And it's also really interesting and important to note that there weren't even from like institutional and oppressive like
00:09:57
Speaker
churches and even from like the Catholic church, there weren't actual like edicts against abortion until I believe like the second half of the 19th century. And so really when we see that the advent of like criminalization of abortion also kind of corresponds to the development of the medical industrial complex and to the development of this reality where was really...
Latin American Feminist Practices
00:10:19
Speaker
became only accessible under certain circumstances for certain people to get an abortion from a doctor, probably if you had access to wealth and were white, cis and straight. But also that, like, I think it also corresponds to the, the like, really cool coercive, like, criminalization of midwives and the loss of some of that that knowledge. But, you know, there's, like, interesting, and won't go into too many anecdotes, but even, like, thinking in, like,
00:10:46
Speaker
You know, that there's there's interesting, like, catalogs that you can sometimes find from, like, the 18th century or something of people, like, buying, like... hence pansy and some different herbs that were like sold as little packages that people would take.
00:11:04
Speaker
And I know specifically with our contemporary practice of using medication was really developed by various feminist movements in Latin America. um and I'm not sure, maybe Hazel can speak more to the specific history of that, but developed from a lot of like interesting experimentation with mesoprostol, which is a medication I'm sure we'll talk about later.
00:11:24
Speaker
and people basically figuring out like, okay, this medication is actually also prescribed for ulcers and some other ailments. So it's more accessible and how can we, how can we use it to induce a miscarriage? And so want to like honor the the folks that, that did that, like really incredible and I'm sure incredibly difficult and painful work to discover those things. So yeah.
00:11:51
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah. Hazel, do you have anything to add to that, especially to the piece around the the beginning of of medication abortion or originating? i think it was in Brazil. No.
00:12:02
Speaker
By people there. Yeah. um I've heard of Brazil. I've heard Mexico. I think like This is all oral history, right? But I think that really speaks to, like, this reality that most of the abortion infrastructure that we have, like, exist, even if, like, you go to a clinic right now, comes from people trying to figure out how to give themselves abortions before Rubey Wade in in America.
00:12:32
Speaker
or in other kind um other contexts where abortion was criminalized. So like what Jane said of like feminists in Latin America experimenting with misoprostol, the implements used in a procedural abortion were developed in a sort of DIY, they called it self-help at the time, abortion clinic in Santa Monica in the late 1960s.
00:12:56
Speaker
And like the sort of abortion counseling and like full patient health care for abortion was really pioneered by the Jane Collective in Chicago in the 1960s.
00:13:10
Speaker
That was like an underground network of direct action abortion providers. who were kicking ass and doing like clinic levels of abortions and also had like a very robust counseling and emotional support and child care network.
00:13:26
Speaker
The Jains are really cool. You should, you know, you should make your own decisions, but I would recommend and going to and doing some research about them and looking into that history. Great. And isn't there like a pretty good documentary about them that was on Netflix, at least for a while called the Jane Collective or something?
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, the one that I watched and I'm remembering, I think it was on HBO, but it was just sort of like was interviews with former Janes just sort of talking about their experience and telling the story. Yeah.
00:13:55
Speaker
So that's a good resource. There's endless zines. There's a good podcast from cool people who did cool stuff about that history as well. So wondering what sorts of community support networks exist.
00:14:08
Speaker
around self-managed abortions and how those networks have
Decentralized Abortion Networks
00:14:13
Speaker
historically come to be. And I know that's a really broad question because of course it's place specific, but what are some of the ways that you all have seen different communities come together to help provide self-managed abortions to the people in their communities who need them?
00:14:29
Speaker
And you can take that wherever wherever you'd like to Let's start with you, Jane. Yeah, I actually got to meet one of the Janes from the Jane Collective a couple of years ago, which was such a giddy moment.
00:14:42
Speaker
But thinking about and honoring their work and like their specific, like, really, i think, astute use of of whisper networks and like gossip networks and also like helpful like mechanisms around security culture like I know they would have they would like have a different place where they're sort of like front desk interior was and take people to another place I think is a really helpful model but I also want to take us back to something he's all said earlier when they were talking about the lineage of reproductive justice and recognizing that you know
00:15:19
Speaker
there is no like rights are meaningless without access. And I think in the reality of where I've done all the abortion support work I've ever done in the U S Southeast, like the reality for so many people in particularly black women and like Latina folks, but for everyone is that like abortion has not been accessible in a legal clinical setting for so many people for so long. And so these networks have,
00:15:45
Speaker
already existed. People have been already been doing this relational work to build trust in their communities and to disseminate information. i mean, there's so many different practices that I think are like culturally specific to folks.
00:15:58
Speaker
And I know in my own like comprehension, you know a lot of what it looks like is people like relying on these decentralized webs because that both keeps us safe, it protects our identities, and and allows us to be more flexible in how we meet.
00:16:15
Speaker
me And I think though that so shifting the framework from self-managed abortion to like community-supported abortion or community-managed abortion is really helpful, both in our understanding of the work, but also I think it's something that can actually fuel a little bit less like terrifying to people at an individual level when you talk about SMA I think maybe a lot of people like already feel so isolated in their experiences and feel so fucking shamed you know and i think that like taking abortion out of the soul space of this like super atomized individualistic experience to like
00:16:55
Speaker
a network of care and friendship. Another thing that the the Janes and others did in the 70s is they formed friendship circles where they would like learn about different abortion practices together with circles of folks.
00:17:09
Speaker
So bringing it back into that collective realm is important. And I've seen things that are like really as simple and basic as people delivering like care packages to folks to like more complex counseling of folks to offering a a lot of like transportation needs are huge.
00:17:25
Speaker
Because even as we're talking about abortions outside of clinics, like a ah lot of people are still needing to go to clinics, even if to to to just access all ultrasounds. And so providing that kind of transportation assistance has been really big from what I've seen. and
Grassroots Abortion Support
00:17:42
Speaker
then of course, like providing ways for folks to safely access the medication or other other mechanisms is something I've seen.
00:17:51
Speaker
Thanks for that. I'm wondering if we can define or maybe help outline what are the kind of political implications of grassroots abortion support versus state quote unquote state provided or nonprofit or, or medical industrial abortion support.
00:18:11
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i think like, Abortion clinics do good work and it is like important to support them. And there are like a lot of reasons why people would still want to, you know, even if you have to drive a couple of hours and it takes ah a long time, like there's still plenty of really valid reasons that people would want to seek an abortion in a clinic, you know?
00:18:34
Speaker
And so I think that it is important to, you know, kind of like Jane was talking about earlier to, to, to find ways to like, you know, we want to access, increase access to abortion in general. you know, and not just this stuff. But there, you know, there's also that isn't what everybody's life looks like. You know, not everybody can drive several hours or, you know,
00:18:55
Speaker
not everybody has childcare for that big amount of time. And I think like some key, differences that come up for me when I'm thinking about like at least my work, the abortion clinic here and, you know, thinking more about like self-managed and community supported abortion networks are mostly like that. It is super fucking expensive to go to a clinic, especially if you live in a state where,
00:19:25
Speaker
that requires two appointments. In the state where I live, there's a 24-hour mandated waiting period to because the state wants to make sure that you like really know what your decision is or whatever. but like having those two separate appointments, having to take work off for the two days, having to take work off for the week afterwards to recover.
00:19:46
Speaker
And access to sedation is really important. like It is really important for people to have the pain management that they need and Also, that stuff is really expensive. And so felt like one of the really big advantages of self-managed abortion is that it is significantly cheaper to order medication online.
00:20:05
Speaker
I think like, you know, if we're thinking about sort of the political implications, right?
Empowerment Through Community Support
00:20:10
Speaker
Healthcare in a clinic setting, medical industrial complex sort of in general is really kind of based on this hierarchy of expertise, right? You have a doctor at the top.
00:20:22
Speaker
And like, that's, that's the person who provides the abortion. And then there's sort of this descending network of registered nurses, you know, medical assistants, non-medical people who all have like very restricted and regimented roles and are all, you know, sort of looking up the hierarchy. Hmm.
00:20:39
Speaker
And I think that one of the real gifts of like community supported abortion and Jane was sort of touching on this earlier again, right. Is that we get to kind of step outside of that hierarchy of expertise. We get to, you know, take back the Janes were also all about this of like taking, taking back autonomy and control over your healthcare care experience, you know, and also like building skills and learning about things and feeling more empowered because like,
00:21:06
Speaker
You get to be the one who is deciding if your abortion is complete or not. And I think, I definitely think that there is time and a place for a medical hierarchy.
00:21:18
Speaker
You know, I'm someone who's had cancer before, and I definitely benefited from, like, very skilled surgeons in that in that context. Mm-hmm. And I also think that our community is benefited when we all have more skills, right? You don't have to like know how to perform a surgical abortion, but can you learn how dose pills or can you get really good at helping someone make a decision, you know, after they found out that they're pregnant and figuring out what they're going to do?
00:21:45
Speaker
Or can you provide someone some emotional support or some, you know, accompaniment as they're moving through some really big stuff and really intense body stuff? You know, like, how do we, how can we use this as an opportunity to build skills and build capacity, build trust with each other? Those are sort sort of the big things that I'm thinking about, but I'm wondering, Jane, if you have anything else to say. Yeah, that was so beautifully put. I love, I love that recognition of, like, why it feels good to, like,
00:22:12
Speaker
invert or untangle the medical hierarchy as somebody who does work in healthcare care myself. But yeah I think the one or the two quick things I would add, one, like a very tangible and is I think another political implication of accessing not just abortion, but any kind of miscarriage management or any kind of generative reproductive healthcare inside of a hospital or clinic setting is that it places vulnerable people to much higher risk of state repression. i know that there have been incidents where nurses or doctors or other institutional figures like unfriendly to abortion have reported people who they like suspected of self-managing or have variously like criminalized people. um And also there's like a lot of hospitals that
00:23:06
Speaker
engage with law enforcement and some even engage with ICE. And so just thinking about like that setting in particular as one that's like very much entangled with like these different forms of like control societies that we're trying to liberate ourselves from.
00:23:21
Speaker
And another like kind of more woo or subtle thing, but something that I've been thinking about a lot differently is the difference between pain and suffering. And I think, you know, the reality is that like abortion for most people is very painful, but I think suffering is really exacerbated when people feel alone, when they feel that they don't have networks of support to cushion them and when they feel a sense of total loss of control. And that's not to say that that can't happen outside of the clinic setting, but I think that there's like because of the reality of how overworked mass clinic workers are, even if their intentions are great, like a lot of people like don't enter those spaces emotionally feeling that like richness of care that I would hope folks doing community supported abortion work could
Stigmatizing Language and Information Empowerment
00:24:09
Speaker
provide. So that's just another thought.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you both. Those are really thorough and thoughtful answers. So why do you all think it's important to move away from language that stigmatizes self-management?
00:24:21
Speaker
And I think it would be helpful to maybe give some examples of that kind of language because it's so baked into a lot of the culture. Yeah, I mean, to give some examples, right, like, coat hanger imagery is pretty common in, like, abortion abortion rights, abortion access movements.
00:24:40
Speaker
And I don't want to be too graphic here, but, you know, sort of evoking the... Like, urban myth, urban legend that, like, one could induce an abortion with a coat hanger. You know, statements like abortion should be safe, legal, and rare are kind of, like, conflating abortion safety with abortion legality and especially conflating that with clinics, as well as also having this extra dig that like, maybe people shouldn't, shouldn't be like, you should only be getting an abortion if it's like super desperate and you're like the most deserting person, which is, which is silly. Your reason for having an abortion is good enough.
00:25:16
Speaker
And so i think for me, right, like, Moving away from language that's stigmatizing towards self-management. Again, I think it's important to protect legality and also to like fight for decriminalization of self-management. We know that criminalization does force people underground and can force people into situations that are exploitative, you know as well as opening people up for further state repression. And also, we know a lot about managing an abortion with medication. We know a lot about these drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol.
00:25:50
Speaker
We know from experiments and from clinical data that these drugs are super safe and it's relatively easy to explain how to use them and that people are perfectly capable of, you know, knowing how far along in their own pregnancy that they are.
00:26:04
Speaker
People are very capable of determining whether or not the medication was effective. And it is most important to make sure that people know that they have options, right? Because more options, more safe options, more accessible options,
00:26:16
Speaker
That's how we care for each other. That's how we keep each other safe. And that's how we keep ourselves out of situations of desperation and move into empowerment. Yeah, super resonate with everything you said, Hazel. And I think just the only thing I'd really add is self-managed abortion or community supported abortion is important because any any right the state can give, the state can take away. And so...
00:26:42
Speaker
it it is like both like by so many folks like emotional psychic economic geographic preference that they would have out of clinic abortions but it's also it also is a political reality and as hazel said i think the catastrophizing around ah abortion as this like incredibly unsafe or like a damaging procedure like represents a win of like the overturn window and the like on the narratives of the far right when reality abortion itself is 14 times safer than birth you know and i yeah i think in general spreading information about the fact that if for people who are comforted by
00:27:31
Speaker
cross-sectional empirical studies that the World Health Organization has studied SMA has like found how capable people are of autonomously supporting themselves. um But yeah, I think, I think it mostly feels really important because we can't rely on the state to protect our autonomy ever.
00:27:50
Speaker
And so we need to find ways to protect ourselves. Thanks. So with all that context, I'd like to talk some about this zine that Hazel mentioned, that Hazel authored, called How to Do It Anyway, which was written in June of 2022 in the wake of Roe v. Wade,
Guidance on Self-Managed Abortions
00:28:11
Speaker
of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which is a pretty comprehensive overview of the self-managed abortion process.
00:28:18
Speaker
And that includes the process of making the decision about whether or not you want to do it, getting ready, what to expect after taking the pills, how to take care of your emotions, safety planning, and how to move forward after and abortion. And zine is specifically for self-managing ah medication abortion with, and I'm totally going to mispronounce these, so please correct me, but mifepristone and or misoprostol.
00:28:46
Speaker
through the end of the 12th week of pregnancy. Did I pronounce those correctly? Yes, it was great. Okay, great. We also often call them miffy and miso, if that's easier for you to handle.
00:28:58
Speaker
Oh, that's definitely way easier for me to handle. Thank you. um Miffy and miso. So- so Hazel, before we get into those specific elements, can you talk a little bit about why you decided to create this resource and why it feels so relevant now? And I'm i'm wondering how you're seeing abortion providers responding or preparing for this new Trump presidency and how...
00:29:22
Speaker
this might be impacting self-managed abortions. And i really, more than anything, like are there some notable differences between this moment and June of 2022, right after Roe v Wade was overturned?
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah. So I was in the clinic the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned. And by the time that we left at 5 the state Supreme Court had already ruled yeah a that a heartbeat was law that had been passed a couple of years earlier would now be enforceable.
00:29:53
Speaker
And so basically, like, we had to cancel all of our patients for the next day because we weren't able to legally provide their abortions anymore. And at the time, i was working in the post-op recovery room. i was, like, taking people's blood pressures and kind of giving them the information that they needed on how to take care of themselves.
00:30:16
Speaker
Afterwards, And I was really like, I was also learning more about self-management at this time and was like, it would be really nice to have like, cause I would give all my patients this like, you know, a little pamphlet with all the written down instruction. I was like, I want one of these that I can give to people.
00:30:33
Speaker
who are taking pills themselves outside of the clinic. And i had also previously worked in counseling at that clinic. And so had a lot of experience sort of like navigating people who were uncertain and giving them resources and just kind of holding space for people's big emotions around their abortions, right?
00:30:52
Speaker
Because people do have a lot of, ah people have a lot of emotions, right? And very little of them have to do with like the morality, mostly like abortion or like, you know, having an unexpected pregnancy and making the decision to have an abortion really brings up oftentimes not for everybody, but has the potential to really bring up big feelings about yourself, your relationship with your partner, your relationship with the family that you have right now or the family that you want to have in the future.
00:31:22
Speaker
you know, your career dreams for yourself, it just often like really prompts this this sort of big, really intense feelings for a lot of folks. And again, not everybody. I certainly also had a lot of patients who were like pretty fine and chill about it. You know, this is, I think there is often this narrative that like abortion is really big and scary and people are, you know,
00:31:45
Speaker
the The right, the anti-choice activists love to say that, like, ah people get really depressed after their abortions. And again, the evidence shows us that we know that's not true. But I think it is important to uplift that, like, people's emotional journeys through their abortions are all really different and varied.
00:32:02
Speaker
And I wanted a resource that also could speak to that and could help, you know, cold that complexity and would have the resources for talk lines to have sort of little self-reflection activities to be like participatory, right? Like self-managing an abortion is about taking it back into your own hands. And I didn't want to just like give people information. I wanted it to them to be able to make it theirs.
00:32:26
Speaker
So that's kind of where it came from is I was like, fuck SCOTUS, we're going to do it anyway. So i i want to share and I, you know, ah um many, many people consulted on this zine.
00:32:37
Speaker
A lot of my coworkers from the clinic helped out in huge ways. And it is like sort of a collective love letter to like the patients that we weren't able to see anymore of, you know, passing on all of the hot tips and tricks that we had.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that contact. Your note around counseling people and supporting people through some of the emotional processing that sometimes people need to go through reminds me of an experience I remember having actually like in early high school where one of my teachers shared with the class that she had had an abortion. And I think this is probably like pretty inappropriate, this whole the whole fact that this happened. But I had this teacher who shared with the class that she had had an abortion and she deeply regretted it.
00:33:23
Speaker
And it started this conversation with within my class where there were some students who were very, very religious and had really strong feelings and opinions about whether or not people should have abortions.
00:33:36
Speaker
And I remember that day sort of being publicly polled by some of these students, like, would you have an abortion? Like there was this very intense discussion that that played out among the class about whether or not it was okay to have an abortion.
00:33:49
Speaker
And it seemed like this very, what was being modeled for me by our teacher was like, that it was this deeply fraught, very painful, ah regrettable thing.
00:34:01
Speaker
And I went home that day and told my mom about this this conversation that we'd had in class. And I remember her being like, I had an abortion and it was totally fine.
00:34:11
Speaker
like i I needed to get an abortion and it was great for me. And that just like blew my mind as a kid, like seeing the contrast in like emotional responses that people can have to an abortion.
00:34:25
Speaker
and I think it was really important for me as a young person to like hear that it hadn't been difficult for my mom to have an abortion. emotionally. And of course, like, i don't know how, you know, how much she was sharing with me. And I don't know how much our teacher was sharing with us.
00:34:40
Speaker
But I think that that was really important to have like different experiences modeled for me as a young person and not have the sort of narrative that this is always a really terrible and difficult and painful thing that you should have a lot of personal shame and guilt about.
00:34:56
Speaker
So I just wanted to add that in there, because I think it was relevant to what you were what you were sharing. Yeah, thank you for that story. That's Wild. Yeah, thank you. Wow. Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
So I kind of like continuing off of that and and talking a little bit more about the technicalities involved. What are you know, before before getting into that, what are some of the key resources that you all think people should know about for helping to make a choice about the type of abortion that they want to
Resources for Abortion Support
00:35:24
Speaker
have? i think there are some websites, but there might you not just be websites. There might be like community groups or networks that you think it would be helpful for people to know about.
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah, so locally, MADCO, or the Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective, is definitely a resource for folks in the Southeast. And I know Holler Health Justice is another abortion collective. The Yellow Hammer Fund is in Alabama. So these are just like autonomous collectives in the Southeast that are doing work around abortion access and abortion autonomy. and I think, you know, anybody that is like trained as an abortion doula and, you know, if there's some like complexity about the terms.
00:36:02
Speaker
and abortion doula because the root word or doula etymologically means slave. And so some people are kind of trying to, you know, put that terminology to bed a little bit and start using abortion companion. But any person that's trained as an abortion companion or doula is going to like, hopefully have the skills to help somebody navigate the kinds of like options counseling that are often available clinics.
00:36:29
Speaker
I know something that is really important critical for folks in a lot of red states is to be really wary of crisis pregnancy centers because they are these like really freaky entities that often like advertise themselves as somewhat neutral health centers that will help you make your decision about your pregnancy that you're feeling unsure about but then they spread a lot of really scary misinformation they like show picture of like basically like giant pictures of like giant baby dolls inside of people and are like, this is your baby. And it's like very much not. And they like...
00:37:06
Speaker
sell like all these like supplements that aren't approved by the FDA. yeah Anyway, so, so making sure to be like wary of that um and yeah, reaching out to local community. Oftentimes, not always like sometimes like if you have like a more raw domestic violence shelter locally.
00:37:23
Speaker
But yeah, i'm I'm not super as familiar with online resources. I know abortion finder is a helpful resource plan. See pills and aid access are three that I know folks have used, but yeah, curious if you have more ideas, Faisal.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i would just echo Plan C Pills and Abortion Finder. Plan C Pills is a educational website, basically, that has a lot of rounded up resources on how to source abortion pills, how to you know, dose them and what to look out for.
00:38:01
Speaker
i think if you are someone who is thinking that like ah a clinic abortion or a procedural abortion might be more up your alley, you know, maybe you you're worried about like, if you want access to pain management, some sedation, or the sort of legal cover is important to you.
00:38:21
Speaker
Starting with like the National Network of Abortion Funds, they can help you get connected to an abortion fund in your area for some financial financial aid options.
00:38:32
Speaker
They can also usually connect you to practical support organizations. So these are organizations that maybe don't specialize in fundraising and giving people a lot of money for their abortions, but maybe they're like organizing like ride shares to clinics or they could maybe help with childcare.
00:38:50
Speaker
And sometimes those are nonprofits and sometimes they're more like community, community-based mutual aid networks. Gotcha. So what are some of the key elements of this process that you think everyone should know about? And I
Self-Managed Abortion Process
00:39:04
Speaker
know that's a really broad question, but I i think the reason I'm asking that is because i think if people are going to do a self-managed abortion, it would be useful to use resources like like your zine that they can review as many times as they need rather than like a talk, like ah a conversational radio show.
00:39:24
Speaker
But I do think it's helpful to just name kind of broadly to take people through this process. And not just for people who are like, maybe going to do it, but for people who care about people who are maybe going to do it.
00:39:35
Speaker
I think that would be really helpful. And I guess one and specific question that's sort of leading us in the sort of technical direction that I'm hoping to get into here is like, for example, like, do you know if the medications used for self-managed abortions can interact with other medications that people are on, that would be something for people to think about.
00:39:55
Speaker
Well, one resource I just remembered is like, SAS, which is Safe and Supported Self-Managed Abortion. And they both have, you can look this up, they both have manuals that really kind of like go through fairly exhaustive questions. And I believe, i don't know if this is still active, but I believe they have also have like a hotline where you can text people anonymous questions, which I think can be really, really helpful for folks, especially people that are a little more isolated, having somebody like online and available. There is a website that you can use to look up general drug interactions. I think it's like rxlist.com.
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah. While we're on medical hotlines, I want to also plug the miscarriage and abortion hotline, which is a similar text hotline that will provide, will get you in contact with like medical advice, particularly if you are self-managing an abortion and you know, you're maybe concerned about something that you're seeing.
00:40:52
Speaker
To my knowledge, when I was doing screening at the clinic, there wasn't like a particular medication that we were looking for that would be affected. i still think that you should probably do your own research. But generally, when we were doing screening, we were looking more for conditions that would make the abortion unsafe. And those are typically like bleeding disorders, whether you clot too easily or your blood doesn't clot at all. Just sort of trying to reduce risk around a complication involving bleeding.
00:41:22
Speaker
I would say one one more common thing outside of of having like, there's a couple different bleeding disorders like hemophilia and like heredipophoria that are like more uncommon. But if people have an IUD, it's really important that they take it out before they self-manage an abortion. and I think some people don't know that. so Yeah. Whether or not you're planning to carry a pregnancy to full term or to get an abortion, it is like very important to take the IUD out.
00:41:51
Speaker
as soon as you and a positive pregnancy test. Gotcha. And that's not something people can do on their own, or is that also done outside of a clinic? People do do it on their own. um And I think it's it's definitely possible. and I think that personally, I've seen that a little bit less, but it's also a pretty easy to get an IUD taken out by like a health department and somebody could just be like, I'm so excited. I really want to be pregnant now. you know I mean, it's Usually, like, what are usually they're like, great, we love forcing people to get birth. like Let's take your idea, you know, and so but that sounds like people people can take their own IUDs out. I just I don't know of too many resources about that.
00:42:35
Speaker
kindcha And so also coming coming back to this question, what do you think are key elements of the process that you think everyone should know about? Yeah. To like give sort of a high level of what we're talking about.
00:42:48
Speaker
So there's two medications. You mentioned them early, mifepristone or mifid and misoprostol, also called miso. Typically, people will take both of them. So you'll take a dose of mifepristone and then 24 to 48 hours later, you'll take a dose of misoprostol or miso.
00:43:04
Speaker
Miphy is swallowed normally. Misoprostol has to be held either in the cheek pockets in your mouth so that it absorbs in held under the tongue, or inserted directly into your vagina.
00:43:16
Speaker
And that's so that the medication gets absorbed sort of directly into your bloodstream. If you swallow it like a normal pill, it's probably just going to make you nauseous. It's not going to do very much.
00:43:27
Speaker
First medication, Miphy, is not going to do a whole lot. It might make you a little bit nauseous. You might see some spotting, but it's really that second medication, Misoprostol. That's the one that makes you bleed and cramp.
00:43:39
Speaker
um And it also has a lot of side effects associated with it that are pretty easy to manage if you know to expect them and just do some prep work about it. Generally, the bleeding will start about 20 minutes after your first dose of miso, and then it'll last kind of between like eight hours and 24 hours.
00:43:59
Speaker
But there's like a pretty big range of what's considered normal. And it's going to depend on like sort of how far you are into your pregnancy. And again, just to note, like I'm using second person language here because it's easy and comfortable for me and not because I want to make assumptions about what you, the listener, are going through or have been through before. We didn't say at the top, neither of us are medical professionals. This isn't medical advice.
00:44:22
Speaker
Ask a trusted healthcare provider if you have questions on any of this stuff. So the heaviest bleeding is going to last for about 24 hours. And then after that, we'll sort of slow down be more similar like what your normal period is for, you know, again, on average about a week, but there's a pretty big range of what's considered normal between three days and three weeks.
00:44:44
Speaker
During this time, there's some stuff to look out for. Basically, you want to make sure that you're not bleeding too much, you're not passing really big blood clots, you're not in like too too much pain, and that you're not running a fever. Those can all be signs of a complication, which would be pretty rare.
00:45:01
Speaker
Typically, complications are seen in about less than one half of 1% of medication abortion cases. And what that is most typically is an infection after after the procedure or after the medication. And there's some easy things that you can do to sort of avoid that and decrease that risk.
00:45:19
Speaker
There is about a one in 20 chance, 5% chance that you'll take the medication and you either won't pass all the tissue or it won't be effective. And in that case, you can either, you know, you can take more medication if that's what you feel comfortable with, or you can seek further healthcare. care That's sort of up to you in that situation. And there's The zine that I wrote and also plenty more resources online about, you know, how to tell what's going on how to tell if you need to reach out for health care or like further continued care and all of that stuff. I think that was, yeah, excellent overview. Yeah, I think, you know, a couple things are recommend it's recommended to take.
00:45:57
Speaker
Dramamine and ibuprofen, like before you take mesoprostol, just to mitigate some of those effects. And that the protocol is a little bit different if a person only has access to mesoprostol. Basically, they end up taking four pills in like three different rounds. And, you know, the I think a general consensus is that it's often...
00:46:24
Speaker
best to take the pills in the cheeks, which is called broccoli. Or i sometimes I refer to it as being kind of like the way you take dip. I think it's a comprehensible way for people. People are like, what do you mean in the cheeks? But just because it's easier to swallow under the tongue and then sometimes there's a fear that if there is residue in the vagina, i mean it then a person did go have to go to the hospital for a complication that could be seen. So that's one thing that folks say. but Yeah, the the protocol is there's 12 pills in total taken in three rounds, three hours apart, four at a time. And then there's also like a delay to the start of bleeding, but that is still an effective method. i mean, there's again, like a ton of guides and a ton of guidance online about this, but just to give a brief overview.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for that. I think it's useful to just have that overview and a general understanding of what the steps are. And maybe I should have asked this sooner, but how is the length of a pregnancy measured? Because I saw that that was ah that's actually very, very technical.
00:47:29
Speaker
And up to what stage in a pregnancy is it appropriate to do a self-managed abortion? Yeah. So a pregnancy is measured from the first date of your last menstrual period, your LMP, right? So if we are recording this in like late January right now, and so if I took a, if I had a positive pregnancy test today, I would kind of look back on my calendar and think about the last time that I had a period, you know, about four weeks ago, when was the first date that that started?
00:48:00
Speaker
And so usually pregnancy tests start to be accurate. They start to be super, super accurate around 28 days after that first date of your last menstrual period. It's not measured from like the day that you had sex or from the day that you ovulated or from that day of your first pregnancy test. It's it's that LMP. And it's and Yeah, so the literature on this, and I'm like using like language of evidence and stuff here because I published a zine and this is what I spent all the time looking at.
00:48:31
Speaker
i don't mean this to like degrade the very real, you know, anecdotal experiences that people have, right? But so based on like the medical studies, particularly the ones that are cited by the World Health Organization and by IPAS, which is like another, you know, big global transnational health, public health agency.
00:48:51
Speaker
that focuses specifically on abortion. They recommend that it is self-management is appropriate through the end of like the 11th or 12th week of pregnancy. Again, that's relative to the first date of eat your last menstrual period.
00:49:06
Speaker
It is theoretically possible to use medication to induce an abortion after that point. The concern is that the risks are a lot higher because, you know, the pregnancy is more established in the body. yours The cervix is going to need to dilate more to pass all of the pregnancy tissue.
00:49:27
Speaker
And so it just becomes much more tricky. And at that point, it's more appropriate to seek an abortion in a clinic setting just to make sure that you have medical guidance and that like the risk that something happens is mitigated.
00:49:42
Speaker
Thanks. And how do you know that an abortion has actually worked? Like, what are you looking for? i think ah i think earlier on, one of you said that this is actually not super clear, like different people might have different understandings of when an abortion has actually been completed.
00:50:01
Speaker
But I'm wondering if you could speak more to that. Yeah, so this this could be a cause of a lot of concern and stress for a lot of people because the hormone that is like measured by a typical urine pregnancy test can remain in the body for up to two weeks, even three weeks after an abortion is complete. And so...
00:50:22
Speaker
really the only like absolutely surefire way to know if an abortion has been complete is to get an ultrasound, which is unfortunate because that can be really inaccessible for people for a lot of reasons. But another way to know is to is that when the symptoms of pregnancy start to diminish, so if a person had like breast tenderness or sensitivity to smells like that those symptoms would be going away think also like it depends on how far along somebody is also like passage of a fairly significant amount of blood and the products of pregnancy themselves are really important there are sometimes instances where people will will have incomplete abortions so they'll bleed a little bit but not enough or people won't
00:51:11
Speaker
bleed at all. So yeah, I
Confirming Abortion Success
00:51:13
Speaker
mean, I think often counsel, you know, whenever, just even in like, if somebody went to a clinic and got medication from a clinic, they could still feel really confused about the same thing, right?
00:51:26
Speaker
And so usually then they would like go back and have an ultrasound and just confirm it. Yeah. So in the clinic, we were usually looking kind of like you said that that you had a period of like more intense bleeding for like 24 hours. Yeah.
00:51:39
Speaker
and Right. Like we know that the medication worked and then it tapers off after that and eventually stops. You know, there isn't like longer lasting damage to the uterus that's going on. So like kind of seeing that peak and then coming down he's like also usually a pretty good sign.
00:51:56
Speaker
And you mentioned this a little bit as well, but like it's it's kind of complicated. Because it's different for each pregnancy. It's different based on how far along in the pregnancy you are. But you can sort of try to look through, you know, the contents of what you're actually passing.
00:52:13
Speaker
And again, if you're seeing some specific stuff, I'm not going to name it right now because it's a little bit more intense, but you can go read about this in the zine or there's plenty of other resources online. You know, there's specific kinds of tissue that you're looking for. And if you see that see that being passed, that means, you you know, your abortion has probably been, your abortion is probably complete.
00:52:31
Speaker
If you don't see that, it doesn't necessarily mean that your abortion didn't work, especially if you're earlier on, you know, the pregnancy just isn't as developed. It's a lot smaller. It's a lot easier to miss.
00:52:42
Speaker
And just, you know, generally, like, we're not perfect people. We're not going to be able to see everything all the time. If you're, you know, peeing in the middle of the night. You might not, you might miss it.
00:52:54
Speaker
But yeah, those are those are sort of the easy ways that I have known. But again, the most surefire quickest way is to get an ultrasound that is not accessible for a lot of reasons. You know, it's, I think we're thinking about the sort of documentation and paper trail that an ultrasound might create around four weeks after your abortion.
00:53:12
Speaker
pregnancy test should be coming up negative, but again, that ti takes a while. If it's still positive, that could either mean that your abortion was incomplete or that you have a new pregnancy altogether. And that's going to be something as well that you reach out to like, you just go to get an ultrasound to see what's going on.
00:53:27
Speaker
Gotcha. How painful is self-managed abortion and what are some good pain management and care strategies?
Managing Pain During Abortion
00:53:34
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, something I do want to offer and to you know, in the spirit of like deep and radical honesty is that for most people or for a lot of people, self-managed abortion is incredibly painful.
00:53:49
Speaker
and I think sometimes because in our effort to counter forced birth and anti-abortion propaganda, sometimes that but element does get diminished. Like, and and you know, it's just the reality that some a procedure can both be painful and safe at the same time. and For some people, it is less painful, but I have heard of people being a little bit shocked by that. But some mechanisms to move through those experiences, you know, really, really like depends on what sources of comfort are already like accessible to somebody and already like within their like template of how they like soothe and parent themselves, you know. But I think, you know, baseline like ibuprofen, if somebody can take it, like 800 milligrams is really,
00:54:35
Speaker
helpful. Heating pads, super helpful. Distraction is usually super helpful. Like certain kinds of pelvic massage can be really helpful to people. Sometimes like cannabis is helpful to people, you know, and I think it's important to not be judgmental about like the mechanisms people use while remaining like aware of safety. and different kind of herbal aromatics can be really helpful too as nervous system soothers.
00:55:02
Speaker
Yeah. And so the list goes on and on. There's so many different mechanisms that you can use to support a person in this like position. But I think another really critical piece of managing pain is like moving away from atomization and isolation again. And so somebody knowing that there's somebody watching after them and caring for them can really shift a person's psychic experience of pain.
00:55:25
Speaker
Hmm. Hazel, did you have anything to add to that? i i i also want to add that my next question was around the kinds of rituals that you see people engaging in around abortions and some of the ways that you all see people taking care of themselves or taking care of each other to stay comfortable through
Emotional Care and Rituals
00:55:42
Speaker
the process. So I'm realizing now that those it's sort of related to this question. So if you have thoughts around both of those questions, that's helpful.
00:55:49
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think like in terms of pain management, just some stuff from my own list that I haven't heard. And from Jane's very wonderful and amazing list. Sometimes when your body is having a really big cramp, that's because there is a clot that's stuck. Once your body is like cramping up really hard to try to get it out.
00:56:09
Speaker
And so if you like you go sit on the toilet and then bear down, you know, kind of like you're trying to pass a bowel movement, you're trying to take poop, that can help dislodge the clot and help alleviate the cramping. Jane mentioned using weed to cope. And I think that weed can often be, ah you want to be careful about it, right? You want to stay present and stay aware so you know what's going on. But weed is an oxytocic plant. It has oxytocic properties. meaning that it stimulates oxytocin in your body, which is one of the chemicals that are one of the hormones that we're actually really trying to work with during an abortion. It is a hormone that like after full-term childbirth or after an abortion, after a miscarriage kind of helps your uterus shrink back down to normal size and helps and helps alleviate pain by facilitating bonding and it it's the one that you like feel cuddly with, right? And so other ways you can stimulate that are like, if you, you know, if there's someone in your life where you feel really comfortable being touchy with, whether that's a partner or ah sibling or your best friend, you know, just kind of having some gentle, consensual, stimulating touch, getting the oxytocin going can be helpful both for pain management as well as like
00:57:23
Speaker
actually facilitating your abortion. And sometimes people are like, don't fucking touch me. Like I'm having a, I'm having a rough time right now. I need to, I need just, just get through this. So, you know, your mileage may vary with that one. And then last one is just sort of like mindfulness and mindset techniques, you know, focusing on your breathing, focusing on walking, giving your mind something else to think about, you know, finding, memorizing like a chorus to your, to a favorite song and sort of using that to, you time and pace out your cramps, you know, and again, just like what Jane was saying earlier, like pain is a physical sensation.
00:57:57
Speaker
And there's also this like real emotional element to it, right, where it can become suffering. And so if we're able to like stay grounded and kind of sit and like I am in a lot of physical discomfort right now, but that doesn't have to become fear. it doesn't have to become tension in my body. It doesn't have to become despair. It doesn't have to become loneliness.
00:58:17
Speaker
Yeah. And just sort of letting that, letting that physical pain pass through without sitting in your emotional suffering, I think can also really help with that stuff. Do you have thoughts on this rituals question?
00:58:27
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, this is an interesting one because it's so profoundly cultural and also so profoundly like particular to both the the spirituality of the person having the abortion and also how they conceive of the ah process, because not everyone is going to necessarily maybe like want to engage as at least immediately. i think in a, after going through such transformative and often really logistically overwhelming experience, a lot of people
00:59:05
Speaker
you know, whether by the force of capitalism or just because it's their own personality, you just kind of want to go back to their lives. But i you know, people also do really engage in really interesting, like ways of honoring that process in themselves. Like heard people doing silent meditations. I've heard people Taking products of pregnancy and bringing them to a place in the water or to some kind of like sacred space in nature that they connect to. or a lot of people also having like abortion. I heard ah a recent like thing where people had like an abortion shower, which I thought was kind of cool.
00:59:42
Speaker
and Just like having sort of like more group celebratory things. activity but yeah i think that i think that like how somebody wants to engage with that practice and even just like doing some really journaling is something that i've seen a lot of folks do too um or making art that feels like important to them but yeah i think i think that the like possibilities are as expensive and endless as the like populations of people seeking abortion are Yeah, I would really agree with that.
01:00:13
Speaker
Some examples that come to mind, particularly from my clinic days, are that a lot of my patients would make art or like, you know, sort of in their process of release would like write some art for their pregnancy or, you know, depending on how they're conceiving of it, like,
01:00:29
Speaker
for the for like their child who they're like letting go of having that future with. That was like a pretty common thing that people did to the like you know sort of process and move on. There were also in the waiting rooms of my clinic, there were sort of shared journals that people would use.
01:00:45
Speaker
And they' were so and like even just sort of in the magazines that were there, people would would write letters to each other of letters of support of like, you're not doing this alone, even if you feel like you are.
01:00:55
Speaker
And so that way to sort of connect across time with people who have, you know, been in the same chair, been in similar situations to you you, know, without needing to like physically share the same space.
01:01:06
Speaker
I know that a lot of my patients really appreciated that as well. That's really beautiful. Thanks for those examples. So I want to close out with one more question to you all, and then I'll ask if you have anything else to add to this discussion.
01:01:19
Speaker
i'm wondering if you can talk about why you personally decided to to do this work. I can
Jane's Personal Story
01:01:25
Speaker
start. Yeah. So when I was 24, I was living in Eastern Kentucky and in a pretty difficult and abusive relationship. And I got pregnant and I just moved there. It was like super rural and isolated. And so i didn't really know many people.
01:01:51
Speaker
And I remember going to the health clinic at like local clinics to just could confirm that I was pregnant and they confirmed it. And then I was like, okay, I don't want to be pregnant. We're going to get an abortion. And they literally started signing me up for WIC and they started like giving me lists of ob-gyns that could like deliver the baby and i just remember like the profound terror and powerlessness of that place and the loneliness of it too and i think that like
01:02:24
Speaker
What motorizes me to do this work at a really personal level is that I don't want anyone in the world, particularly people who are experiencing other forms of systemic powerlessness, to, like, experience that, like...
01:02:42
Speaker
sunken terror that I did. And I know that like, if I had had accompaniment in that experience, it would have felt really different. And you know, where I lived was like, four and a half hours away from the closest abortion clinic to and so i ended up having to just like travel to a different state.
01:02:59
Speaker
And then I think I think it's been really profound connecting to the lineages of people like eons past and eons in the future who will like always choose this like beautiful technology to like author our own destinies and author our own selves.
01:03:15
Speaker
And yeah, i feel, i felt really lucky to have found comrades and, and friends of like all stripes and particularities and like many un- unlikely places. who We're also devoted to this work and I was really lucky to learn from some abortion doulas that were really, really intent on teaching folks about SMA around like almost seven years ago now, right after I had that experience, I kind of came into contact with some folks.
01:03:46
Speaker
So, that's my story. Yeah. And I'm really grateful to do this work now. Awesome. Thanks for sharing. That's really beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for sharing.
01:03:58
Speaker
I don't have as nice of a story. i
Hazel's Journey into Abortion Support
01:04:02
Speaker
had moved back to the city and was looking for a job. And one of my friends who was a little bit older, who was like a really cool radical parent, worked at the local abortion clinic. And I was able to sort of get a job in there.
01:04:14
Speaker
And yeah, I was just really moved and really struck by both like how impactful it was. i was really struck by like feeling like I could do something really tangible and impactful for other people. And also like just how much of a need there was and that, you know, I could see like the clinic really straining both against, against state power, against medical industrial complex, against nonprofit industrial complex bullshit. Like there's really, there's like so much work to be done. Yeah.
01:04:47
Speaker
I don't have like a nice story with a bow. just kind of fell into it and feel really grateful to everybody who, you know, sort of taught me what I know. And the best way that i have to honor the patients that I worked with, to honor my coworkers, is to like just to continue to share and to continue to build support and solidarity. Yeah.
01:05:07
Speaker
Thank you. So finally, is there anything else that that you all feel like we haven't touched on that you'd like to add or let listeners know about? Just
Supporting Abortion Networks
01:05:18
Speaker
to support your local abortion funds and to also like support the people in your life that you know, caring for folks seeking abortions that are seeking abortions that are pregnant. Like, ah I think, again, like the more that we widen and disseminate and and decentralize these networks of care, the stronger we are. Yeah, agreed.
01:05:43
Speaker
and And also, like, if there is a practical support organization in your area, you know, to sort of figure out how to get involved with them, that's a really good place to start is, like, just to give people rides to clinics and, you know, bear witness to their stories, you know, as much as they want to share with you. i think that's, like, it's it's just a really good entry point.
01:06:07
Speaker
into this work. Clinic escorting as well is like another pretty easy entryway. Well, thank you both so much for your time and for sharing so much and for all this information. i think this has been a pretty comprehensive overview. I hope that people have learned some new things that they didn't know about before.
01:06:26
Speaker
yeah really appreciate the time and we'll talk soon. Thank
Conclusion of The Beautiful Idea
01:06:31
Speaker
you.
01:06:38
Speaker
Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Beautiful Idea. News and analysis from the front lines of anarchists and autonomous struggles everywhere. Catch you next time.